Film Alice's Restaurant

[BigmanPigman]

Arlo Guthrie plays himself in this film based on his song of the same name. After getting kicked out of college, Arlo decides to visit his friend Alice (Pat Quinn) for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner is over, Arlo volunteers to take the trash to the dump, but finds it closed for the holiday, so he just dumps the trash in the bottom of a ravine. This simple act of littering gets him arrested, and sends him on a bizarre journey that ends with him in front of the draft board. 1969

* The scene at the draft board/army induction is at 1:17 (funny!).

Officer Obie played himself....
"Obanhein was the "Officer Obie" mentioned in Arlo Guthrie's 1967 talking blues song "Alice's Restaurant". Obanhein later said that some of the details in the song were not completely true; he said he had not handcuffed Guthrie during the arrest and said the reason they removed the seat from the toilet in Guthrie's cell was to prevent theft, not to prevent suicide.Obanhein later would note that he would not have actually arrested Guthrie had the amount of garbage been smaller (he would have simply picked up the garbage himself) and that he meant to use the arrest and subsequent media circus as an example to deter any further large-scale littering incidents."

"Disagreements with Guthrie aside, Obanhein accepted an offer from another Stockbridge resident, Arthur Penn, to appear as himself in a film adaptation of Alice's Restaurant he was directing and co-writing. He told Newsweek magazine (September 29, 1969, where his photo appears) that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool. Working on the film caused Obanhein to develop greater respect for Guthrie, and afterwards the two remained friends for the rest of Obanhein's life."