User reviews

I watched this film again having first seen it on late night TV in the mid 1980s when I was twenty. I thought it would be unintentionally funny, expecting it to have dated badly. How wrong I was! This film is an important timepiece, a fascinating insight in to hip west coast middle class life at a time when America was still on top of the world, yet to realize it would all be downhill from there. The film has stood up remarkably well, it's subject matter still poignant. The cultural and social concepts of fidelity are forever shifting, often turning full circle making films like B&C&T&A relevant and thought provoking some forty years after release. The film is beautifully directed by Mazursky, and is arguably the finest work ever done by all four leads in the film. I found it fascinating observing each performance closely – noting how the actors juggled their obvious affection for their character, while at the same time being true to Mazursky's raison d'être – a gentle dig at the new social mores of the wealthy west coast hip set. Delicately picking at the counter-culture as if choosing hors d'oeuvres from a waiter at a cocktail party, Bob and Carol experiment with dope, extra marital sex and new age group therapy. The dialogue sparkles, the actors so in tune with Mazursky's vision they breathe life in to what are essentially caricatures. At times the film is laugh out loud funny, though not unintentionally as I had expected. I was surprised to realize the film was released in 1969, thinking it was more an early 70s creation, so ahead of its' time does it seem even today. It was years before other artists dared tackle the difficult subject of middle class vacuity, and rarely with the eloquence and humour of this film. The film is also sumptuous to look at, Bob and Carol's elegant faux Spanish villa positively luxurious even by today's standards. The scene of the foursome cruising to Las Vegas in Ted's convertible Cadillac is an elegiac vision, a scene of America that no longer exists. A time when wealthy Americans still bought Cadillacs, when Las Vegas was seen as a place of glamor and fun and despite the social unrest and Vietnam, America was still big, brash and confident. The greatest civilization in the history of the world, all there to see as the white ragtop barrels down the highway, the foursome laughing and in high spirits – a scene that in some ways summed up the theme of the movie. With so much at their fingertips, the luckiest people to have ever lived, but they don't know what to do with the privilege. They are lost, their search for sexual and emotional fulfillment nothing more than a desperate search for meaning, a sad attempt to fill a nagging void. In the mid 1980s, former Eagle front man Don Henley had his last big hit with 'The Boys Of Summer', in which he sings of his dismay at seeing a new Cadillac pass him on the LA freeway, a Dead-head sticker on the bumper. The former hippies, the baby boomers, had sold out. Mazursky was telling us the same thing fifteen years earlier. Perhaps Pete Townsend of the Who summed it up best in his anthemic Won't Get Fooled Again – 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss' A highly thought-provoking experience seeing this film again, and for those interested in culture, counter or otherwise – this is a must.

This is a sex farce about the sexual revolution sweeping America during the late 1960s. The counter culture comes full circle in affluent Angelinos Bob (Robert Culp), Carol (Natalie Wood), Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon). Bob and Carol view themselves as in tune with the times, with occasional but not unlikeable smugness. The film begins with them visiting a retreat for spiritual and mental awakening. And they come away changed, especially Carol. So much so that Bob decides to have an affair and confess it to Carol. Carol thinks it's so wonderful she has one herself. I loved Natalie Wood's explaining to her angry husband, who walks in on her: "I wanted to do it. Because, I wanted to do it. I.... wanted to do it", while Bob's head is about to explode. He eventually calms down. Bob and Carol need to stay true to their ideals, and anger over an affair is an outdated 1950s response. Moreover, there's a difference between sex and love.

Their best friends, Ted and Alice, are solid philistines. But it's only a matter of time before Ted and Alice realize they're missing out. The performances are pitch perfect. Natalie Wood continues the hilarious neurosis of her Sex and the Single Girl (1964) character. Dyan Cannon's moral abhorrence becomes a comedy sketch when she's talking to her shrink, and in another sequence denying Ted sex as he begs like a teenager whose life depends on it. Inevitably, the couples swap partners, and it's filmed with remarkable poignancy.

The film remains fresh, and modern. Paul Mazursky directed and co-wrote it with Larry Tucker. They have affection for the characters, without mocking them, even the square Ted and Alice.

B&C&T&A is still entertaining and has a number of funny scenes. Two of my favorites are the opening scene at the Esalen Institute, and Alice's session with her psychiatrist. The cast,particularly Dyan Cannon (Best Supporting Actress- NY Film Critics)and Elliot Gould, is perfect. B&C&T&A really do seem like couples and friends. It's Natalie Wood's best adult film role, and arguably her best film performance:she's never been more natural or at ease in front of the camera. Robert Culp never had a better role or vehicle. The film marked Mazursky's directorial debut, and it's probably his best film. The final scene in front of the Riviera Hotel in Vegas, recalls the "looking" exercise at the Institute, and was influenced by the parade at end of Felini's "81/2". Therefore, I give the film an 81/2 out of 10. Rent(or buy) the DVD and listen to the commentary with Cannon,Culp,Gould and Mazursky. Did you know that Leif Garrett plays Bob and Carol's son, and that Culp's "I Spy" costar, Bill Cosby, appears briefly(don't blink) in a scene at a club? The film has aged better than Midnight Cowboy, Z, Butch Cassidy, Hello Dolly and Anne of the Thousand Days,the films nominated for Best Picture of 1969. B&C&T&A feels more representative of the 60's than The Graduate, and is definitely worth seeing.

Any film made during the "Swinging Sixties" is almost sure to look silly to us today - a plethora of "groovy man"s as well as doped-up pontifications about "letting it all hang out" and becoming one of the "beautiful people", all served up with garish camera tricks and gaudy production design. You know, "Austin Powers" but without the wink-wink knowingness.

(NOTE: To see how a so-called "classic" can be killed by the passage of time - and the absence of pharmaceuticals in one's system - check out "Easy Rider". That is, if you can stand it.)

On the surface, "B&C&T&A" seems to be in line with such films: it is, after all, how a quartet of middle class "squares" become indoctrinated into the hippie values of free love and "doing your own thing." However, the film uses that set-up as a means to deflate - gently and good naturedly - those very values. For, as the group becomes more uninhibited and "with it," the more goofy and ridiculous they all seem. This is particularly true of Robert Culp and Natalie Wood (Bob and Carol), as they take on the hippie philosophy full-bore and unquestionably. Casting here is impeccable: seeing the square-jawed, All-American looking Culp (then the epitome of middle-brow, as star of "I Spy") utter lines straight out of the Dennis Hopper - Peter Fonda playbook is just unutterably funny; he's got the words all right, but the music is woefully wrong. Same thing with Natalie Wood; can there be anyone more whitebread than her? The more she attempts to be "groovy" the more perfectly square she seems, particularly as Carol appears to just be parroting everything her husband says and does in adopting this new lifestyle. Quite the opposite of "liberation", wouldn't you say?

Perhaps funnier, though, are Elliot Gould and Dyan Cannon as Ted and Alice, since they get to register all the (comic) shock and horror of their friends' complete abandonment of rationality. And the equally strong undercurrents of jealousy that their friends are getting to enjoy all the freedom and sexual gratification that they themselves, as good well-behaved members of society - are missing out on. Cannon's neurotic sessions with her psychiatrist - where she continually broaches, and then backs off of, what's really troubling her - provide wonderful moments of comic denial and delusion.

What the film ultimately exposes is the moral vacuity of much of the hippie philosophy - that happiness and feeling good about oneself are not all there is to life, and that focusing too narrowly on them leads ultimately to emptiness. It also makes the subtle point, however, that much of what might initially have been good about hippie thought (or at least, the thoughts of those who inspired the hippies in the first place) was oversimplified and thereby corrupted when the middle class tried to incorporate it, seizing only upon those elements of it which seemed "fun" or "a turn-on" to them. Let's face it: how much of the so-called Woodstock Nation really had any deep political or philosophical commitments; most were just middle class kids turned on to the immediate buzz of easy drugs, free sex, and rebellion for its own sake. Likewise, cosmetic changes such as longer hair or listening to rock'n'roll didn't necessarily change the minds or policies of many in the power structure. As John Lennon said in 1971: "The Sixties didn't change anything. The same b***ards are in power now, it's just they've all got long hair."

I don't mean to suggest that the film gets into issues like this directly; it is never less than a pleasant and even sunny comedy. But these issues in a very real way undergird the film and make it ahead of its time. Released in 1969, "Bob, Carol et al. . ." displays a jaundiced attitude about the counterculture - at least, the middle-class *embrace* of the counterculture - that wouldn't come widely into vogue until at least a decade later. Indeed, the film almost seems contemporary in its bemused and dismissive view of Sixties mores. Austin Powers fans would do well to check it out.

Encounter groups, terrible late-'60s clothes, bare breasts (though not the leading ladies'), wife-swapping, pot smoking, extramarital hijinx -- Mazursky's movie dives into the deep end of the "New Freedom" mainstream movies were beginning to enjoy around then (this is also the year of "Midnight Cowboy" and "Easy Rider," among others). It has some perceptive observations about the counterculture as experienced by the upper class: They seem to be doing so not out of a profound need but just to be trendy. There's some smart dialogue and a very funny performance by Dyan Cannon as perhaps the most confused of the quartet. But for all that, the whole thing seems a little... snarky. Mazursky laughs too quickly at these misguided rich people, makes too much fun of the Esalen group at the beginning, wants its audience to feel superior to everybody on screen. Too, Robert Culp and Natalie Wood aren't very convincing as a happily married but perhaps over-experimental couple. (And they seem lackadaisical parents at best; who's minding the kid during all these sexual exploits?) A fun time capsule, but with a slightly acid aftertaste.

In Southern California, documentary filmmaker Robert Culp (as Bob Sanders) and his beautiful wife Natalie Wood (as Carol) participate in group sensitivity for research. They meditate and get in touch with inner feelings; they stare at each other, hit pillows and cry. The experience enlightens our co-stars, and Mr. Culp later reveals he had a one night stand in San Francisco. This leads Ms. Wood to consider hitting the rackets with a tennis instructor. Wood and Culp share sexual feelings with each other and best friends Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon (as Ted and Alice Henderson) come into the bed...

Though considered by many to be very 1960s, sessions like the one in the opening are used today to "bond" workers in new employment situations; however, the cigarette smokers and topless women are not in evidence. The swinging sixties weren't easy to capture in films, as most of the movies trying to reflect the times seem silly; moreover, they usually presented through the eyes of personnel older than hippie age. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" is really only a hesitating tease, and consequently works better than some contemporary fare. Most obviously, Natalie Wood is sexy and stupendous.

******* Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (9/17/69) Paul Mazursky ~ Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon

I love this movie. Although some people may classify it as "dated," the concepts that it deals with are worth exploring today. How honest are we to one another? How often do we actually look at people? And what is love?

From its opening shots (tooling up PCH in a cool car) to its closing ones (people really looking at each other), it's a true work of art. The beginning truly captures the free and concept-expanding atmosphere that is the Esalen Institute, which itself has not changed much since then. Screen goddess Natalie Wood, in one of her best roles, inhabits the honesty and sexual freedom that is Carol. Robert Culp is a strong counterpart to her as Bob. The more repressed couple, Eliott Gould and Dyan Cannon, are perfect.

Along the way, they explore the boundaries of sexuality, monogamy and friendship, and realize that some lines are better left uncrossed. To me, it puts a very fine point on what was going on in the 60s, and where exactly we went wrong.

SEE THIS FILM. It'll give you insight. Promise.

With the sexual revolution of the '60s, there of course would have to be a movie about sex. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" was it. Having visited a therapy group, Bob and Carol Sanders (Robert Culp and Natalie Wood) have become more open about their sexuality, and are identifying more with the counterculture in general. Their repressed friends, Ted and Alice Henderson (Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon) can't seem to get into it. But while in a hotel room in Las Vegas, after they've all revealed some secrets, they decide to have an orgy. You've probably seen the picture of the four of them in bed together.

