Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice with Natalie Wood: DVD Cover

    Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Director: Paul Mazursky Cast: Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon

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    • DVD Release Date: 11/16/2004
    • Original Release: 1969
    • Rating: Rated R
    • Sales Rank: 9,523
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    Viewer Rating: (2 ratings)

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    • Overview
    • Editorial Reviews
    • Scenes
    • Customer Reviews
    • Cast & Crew
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    Features

    Closed Caption; Commentary with Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon and director Paul Mazursky; "Tales of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" featurette: filmed at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, Hollywood; Previews

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    Scene Index

    Side #1 --
    1. Start
    2. Ice Breaker
    3. Group Therapy
    4. "I Feel Sorry."
    5. Copout
    6. "Full of Love."
    7. Home Sweet Home
    8. The Affair
    9. Feeling Good
    10. The Secret
    11. Just Add Water
    12. The Coverup
    13. "Against My Will."
    14. "I Really Love You."
    15. Underground Groove
    16. Sex in the Mind
    17. San Francisco
    18. The Double Standard
    19. Mile High Club
    20. "Next Time."
    21. Horst
    22. Viva Las Vegas
    23. Honesty
    24. Miami Heat
    25. Foursome
    26. Orgy
    27. Love Sweet Love
    28. Smile With Your Eyes

    Scene Index

    Editorial Reviews

    "Consider the possibilities," read the ads for Paul Mazursky's 1969 satirical comedy about what happens when the sexual revolution hits affluent bourgeois life. After a weekend of "beautiful" emotional honesty at an Esalen-type retreat, married wannabe hipsters Bob (Robert Culp) and Carol (Natalie Wood) return to their well-heeled Los Angeles life determined to apply the principles of free love and complete openness to their marriage. To the respective curiosity and repulsion of their married best friends, Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon), Bob and Carol have affairs that they happily reveal to everyone. Inspired by all that openness during the quartet's trip to Vegas, Ted admits an affair of his own, provoking the outraged Alice to demand that this new ethos be taken to its obvious conclusion: a mate-sharing foursome. Once they're bedded down and ready to go, however, they start to have second thoughts. Without sacrificing authenticity for comedy, first-time director Mazursky and co-writer/producer Larry Tucker delve into the confusion of the Eisenhower generation when faced with the temptations of the counterculture. Too old to be hippies and too young to be fogies, the would-be California swingers sincerely attempt to try on the lifestyle, but it never looks quite right. A then-controversial example of the New Permissiveness both onscreen and off, Bob & Carol debuted at the New York Film Festival to great praise, particularly for Gould and Cannon. Whether they wanted to laugh at their elders' faux looseness or see what their peers might be doing, audiences turned Bob & Carol into a substantial hit, and its observations about marriage and sex remain humorously sharp even if the encounter group jargon is past its vogue. Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

    Customer Reviews

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    Bob & Carol & Ted & Aliceby Anonymous

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    July 20, 2005: Films like Arthur Penn's "Alice's Restaurant" (1969) were now dealing openly with the effect that the changes in society had on the youth of the nation. But it yet remained for a film to study the shifting lifestyles of early middle-aged people who tried to embrace both the new morality and the youth revolution, attempting to reorder their lifestyles to fit in with the breezy image of how liberated people ought to behave. The film that filled this vacuum was "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", an updating of the Doris Day comedies that had flourished during the first half of the decade, and then disappeared when, in 1967, the radical changes going on around us made such pictures seem suddenly obsolete. First-time director Paul Mazursky was given a tight budget of $2 million from Columbia Pictures to make "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" and he managed to persuade Natalie Wood (then a major star) to reduce her usual $750,000 salary in favor of 10% of the film's profits. The result was the year's surprise smash hit and Natalie earned $3 million from her share of the profits alone. Filmmaker Mazursky's great gift, first suggested in his excellent screenplay for "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" (1968), and in evidence throughout his direction of B&C&T&A, was a talent for blending strong social satire with lighthearted situation comedy, and giving the end result an underlying sense of seriousness that elevated his work of entertainment into an "art" film. This would provide the basis for his most satisfying films, including "Blume in Love" (1973), "Harry and Tonto" (1974), and "An Unmarried Woman" (1978). The great moments in B&C&T&A are the ones which demonstrate his total familiarity with and understanding of the upper-middle-class California scene, which he presents with razor sharp humor but, notably, without the kind of condescension that would diminish the impact of such a film. The satire is expert--sharply written, well and dryly observed, and generally very funny. Mazursky's direction was somewhat influenced at the time, I would suspect, by the John Cassavetes of "Faces" (1968). The close-ups are tight and constant and the dialogue is filled with interruption, irrelevance, repetition, and people talking over each other. The acting couldn't have been better: Natalie Wood crying "beautiful" at each new expression of modern candor Dyan Cannon giggling through a scene with a deadpan psychiatrist Robert Culp pursuing the free life with earnest intensity Elliott Gould struggling out from under his stoned friends as they clutch each other on the couch. Best of all is the scene between Ted and Alice (both Gould and Cannon received Oscar nominations for their performances) in the privacy of their bedroom, as they face the classical marital dilemma of whether they are in the mood for lovemaking. What made this film far superior to the witless general run of comedies at the time was the tolerant understanding of Oscar-nominated screenwriters Mazursky and Larry Tucker and their obvious affection for the characters. Importantly, B&C&T&A was the film chosen to open the 1969 New York Film Festival, which marked a significant departure from the usual opening night event of the latest import of a film by some respected European auteur. In 1969, critics finally acknowledged that the...

    Bob & Carol & Ted & Aliceby Anonymous

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    November 21, 2004: Strangely undated, despite the funny clothes. Takes a cynical, sympathetic look at the attempt to turn fashion into lifestyle. Fine acting by all, and a smart script. (PS: I had no idea how beautiful Natalie Wood was.)