One of my all time favorites.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Watching today, almost a half century after it was made, the movie comes across like a parody of the Sixties with it's free love and preoccupation with the sexual revolution. But if you were around back then, this was, I presume, a serious treatment of people in search of fulfillment and meaning and getting as much sex as you can while the getting is good. It also features Robert Culp wearing all of the most pretentious looking clothes one might have appropriated to impress like minded hedonists - Nehru jacket, frilly shirt, love beads and whistle - the kind of outerwear that I, even as a teenager at the time, fully regarded as a complete turn off.The best scene for me had Ted (Elliott Gould) trying to make love to his wife Alice (Dyan Cannon) right after learning their friend Bob (Culp) had a fling in San Francisco, with wife Carol (Natalie Wood) being so understanding about it. It's a scene every guy can relate to, because even knowing that his wife is seriously not in the mood, bad sex is still way ahead of anything in second place, and there's no giving up until he either scores or it becomes totally hopeless. With the cut away, you have to use your imagination on how that one turned out.Gould had another great scene when he confessed his infidelity about a fling in Miami. Trying to come to grips with it he's got the peanuts falling out of his mouth and he's just hilarious. Actually, all the principal players did a fantastic job with their characters, to the point that it's impossible to say who was best.Others reviewing the picture here make note of it's dated quality, and in a lot of respects I agree - the clothes, the hair styles, the whole Sixties vibe that pushes the envelope on relationships, open marriages and wife swapping in it's heyday. If you weren't around for the decade, this one offers a nice time capsule snapshot of the era, one you could sit down with and gaze in awe at how folks often put themselves into some ridiculous situations. And while you're at it, don't forget the astonishing gazpacho.

"Under the auspices of 'intimacy', we come to matrimony looking for everything that has so obviously deserted contemporary social relations: warmth, simplicity, truth, a life without theatre or spectator. But once the romantic high has passed, 'intimacy' strips itself bare: it is itself a social invention, it speaks the language of glamour magazines." - The Invisible Committee Ah, the sixties, the era when a director could make a film about sex orgies and have it feel like high art. Release a film like "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" today and it would feel tawdry and tasteless. Release it in the 1960s, though, and it'll fizzle with a certain authenticity.Directed by Paul Mazursky, who famously starred in Stanley Kubrick's "Fear and Desire", "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" stars Robert Culp and the always beautiful Natalie Wood as Bob and Carol, a married couple who find themselves at a New Age retreat. Here they learn to "be honest", "permissive" and "embrace indiscriminate sex". Our duo initially find this ethos liberating, embarking on a series of sexual encounters (with the always lovable Elliott Gould), until they realise that "maybe sex shouldn't be reduced to purely physical terms". The film ends with our heroes turning their backs to polygamy and orgies.Though Mazursky's film aptly sums up the confusion of the Eisenhower generation, who found themselves faced with the temptations of counterculture movements, many critics have accused it playing things too safe. The film's ending, in which Mazursky has "What the World Needs Now Is Love" croon over shots of walking couples, is typically read as a retreat to conservative values, heterosexual, monogamous intercourse and old fashioned appeals to authority and guilt.This kind of either/or battle has been going on forever. On one hand, for example, many argue that monogamous relationships and the institution of marriage perpetuate patriarchy, ownership and are rooted in capitalism (monogamy/marriage was partially constructed as a measure of power by patriarchal societies, so that men could ensure that their children were the rightful heirs to their property). In this regard, polyamory is seen as being liberating because it crushes certain ideas we have about ownership and the language we use around marriage and monogamy. Being in a non-monogamous situation, some argue, leads to sharing, greater honesty and allows people to be more autonomous.Another argument is that there is a relationship between war, aggression, and the control of sexuality, as many observers since the time of Freud have noted. Scholars such as Kinsey and Foucault also suspected that the more repressed a culture, the more violent and reactive it is. In contrast, when sexuality is unchallenged as part of the arc of life, there is less violence and more acceptance.Such "thought experiments" are common in science fiction literature. Ursula Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness", for example, revolves around a race of aliens who are completely sexless. Because of their neutered state (and muted egos), they are not only entirely passive, but do not understand concepts such as "war" or even "progress". Indeed, their whole society has no drive to advance, innovate, renovate, conquer, or engage in games of dominance, class, acquisition, status, submission etc. Even their concept of time suggests stasis; on their planet, the current year is always called "year 0", and past years are retroactively re-named or re-numbered as time goes by to take into account a perpetual "present".Ironically, those who oppose polyamory do so for the same reasons as those who support it. For some, having multiple sexual partners is an extension of capitalist hedonism; one's sense of loyalty and control is overridden by the ego, which ceaselessly commands one to "enjoy", to cave to desires and accumulate or possess multiple mates. As desire represents a lack that can not be satisfied, the lover finds itself trapped in a neurotic cycle of acquisition; a slave to desire. These critics see polyamory as a form of greed, hedonism and perpetual dissatisfaction. But this is a misrepresentation of polygyny. Polyamory and promiscuity are not, at least in theory, the same thing.Then there are other arguments. Both capitalism and polygyny increase the variance in the distribution of desired outcomes (more partners/objects/commodities per person) while lowering the mean (less people with partners/objects/commodities). The mean number of children per man is exactly the same under polygyny and monogamy, but the proportion of men who have children is much greater under monogamy than under polygyny. In other words, more men are reproductively successful under monogamy than under polygyny. Ie - capitalism and polygyny are systems designed to reward the winners and punish the losers.On yet another hand, some stress that polyamory is "natural", and that it is only external (outside biology) factors which led to humans becoming monogamous (a couple can better provide for a child than a single parent etc). So why not embrace nature and breed like bunnies? Why not have multiple parents working in tandem? To counter this, some say what's natural is always contingent, so why not strive for a better, monogamous ideal, rather than indulging in rampant desires? To such people, monogamy is subversive in light of permissive norms. At which point those who advocate polyamory go to lengths to stress that it has nothing to do with sex or bedding many different people. If love is narcissism, and "true love" is excessive empathy, then why limit your 'excessive empathy' to just one person? Why not love everyone? Then, of course, the monogamous camp plays their trump card. If it's not about sexual intimacy, why not remove sex from polygyny altogether? At which point you're back with religion, and a kind of unconditional, Christ-like love; polyamory as the ultimate sexual Jesus.8.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