When this movie came out, many critics thought that it had a cop-out ending. In an interview, director Paul Mazursky explained that he felt that they only could go as far as they eventually went. Anyway, you can't judge an entire movie by one individual scene; it's what the movie's saying overall that matters. As for the characters, Bob seems sort of wooden, Carol is hot (as Natalie Wood always was), Ted is a dork, and Alice is a little eccentric. Overall, it's a pretty good movie.

I rented this movie because I remembered one scene from 35 years ago. I was astounded to see that the whole movie holds up very well. The 4 leads are terrific (Natalie Wood and Dyan Canon are beautiful, by the way, and Robert Culp hits just the right note with his "sensitive-new- age-guy" hip/naive performance) and you can see director Paul Mazursky's touch with what seems to be stretches of impromptu dialog I found true.

The movie also does a great job of balancing drama with farce, superficiality with intimacy.

The scenes at the Esalen-type retreat start at as spoof but evolve into real empathy. Parenthetically, check out the fashions in this film. There is one scene in a discotheque that Mazursky must have known even then would be a source of laughter and certainly, today, it's a hoot.

If you're a fan of any of the four leads, see this once. I am a Robert Culp fan, and I originally went into it simply to see him. When I initially started watching it, I muddled through the retreat scene, got to the restaurant scene of the four, post-retreat, and couldn't watch any more. I slammed the headphones down and said, This movie SUCKS! My sister, who's 8 1/2 years older and remembered it when it came out, laughed and told me she could've told me that, but NOOOOO, I just had to see Robert Culp.

I gave up on it for a few days and figured I'd try it again. So I got through those two major scenes, sans sound this time, and once it picked up from the restaurant and I turned the sound up, I have to admit...I began getting caught up in it.

The going back and forth between the four was entertaining and as someone said in another comment, a good portion of this is simply the great acting and the dialogue, the verbal exchanges and parrying back and forth as Bob and Carol discover things about one another, and work to whittle away at Ted and Alice about the possibilities inherent in emotion-free sexual dalliances.

Cannon's character is pivotal in a lot of this, as the outraged friend of Carol. Alice flips out when Carol casually tells her that Bob had had an affair when he was off on his last shoot (he's a filmmaker), and later wigs out again when she learns that Carol, too, had had a casual affair while Bob was gone.

As anyone who's seen the movie poster for this will know, the four end up in bed together. It's surprising how this is instigated, and very surprising how it all ends. As another comment said, back in the day, many were crying FOUL! and COP-OUT! about the ending, but I really liked the twist of how it ends. Bob and Ted, and Carol and Alice, come to a startling revelation about their situation and about their love and friendship amongst themselves. It couldn't have ended any other way in my opinion.

I gave it a 6/10, just a wee bit above middle-of-the-road. I could find no fault in the acting of the four, the basic storyline (as I discovered) was enough to grab and hold one's interest, but it's far from a "great" film as many have said. See it, just once, you'll like it.

This is a grainy, sun-drenched, hippy farce. An examination of whether married relationships can withstand/be improved by free love - it seems almost a parody of itself, showing how a bunch of rich LA types have jumped on the peace and love bandwagon and are riding it out of existence. Like all revolutions though, it had become (main)streamlined by movies like this, and as such was about to burn out. It's 1969 and the end of the line for the hippy ideal. So this movie accurately depicts where the movement had gotten to (but is this intentional?). The film itself is a dreamy, bizarre, occasionally amusing, often boring, sex farce.

