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Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Did you people see the same film I saw?

How am I feeling about this 1960's boring comedy with the most unoriginal title I've ever heard? The only thing I liked about Bob and Carol... etc is the presence of the fabulous Natalie Wood.With the abolished Hayes code, Hollywood began experimenting with more risqué content, including: sex, drugs, violence and anything else previously considered taboo, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice wasn't immune from this new found freedom, as it is overly sexual and contains brief drug usage, in the form of marijuana being smoked from a pipe. But all things considered, how boring was this film? The acting was pretty decent, particularly from Natalie Wood who I consider an all time great actress, Dyan Cannon playing Alice also demonstrated her worth, but sadly the film lacked, maybe at the time of its release (1969) it could have been rated more highly, but sadly it hasn't aged very well at all..., it smacks of the sixties and the changing of society at the time. In the beginning, Bob and Carol attend a self help retreat, this changes Carol in a way and opens her eyes, so later on when Bob admits that he'd had an affair in San Francisco, she sees this treachery not as cheating, but as something rather positive..., however when she admits what Bob has done to her friends Ted and Alice, they are stunned, particularly Alice, she cannot believe what Bob has done, and cannot believe even more so how Carol is handling it!Eventually the couple come to terms with what their friends are doing and ease into a closer relationship with them, at the same time breaking every rule in the former Hayes Code. It's a "modern" tale of love that would've formerly been outlawed, the film smacks of freedom, and therefore the actual story and presentation of seriously lacks any real quality.A sheer step below Natalie Wood's standard, but another film to add to her brief library.

This movie is demanding. If you want to appreciate what is there and there is a lot, you gotta stay focused. The humor does not hit you over the head and it is satire, so it isn't really laugh out loud stuff. I couldn't see this movie when it came out, it was rated R. And I am sure I would have hated it until I was around 40. Tonight was my first experience and it was nothing like what I expected. It starts out like a sort of documentary examining a group not unlike Marriage Encounter. Then two of these participants continue their lives with all of their "learning" ignoring their instincts. Alice, who is certainly much less uninhibited than the others, turns out to be the hero because she didn't sacrifice her values to go along with some idiotic idea of becoming a more focused person. The ending is a knockout. It brings happy tears. This film cannot date. And it is remarkable that it reflected so honestly on its own era. Not a casual entertainment.

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.

The ending to Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is not a "cop-out" in the conventional sense. Although many people may have wanted to see the characters go all the way just to see what happens, it was inevitable that they give in and not do it. The cop-out exists mainly in the realm of counterculture values. The characters in the film had been preaching free love constantly, and even went so far as to deliberately have sexual affairs with other people just to prove to each other that they really believed in their values of sexual freedom. If they were so free, why couldn't they swap couples and have sex with each other? Its a cop-out that we don't get to see these members of the counterculture living up to their own words. They say they are sexually free, but are they really? I would have liked to see how the four would have dealt with the emotional consequences of making love with each other's soul mate. The effects of such an orgy would be mentally devastating- which is clearly why they avoided it in the end. This decision pokes a hole in the free-love movement, and begins to question the true meaning of love and relationships. It seems that while people are capable of affairs with strangers, they are never truly free to have sex with anyone. As an audience, we begin to realize that the counterculture is not as free as it seems to be. Free love sounds like an amazing idea- empty sex with whomever, whenever, and no one has any emotional ties or consequences. Yet it may not be truly freedom.Bob and Carol go out of their way to visit a new-age, counterculture Guru at a psychedelic therapy session. They learn how to get out all their negative emotions, and gain a freer perspective on life, love, and sex. They think that they have been elevated to a new level of consciousness, and are no longer bound by the conventional rules of the establishment in regards to relationships. Bob and Carol are released from jealousy, and are capable of having sex with anyone with no emotional flack, and still carry on a natural, loving relationship with each other. In fact, they are so adamant about it, that they try to convince their friends, Ted and Alice, to think the same way. This ideal soon begins to break down, however. When Bob tells Carol about his affair with a blonde woman, he is shocked and agitated to find that Carol doesn't seem to care. In fact, she responds in a loving and nurturing manner, and even comforts Bob for having gone through such an experience. Bob is initially outraged- his natural human instincts are kicking in for a moment- and he thinks that if Carol doesn't mind then she must not really love him. Carol gently explains that its all okay, and reminds him of his new free-love values, and that no harm is done. Eventually Bob agrees. Not much later, Bob comes home to find Carol in bed with a stranger. Initially he is outraged and hurt, like any normal person would be- but soon he comes to his senses and realizes that its all okay and its just sex with no love. He even offers the stranger a drink. As an audience, we at first think that such a lifestyle could be possible and even enjoyable- as it removes jealousy, anger, hatred, and many other horrible relationship problems. Yet in the end, we realize that all this freedom from emotions is actually just a suppression of true emotion. Bob is truly jealous and protective of Carol, and is incredibly hurt to find that she would cheat on him- however, the counterculture values have taught him to unnaturally suppress these human emotions that spring from his love for Alice. Instead, he attempts a kind of stoicism towards his feelings, and replaces his real love for Alice with a fake, open-ended, suppressive kind of love. It can't really even be considered love at all,. Its simply unjust to yourself to suppress your desire to love and jealously protect your lover. This is the nature of the free-love movement, and Mazursky chose to end the film in such as way that expresses this to the fullest. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are not emotionally capable of an orgy, and they end up giving in and accepting the fact that there is such a thing as a monogamous relationship. They truly love their lovers, and no one else. Sex cannot always be just sex. Humans are not machines- we cannot shut of our emotions at will. This is what makes us human.In the end, Paul Mazursky is not just poking fun at the counterculture with funny situational incidents, but is making a profound critique of their values. He wants the audience to leave the film questioning these values of free love, and come to terms with their human nature.