New Year New You

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When I was thinking of what theme I should do for January, my wife was the first to come up with the New Year concept. Originally she suggested road trip movies. New Year means trying to make changes in your life, and sometimes that means leaving the place you’ve been stuck in. I liked that idea but wasn’t sure I could do enough road trip movies to make it through the month.

But I do think you can encompass travel into my larger theme of New Year, New You. Now, we are going to stretch it a little further and suggest any movie where the people are traveling somewhere even if they don’t experience much growth along the way.

I love road trip movies. I love movies set on trains even more. I love train travel in general. I have ridden a lot of trains all over Europe and Asia; it is a wonderful way to travel. As much as I love to drive, it is very nice to ride the rails and not have to worry about anything. Trains are so much more enjoyable than planes. You have more legroom. You can get up and walk about. And the scenery is often much more beautiful.

There are lots of different types of movies set on and around trains. I love a good mystery or thriller set aboard a train. Trains are enclosed spaces, so the killer (or thief, or whatever) only has so many places to hide. But there are usually many cars so that you aren’t just stuck in one room. And the train is traveling, which allows for different scenery and different passengers to come and go, and the ever present possibility that someone could jump.

An important diary is stolen from the Paris Embassy by Zurta (Albert Lieven) and Valya (Jean Kent). They hand it to a man called Poole (Alan Wheatley) who is supposed to usher it to a designated rendezvous point. Instead, he runs to the Orient Express with intentions to sell it to the highest bidder. The diary is said to contain information that in the wrong hands would lead to yet another world war.

Zurta and Valya learn of Poole’s deception and board the train. It departs for Trieste. To complicate matters, Zurta is wanted by the authorities in Trieste and must depart before they arrive there.

They don’t exactly know where Poole is on the train; he’s doing a good job of staying low, and they can’t make a show of looking for him because they had every intention of using the diary themselves.

Mixed in with all of this espionage is a big bag of characters having their own side stories. Usually this kind of film has lots of these types of characters, but their screen time is minimized. They exist to give the film color, to give the setting some realism. But here they are given ample opportunity to be on screen. Numerous, what would normally be side characters, are given time to have fully drawn stories. Our leads often feel like supporting parts.

There is a young GI looking for some birds to chat up and winds up in a car with a British ornithologist. A boorish Brit spends all his time with the train’s renowned chef trying to teach him how to cook dull dishes. A businessman takes a woman with him who is decidedly not his wife in hopes of an affair, but fate keeps intervening and keeping them apart. Etc. and so forth.

Poole bribes a porter to get a private room where he hides the diary. But then he’s kicked out because that room was reserved by a very prominent and rich writer. He’s then sat with a French detective, Inspector Jolif (Paul Dupuis). Eventually, the diary will be found, and someone (or someones) will find themselves dead. It is Inspector Jolif who will have to put everything together. But even then the film doesn’t bother itself too much with that angle.

I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m absolutely not. I enjoyed this crazy cast of characters and each of their stories. I would have enjoyed it more if they’d spent just a little more time on the thriller aspects, but mostly this film is a lot of fun.

alice doesn't live here anymore poster

Well, once again I seem to have completely biffed on a monthly movie theme. I really should only choose genres and time periods. Everything else seems to be too much work. I can easily choose movies from a genre on any streaming service or my own collection. Ditto for movies by decade. But when I choose something like this – movies that feature characters in transition or moving in some manner – then I have to do a little research, and then I have to figure out how to watch those films. Most days I’m too tired to do even that little bit of effort.

So here we are on January 24, and I’m talking about my second film from this month’s theme.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was Martin Scorsese’s fourth feature-length film. He was still trying to find his footing as a director. His first film, Who’s That Knocking On My Door, is actually quite interesting and dives right into many of the themes Scorsese would continue to tackle for the rest of his career, but it was really just one step above a student film.

After that he moved to Hollywood, and Roger Corman gave him the money (with stipulations) to make Boxcar Bertha. It isn’t a bad film, but it was definitely a director-for-hire kind of gig. Scorsese’s friends, especially John Cassavetes, hated it and were afraid Scorsese was selling out.