What a delightful movie! I don't think its aged one bit. Sure the clothes are different, the latest self-help fads are different, the priorities are different--but SO much still resonates today. The relationship between love and sex and spouses and friends. Human desire, and commitment are timeless topics, and they are explored with great wit and panache in this thoroughly entertaining movie. And the dialogue! Many scenes purely consist of the twists and turns of intelligent people in verbal games--some of the scenes feel like being in a verbal

amusement park, going up and down roller-coasters of clever and surprising

dialogue. The funny moments are priceless: the tennis instructor asking for a glass of Pernod, Dyan Cannon in the therepist's office--probably the funniest and most perceptive take on the "therepy experience" ever shown on film-- (along with Kirstie Alley's therapist melt-down scene in Woody Allen's

"Deconstructing Harry"), the opening group therapy session in the beautiful

California countryside, that first dinner in the restaurant with Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice all declaring their love for each other in front of the table of bemused gay diners--it is a film filled with endless, perceptive and highly

amusing details. Its a terrific entertainment. (One last comment--Dyan Cannon lights up the screen everytime she appears, with her sexy persona, her high

spirits, her warmth and generosity, and that truly infectious laugh!)

This is one of those movies that's worth seeing even though it really isn't very good.

See it for Natalie Wood. Holy smokes what a fantastic beauty and talented actress she was. For me, she alone made the movie worthwhile. Of course, Rebel Without A Cause is _the_ movie to see her in but she is more mature and, if possible, even sexier in this one.

See it for the cultural time capsule. This film captures a cultural moment that lasted about two weeks in the 60s.

See it for the fashions! Beautiful, outrageous, goofy, the works.

See it for Elliot Gould. Remember why he was an A-list actor once.

See it for the totally ill-advised ending but with a great song!

Drawing many rave reviews and even Academy Award nods, this remains one of my personal choices for a truly horrible film. I have tried over and over to watch this thing, telling myself to turn more positive and all that stuff. It doesn't work. Usually the sheer whiny and lifeless dialog alone makes me stop the video tape long before I have seen more than a third of the scenes. Seen by many as a great 60's portrayal, it lacks even the excitement of that era. The thought of having an affair, sexual or otherwise, with any of these morbid and depressing characters is totally out of the question for me.

Inveterate hippies who still smoke a joint a day will continue to find this movie a joy, even when their days of prostate problems and wrinkles have arrived. As Ancient Greece was important to the eventual development of drama, this movie is important to the eventual development of the X rated disasters currently in production.

Perhaps it was because this film was steeped waist deep into the 1960's, I found it trite. It starts off with a documentary film maker and his wife going off to some new-age psychological treatment camp. Throughout the film you'll also be exposed to psychoanalysis (the prevalent psychotherapeutic modality at the time and beginning to gain traction among the middle classes), an argument over some sort of birth control, home-exercise regimens, and talk about the acceptability of hair that goes past one's ears in men. This movie is a time capsule. If you tried to make a movie parodying the 60s you'd find it hard to get more 60s.

And the whole movie revolves around the concept of general hippyism, specifically free love, but non-violence is also mentioned at some point. All we need now is some scenes of the Vietnam war.

Or perhaps it's not the dated quality of the setting, concerns, and situations of the characters so much as the fact that the characters are boring and most of their story arcs don't amount to anything. One guy's a bit shy, one woman's a bit rigid, the main male protagonist is a bit hippie. They're all bland and rather lifeless.

Now, I can't say the movie offers nothing. It offers an alternative perspective to the rigid sexuality of the 50s and how new-age ideas on sexuality can (or perhaps were beginning to?) seep into the prudish middle classes. There's also an exploration of the meaning of love, but it doesn't really feel sincere. Everyone just accepts things sooner or later. Perhaps that was the point - it was much more unnatural to put up the rigid structures in the first place than to break them down.

As for the treatment of sexuality itself, it now seems distant, dated, even jejune. Now the positioning of the very predictable climax of the film seems laughable. Too little, too late. These days it would come in the middle or the beginning or outright just be mentioned offhand as something normal in a film, whereas here it seems to have been the impressive finishing blow in 1969.

Honourable Mentions: Office Space (1999). In this movie the main female protagonist has her outlook on life changed by an odd psychotherapeutic retreat her. It's the same basic situation in Office Space, where the high-strung neurotic engineer changes his outlook on life and in turn experiences a very significant improvement in quality of life.

One of the best of 1969 with Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon at their sexiest. Perfect casting, great story, and Mazursky's best film. I know the critics were split on this one, but it came out at the right time and it holds up today. What's not to like about this? Elliott Gould was never more befuddled, Dyan Cannon's best acting when she was gorgeous, Robert Culp's only decent movie, and Natalie Wood was born to play Carol.

