Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice **** (1969,Robert Culp, Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon) – Classic Movie Review 1388

Co-writer/director Paul Mazursky’s teasing and titillating 1969 Swinging Sixties wife-and-husband-swapping comedy is extremely entertaining and perceptive, and was deservedly extremely popular in its day. It captures the spirit of the time when America’s moral climate was turned upside down, entertainingly exploring issues like marital fidelity, the merits of psychological therapy and modern divorce.

Bob Sanders is a documentary film-maker and he and his wife Carol attend a group therapy session. Now enlightened, they tell off their closest friends Ted and Alice Henderson for not coming to grips with their true feelings. Bob (Robert Culp) & Carol (Natalie Wood) & Ted (Elliott Gould) & Alice (Dyan Cannon) then all go to bed together in a frolicsome foursome.

Because it’s Hollywood in 1969, this was probably shocking enough, but actually nothing really at all shocking happens. For the surprisingly conservative-minded screenplay is not really that far away from the scripts of the Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedy era. But, nevertheless, Mazursky makes deliciously witty and amusing comments about sexual freedom, psychology and the human psyche, and there are lots of funny one-liners throughout.

The expert comedy actors are on their best, excellent form, particularly the seemingly effortlessly funny Gould and Cannon. It’s more effort for Wood and Culp, who are not really amusing or fun people as actors. So they are less funny as performers than Gould and Cannon, but nevertheless they still effective here with this good script.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice has dated well, and is now a splendid comment on some of the daft excesses of its era as well as testament to, and valuable relic of, its turbulent times.

The eight-year-old Leif Garrett makes his début as one of the children.

A very short-lived flop TV series followed in 1973, with Robert Urich, Anne Archer, David Spielberg and Anita Gillette. Although 12 episodes were produced, ABC cancelled the programme after seven shows.

Paul Mazursky, who was Oscar-nominated five times and wrote and directed hit movies including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Harry and Tonto, Enemies: A Love Story and An Unmarried Woman, died on 30 June 2014, aged 84.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1388

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