He then made Mean Streets, a semi-autobiographical film about street hoods in New York City. It did quite well both commercially and critically and hailed Scorsese as a director one should keep their eye on.

The question then was, what would he do next? The answer came from Ellen Burstyn. She was looking to make what they used to call a “Woman’s Picture” but with more modern sensibilities. Her friend Francis Ford Coppola told her to watch Mean Streets, and she immediately thought Scorsese was the man to make her film.

The movie immediately announces she was right. The opening credits roll over soft satin; an old romantic song croons on the soundtrack. Then we open on a farm straight out of The Wizard of Oz. Scorsese drenches it in bright reds as if the sun is setting. It looks very much like an old film from the classic days of Hollywood. Everything is beautiful, but artificial.

A young girl, Alice (Mia Bendixsen), sings the song we just heard over the credits. She says something about how she’ll grow up to be a singer, and then something like, “I hope to Christ I will.” It is that “Christ” that catches your attention. Little girls in old movies don’t blaspheme. A moment later she’ll curse again. Then she’ll be called into her house for supper. The film moves in on her through the window.

Then crash cut. “All the Way From Memphis” by Mott the Hoople blasts on the radio. The color returns to normal. We see Ellen, now an adult (and played by Ellen Burstyn), in the kitchen of her new home. Her preteen son Tommy (Alfred Lutter) lies on the floor listening to that song loudly, the speakers set inches away from his ears. Ellen is enjoying it. She sways to the music, but her husband, Billy (Donald Hyatt) isn’t so chill. He shouts at Tommy to turn that racket down.

This is Scorsese announcing that this isn’t your mothers type of movie.

I’d seen this film once before many years ago. In my memory, Billy was a horrible husband, mean and abusive. Alice sets out on her adventure by leaving him. I was pretty sure she left her son with him.

In reality, the husband isn’t so bad. He’s not particularly attentive, but other than some yelling, he isn’t abusive. He seems like a man who has become tired of his life – of his low paying job, of his son, who is rather high-strung and is always making noise, and of his wife, who isn’t quite as exciting as she once was. There is an early scene where he lies on the bed watching TV. Alice comes in and asks what he’s watching and what it’s about. He mostly grunts, giving her half answers. He’s not really paying attention to the show, but wants to be left alone. She begins to quietly sob. But he notices her, sees her pain, and comforts her. There is love in that relationship.

Then he dies. A terrible car accident changes Alice’s and Tommy’s lives forever. Alice moved to New Mexico when they got married, but now she’s thinking of that old farm in Monterey, California. She was happy there. She thinks she could be happy there again.

She sells all her stuff and takes to the road. But there isn’t enough money to get them to Monterey. They stop in Phoenix. She gets a job as a lounge singer. She meets a guy (Harvey Keitel). At first she pushes him away, but she’s lonesome, and she lets him have her. He seems nice, and she thinks about staying. Then his wife shows up, and he loses his temper, and they hit the road once again.

They make it to Tucson, and she’s forced to take a job as a waitress at a crummy diner. She befriends Flo (Diane Ladd), a fiery waitress with a way with words (and yes, this part of the movie is the basis for the long-running television series, Alice). She meets another man, David (Kris Kristofferson), and once again her plans for Monterey get sidetracked.

It does feel like a film that was taking something old and outdated and giving it a modern spin. Alice wasn’t exactly unhappy in her life as a homemaker, but she wasn’t thriving either. Her husband’s death forces her to make changes, but this isn’t a film where everything comes up roses. She struggles. She gets sidetracked.

Tommy is a good kid, but he’s loud, obnoxious, and he talks back constantly. Alice mostly lets him get away with it. She gives him sass right back. Sometimes she yells at him, but she’s also very protective of him. This gets her into trouble with her men. David tells her she spoils the kid, that what he needs is a good swift kick in the rear. But she won’t have any of that. It is a very real picture of single-motherhood with all its struggles. Alice isn’t perfect, but she’s trying.

Other than that opening scene, Scorsese refrains from making it too flashy. He lets the story (and Burstyn’s performance, for which she won an Oscar) take the lead. It isn’t my favorite Scorsese picture by a long shot, and it feels very much apart from pretty much every other film he’s directed, but it is still quite good and I recommend it.