Certainly a 9 out 10! Mazursky would never again be so in touch with the times and the ending is NOT a cop-out! Check this out. Great stuff! Even the encounter session scenes have the ring of truth for that sort of thing. This movie is great!

Documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders (Robert Culp) goes to a new age retreat with his wife Carol Sanders (Natalie Wood) to do some research. During a group healing session, they are taken with a new openness in sexuality and their relationship. They try to bring their new growth to their old couple friends Ted Henderson (Elliott Gould) and Alice Henderson (Dyan Cannon).

This was a success back in the day. I guess that it hit the popular zeitgeist at the time. It doesn't hit the same now. This is supposed to be a comedy, but I didn't really laugh. Only Elliott Gould offers a couple of mildly humorous moments. I don't particularly care about these characters or their lifestyles. I am reminded of The Ice Storm with less emotional hits. I would like it to go much darker, but that wouldn't be the same. It does have that iconic image of the four characters lying in bed together.

I had seen this movie on television sometime in the middle '70s, when I was in my twenties and had a special fondness for Natalie Wood. I was surprised to see this movie on DVD when I was in the store a few days ago, but I didn't see anything else that I really wanted to watch, and was naturally curious about it, so I rented it.

While far from being a bad movie, "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" is certainly not what I would consider a good movie. It is a pretentious movie about self-centered, superficial people. The late sixties were a unique period in the twentieth century, when for a short period of a few years, throughout western culture, people were testing the limits of traditional sexual taboos. "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" tells the story of a middle-aged couple who were caught up in the liberated attitudes of the time, for a brief period at least. When push came to shove, they realized that they preferred the traditional lifestyle.

So what? Does this really make an interesting subject for a feature-length film? In and of itself, it does not. Possibly, a different storyline, similar to this one but not exactly the same as this one, would have been interesting. But this one happens to be dead boring. I sat through the first ten minutes without once touching the fast-forward button. Then I said to myself, "I'll zip past just this part." Next thing I knew, I was fast-forwarding past another part that had just become tiresome, then another, then another, and I had to make myself stop.

I sat through another ten or fifteen minutes thinking that if I tried harder and paid attention, the dialog would become interesting. But I was forced to accept the truth, which is that the dialog in this movie is exceedingly pretentious and boring. All that a movie of this sort has going for it is the dialog. But the dialog in this movie is boring and pretentious.

Back at the time this movie was released, it was interesting because it dealt with social issues that were then current. But that was thirty-five years ago. Persons with a strong curiosity about that period might find this movie interesting, even though this is by no means one of the better movies dealing with that subject matter. Persons with a special interest in the careers of one of the four actors might also find it somewhat interesting, although this movie was a best a footnote on any of their careers.

If you are looking for a movie that conveys a realistic sense of what suburban life was like in that period, there are lots of better choices. The movie, "The Ice Storm", made in 1997 and set in 1973, has similar themes, and it is infinitely more intelligent. Anyone who looks at these two movies side-by-side will surely agree that "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice", while moderately amusing when it was current, has no lasting value.

A big deal back in the day, when I saw this last on its theatrical release, this must look a little strange to a new generation. Even then it seemed a bit strange. We youngsters thought the sexual revolution was just for us, not our parents and this I think was where a lot of the humour came from back then. Many interesting questions raised about sex and marriage and love but essentially an amusing look at older people trying out our new found freedoms. Looked at know it remains interesting and somewhat amusing but mainly we notice how lovely the diminutive Natalie Wood was and wishing that Elliott Gould had had a larger part - in the film, that is, of course.

The comedy "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" is the type of movie that aged badly. The story of free love, freedom, true feelings and other values from the late 60´s and 70´s is absolutely dated in 2018. The cast is top-notch and the mignon Natalie Wood has a shining performance with witty dialogs. Quincy Jones´ music score is also magnificent. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Bob, Carol, Ted e Alice" ("Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice")