'Alice doesn't live here anymore'
Could Cheryl's line have been inspired by the 1933 song and the 1969 Brady Bunch episode, and could it have in turn inspired the title of Martin Scorsese's film two years later?
shareYes, it must have at least inspired the Scorsese film.
shareIt really is strange to hear that line two years before Scorsese's film, isn't it?
shareI laughed out loud thinking this was a reference to the other movie when I heard it, until I realized that this is two years older than "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". Now I'm stumped, too, as to how both movies came to use the line. Any chance this is a reference to "Alice's Restaurant"? I'm not familiar enough with "Alice's Restaurant" (album or film) to know but I'd always assumed it was the case with the latter film and may have heard some stories at some point to this effect.
shareI've seen the movie "Alice's Restaurant," and I have Arlo Guthrie's album, and I don't recall the line being used in either. And that would certainly be a line that would leap out at me if I heard it there.
"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" was also the title of an episode of "The Brady Bunch" in 1969, -- before this film and Scorsese's film -- in which the housekeeper moves out. Before Scorsese's film, I don't think the phrase had any pop-culture significance.
It seems like a bizarre coincidence, doesn't it? Maybe Scorsese got the idea from this film because he always was an avid movie-watcher, but it seems odd to title a feminist drama after a throwaway line in a weird cult film. I wish I had a better answer.
I had always assumed it to be a statement about a bygone era, not necessarily an explicit reference. It would have been a shared cultural reference for both directors.
shareThat's a good point: The title can just represent the passage of time or the view that you can never go home again.
There was also the hit song "Living Next Door to Alice" by the U.S. band Smokie in 1976 (a cover of a song by an Australian group called New World). This song has nothing to do with Scorsese's film (or Bartel's film), but I always associate it with the movie with Ellen Burstyn.