Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Too much of everything

Admirable film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Paul Mazursky's directorial debut ranks with his best. Though B&C&T&A lacks atmosphere and could use tighter editing, it remains one of the 60s top comedies and one of that decades best films. Far better than the insipid comedies Hollywood churned out with Jack Lemon, Peter Sellars, Tony Curtis and Doris Day. In some respects a period piece, B&C&T&A is still funny and pointed today. The 4 leads are believable as couples and friends and Wood, Cannon, Gould and Culp have rarely been better. Gould and Cannon make their long scenes really work and Cannon is a standout especially in a scene with her analyst. Wood is far more nuanced and relaxed than she was in her previous comedies: Penelope, The Great Race, Sex and the Single Girl. The use of improvisation and long uninterrupted scenes works as well here as in any Cassavettes' film and the final scene is inspired by Fellini.

I feel that the director sold the idea of the movie to the studios as a hip sex comedy film. Then he went out and purposely made a serious film for its time. And when it came time to release it, the studio continued to sell it a sex comedy, which it isn't. There is humor, but not laugh out funny.What Mazursky did was capture moments of the relationships and tied them up beautifully. The first scene is amusing as Bob and Carol go to a remote retreat to discover themselves. The other interesting moment was when Alice and Ted are going to bed and just found out about Bob's infidelity and how disgusted they are that Carol has accepted it. Some argue that it is too long a scene, but that's what makes it amusing, watching Elliott Gould brilliantly attempting to have sex with Alice, but she is in no mood. This playful event is worth watching alone for the acting abilities of Gould and Dyan Cannon.The other great scene is when Bob rejects another fling to go home earlier and finds Carol with the tennis instructor. How it unravels is pure delight and shines the light on man's hypocrisy that it's okay for them to sleep around, but for the wife! Bob eventually comes around and accepts the situation with a great moment in cinema history.The final scene when they all get it on together is played wonderfully. But when they get to that bed, they all realize the situation they are in. Are they able to handle the reality of an orgy? A poignant moment played without dialogue right to the final frame. The very end scene is pure homage to Fellini's 8 1/2 as the characters come out of the casino with a crowd and they all march in a circle and then group together.A very interesting piece of cinema history, and one worth tracking down. Maybe out of date, but it sure shows us the period that it was aimed at, a period were it was time to liberate the mind and soul. We may need it again, as there are now evil forces attempting to shut down the human spirit for financial gain.

It's tempting to call this archetypical 1969 comedy severely dated, but that would be too superficial a judgment. Taken as a period piece when the sexual revolution was completely redefining the country's moral code, the film is a shrewdly observed, sharply comic character study among the Southern California bourgeoisie. It also marks the auspicious directorial debut of Paul Mazursky, a former actor who ended up making two decades' worth of insightful films focused on personal foibles and sympathetic satire ("An Unmarried Woman", "Down and Out in Beverly Hills"). He cleverly uses the "Hallelujah" chorus of Handel's "Messiah" to open the film as documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders and his wife Carol drive through the canyons outside LA to an Esalen-like couples' retreat where narcissism runs rampant with participants encouraged to express how they "feel" through group hugs, crying, mutual staring, even pillow punching.The experience transforms Bob and Carol into a touchy-feely couple so intent on being completely honest with each other that they accept each other's acts of adultery. This level of supposed enlightenment initially appalls their best friends, Ted and Alice Henderson, who hold on tenuously to their more traditional values. However, a weekend in Vegas becomes a cathartic showdown among the two couples, and the outrageous brashness of their liberated behavior comes to a crescendo that manages to be unexpected and predictable at the same time. Mazursky ends things on a surreal note with Jackie DeShannon's classic rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "What the World Needs Now Is Love". Through it all, the four principal actors give sharp performances that wisely leave the motivations for their characters ambiguous enough for the audience to draw their own conclusions.Coming off his hit TV series "I Spy", Robert Culp effectively plays Bob as a hippie-wannabe closing in on middle age and recognizing an innate need to give in to the new moral order to belong. As Carol, Natalie Wood at thirty never looked so sexy nor come across so relaxed on screen. She brings such an alluring knowingness to the role that it becomes difficult to believe why Bob would want to cheat on her in the first place. In his first major role, Elliott Gould keeps Ted as an amusing, sympathetic figure who keeps dancing between disgust and envy with increasing alacrity. Dyan Cannon comes closest to stealing the picture since she carries the biggest character arc as Alice. It is her character who does the abrupt about-face that spurs the climax (…you should pardon the expression). The 2004 DVD contains a sometimes entertaining, sometimes too self-conscious commentary track featuring Mazursky, Culp, Gould, and Cannon, as well as a twenty-minute interview with Mazursky from 2003.

***SPOILER*** Today, talk of performance-related erectile dysfunction is on every woman's lips, if you'll pardon the expression. Group or open sexuality, for the uninitiated straight first-time "vanilla" male, particularly in the same room/bed with another male, can be a very stressful situation.Simply put: Despite the appeal and willingness of Carol & Alice, neither Bob or Ted, in their situational anxiety, were able to "get it up". Watch carefully and you'll see the disappointment on the faces of the women.As the former public relations director and spokesman for the 1970s Sandstone Retreat (imdb: "Sandstone") I often compared the psychological benefits of well-introduced group sex with the well-guided initial psychedelic experience. Both experiences often result in highly euphoric, life changing, long lasting insight.Finally, B&C&T&A, despite the wardrobe, is by no means a quaint relic of the swinging 60s/70s. Real life realizations of their entirely rational human impulses occur every day and night in every large city and small town around the world.The Sexual Revolution, and the realities of polyamory, polyfidelity, the swinging lifestyle and safer sex practices remain alive and well in God-fearing America in the 21st Century.