Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Production

Production

Ellen Burstyn was still in the midst of filming The Exorcist when Warner Bros. executives expressed interest in working with her on another project. Burstyn later recalled, "It was early in the woman’s movement, and we were all just waking up and having a look at the pattern of our lives and wanting it to be different . . . I wanted to make a different kind of film. A film from a woman’s point of view, but a woman that I recognized, that I knew. And not just myself, but my friends, what we were all going through at the time. So my agent found Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore . . . When I read it I liked it a lot. I sent it to Warner Brothers and they agreed to do it. Then they asked who I wanted to direct it. I said that I didn’t know, but I wanted somebody new and young and exciting. I called Francis Coppola and asked who was young and exciting and he said ``Go look at a movie called Mean Streets and see what you think.' It hadn’t been released yet, so I booked a screening to look at it and I felt that it was exactly what . . . Alice needed, because was a wonderful script and well written, but for my taste it was a little slick. You know – in a good way, in a kind of Doris Day-Rock Hudson kind of way. I wanted something a bit more gritty."

Burstyn described her collaboration with director Martin Scorsese, making his first Hollywood studio production, as "one of the best experiences I’ve ever had." The director agreed with his star that the film should have a message. "It’s a picture about emotions and feelings and relationships and people in chaos," he said. "We felt like charting all that and showing the differences and showing people making terrible mistakes ruining their lives and then realizing it and trying to push back when everything is crumbling – without getting into soap opera. We opened ourselves up to a lot of experimentation."

Scorsese's casting director auditioned three hundred boys for the role of Tommy before they discovered Alfred Lutter. "I met the kid in my hotel room and he was kind of quiet and shy," Scorsese said. But when he paired him with Burstyn and suggested she deviate from the script, he held his own. "Usually, when we were improvising with the kids, they would either freeze and look down or go right back to the script. But this kid, you couldn’t shut him up."

The film was shot on location in Amado, Tucson, and Phoenix. A Mel's Diner still exists in Phoenix.

The soundtrack includes "All the Way from Memphis" by Mott the Hoople; "Roll Away the Stone" by Leon Russell; "Daniel" by Elton John; "Jeepster" by T-Rex; and "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton. During her lounge act, Alice sings "Where or When" by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; "When Your Lover Has Gone" by Einar Aaron Swan; "Gone with the Wind" by Allie Wrubel and Herb Magidson; and "I've Got a Crush on You" by George and Ira Gershwin. In a film clip from Coney Island, Betty Grable is heard singing "Cuddle Up A Little Closer, Lovey Mine" by Otto A. Harbach and Karl Hoschna; and in a film clip from Hello Frisco, Hello, Alice Faye performs "You'll Never Know" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon.