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Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Movie Review

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is a 1969 dramedy film directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Natalie Wood and Dyan Cannon. It’s such a sophisticated movie with a terrific message.

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“You’ve got the guilt anyway.

Don’t waste it“

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A progressive couple proposing for “free love” attempt to coerce their uptight best friends to join them in an orgy, but not everything goes as smoothly as they planned. Upon reading this premise, I had expected a typical late 60s hippie, dated flick that preaches morally questionable ideas, but gladly I was mistaken. It’s not like that at all.

It’s actually a film that presents all of these different lifestyles and moral ambiguities, but it actually comments upon them, leading to a great message that some things are just not right – cheating is one of those things. Having sex with your friends is another. You can do that, sure, but you won’t feel good about it, so then why do it at all?

This is one of those chamber dramas, which I just adore. I love the stagy dramas about a limited group of people and fueled by amazing dialogue. The dialogue here truly is incredible. The discussions that they have about cheating are very sophisticated and the whole exploration of the late 60s free love agenda was surprisingly layered and smart.

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My personal favorite sequence is the finale. Wow, was that entire part stellar. For a very dialogue-driven movie, the silent ending came like a cold shower in that it really emphasized on the various emotions that the four must be feeling during their attempt at an orgy. This scene is embarrassing and cringy, but in the right way, and it comes as a firm reminder that some things should not be tried whatever the argument for it is. The final moment after the bed scene with the people on the street coming closer to strangers, but eventually returning to their own partners was just beautiful. This is it. The message of the film is laid out cinematically here.

Bob and Carol are definitely overly annoying in their “woke” preachiness. But this is how some people thought back in the day, so the film isn’t dated, but an important product of its time. Ted and Alice fare out much better, though Ted was also not all that likable while Alice was borderline unhinged at times. The movie is definitely very interesting in the juxtaposition of the overly emotional, but sane latter couple and calm, but morally objectionable former one.

The acting is all over the place in this picture. Natalie Wood is actually very strong. She’s undeniably the only truly beautiful person of the four and her performance is very charismatic. Dyan Cannon is the best of the bunch as she was required to do the most acting probably of them all and she delivered. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for men. They are much inferior to the ladies. Robert Culp is okay, though not great, but Elliot Gould is quite mediocre, and both struggling to keep a straight face was really bothering me in certain scenes.

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Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice is surprisingly well shot and cinematic for a chamber drama. The score is quite good too. The direction from Paul Mazursky is excellent as is the script from him and Larry Tucker. Not all scenes worked, but most were excellent.