Tips on waitresses worth remembering

With the release of "Waitress," the movies once more go backtbehind the formica counter. We've been here before, from the smelly aprons, to the slang ("Adam and Eve on a raft!"), to the fallen arches and lousy tips. If some of the diner films over the years have been rightfully 86ed, the following still hold up as blue-plate specials.

"Mildred Pierce" (1945)

Joan Crawford overcomes a cheating husband by baking pies, opening a diner, expanding it into a chain -- and winning an Oscar on top of everything else. Too bad evil daughter Ann Blyth hates the smell of grease and her "common frump" of a mom.

"Five Easy Pieces" (1970)

Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson) wants whole wheat toast. The waitress (Lorna Thayer) says they don't serve it. So he orders a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, hold the mayo, the butter, the lettuce -- and the chicken. "You want me to hold the chicken, huh?" "I want you to hold it between your kneeeez." A star is born.

"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974)

Martin Scorsese's most atypical movie lets widowed mom Ellen Burstyn find herself as a waitress while trying to get discovered as a singer. This plus "Mildred Pierce" and now "Waitress" make up a trilogy of diner female-empowerment flicks.

"Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985)

The classic yearning diner waitress, stuck serving french fries while dreaming of Paris, France? That would be Diane Salinger's Simone. Thank goodness Pee-wee comes along to discuss her big "But."

"Waiting . . ." (2005)

The "Office Space" of restaurant movies? A sloppy, crude, lewd youth comedy, it also nails what it's like to be young and slaving in a place called Shenaniganz.