I called "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" a vague film because there are very few certainties in the film. If you want a movie with a clear message and ending, then this film is NOT for you. I really think what you think of the movie is entirely dependent on the viewer and how they interpret what they see. I see it's listed as a comedy, but I could easily see someone thinking it's a drama. I could also see it as an endorsement of sexual freedom--or a film about the importance of fidelity in a marriage! Bob and Carol go to an encounter weekend--the sort of pseudo-therapy type group that was gaining popularity in the late 1960s. During the opening credits as they arrive there, you see lots of nudity--though the rest of the film is amazingly skin-free. There, they learn to let go of their inhibitions and be completely honest with each other--or at least try to be. The result is that they become closer as a couple--which could lead to serious complications when Bob tells Carol about an affair he recently had. But, using the model of their encounter group, Carol isn't upset but happy that they can be this honest. Later, when their best friends Ted and Alice hear of this, it throws them for a spin--how can a couple be THIS honest and still remain a couple?! Later, this new-found freedom leads to a four-some--a four-some that is really much more tease than please. Following this, the film ends in a manner that is just plain bizarre.I just don't know what to think of this film. While the acting pretty good and the film quite arousing at times, it also will no doubt be frustrating because just when you think the fireworks are going to occur, the film ends! Sexy but unsatisfying.

The 60's, a decade of rebellion and expressionism can happen. With this movie, you got a great cast of stars to make this movie worthwhile. Robert Culp and Natalie Wood play Bob and Carol Sanders. An Los Angeles couple who just returned from a retreat to express "free love" to one another. Their friends Ted and Alice Anderson (Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon) are the exact opposites of Bob and Carol. So what do they do? They head out to "Sin City", Las Vegas, Nevada. What is it? Not to gamble, but to have an orgy. Are they going to be content with that? It is to say. No one one was truly faithful with each other. Especially Bob and Carol. Even Ted was a very naughty man as well. So everyone gets one big room, get undressed and all four of them are in one big bed. Kissing each other: Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Hence the title. Of course, Bob did kiss Alice and Ted kiss Carol. After that night, it was very bewildering for all four of them. Back in the 60's, I thought only the hippies practice free love, who would ever know. Great movie, great plot, great cast. It's a gem one will never forget.5 stars!