not horrible nor great

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Don't let the famous poster of this swinging comedy of the late 1960's fool you; This is actually more a study of two marriages, two inseparable couples. This shows how modern morals changed the way people communicated, and how they just interrelate. These couples believe in total honesty, but it takes its toll on the real star of the film, Oscar nominated Dyan Cannon. This starts with the seemingly leading couple of Robert Culp and Natalie Wood heading towards a spa, driving into the beautiful countryside as the "Hallelujah Choir" plays lushly in the background. Wood finally gets to be free and honest and practically has a nervous breakdown over it. Back home, they begin to change their existence based upon their experience, and when motherly Cannon overhears Wood's blase revelation that Culp had an affair, she looses it, pretty much having a nervous breakdown in a very groovy nightclub. The tides turn as the honesty leads them to decide to switch partners, Wood ending up with Cannon's husband (a very droll Elliot Gould) and Culp preparing to make love with his best friend's wife, all in a rather tiny bed.So you can say that this is not as wild as it looks, supposedly happily married couples getting together and seeing if they can be as swinging as the world has been trying to tell them that it's OK to be. But individual morals are stronger than sexual desires, so there's a great lesson for them to learn. Thanks to a witty and smart screenplay, this ends up being surprisingly sweet, and nobody gets to point and laugh.

I feel that the director sold the idea of the movie to the studios as a hip sex comedy film. Then he went out and purposely made a serious film for its time. And when it came time to release it, the studio continued to sell it a sex comedy, which it isn't. There is humor, but not laugh out funny.What Mazursky did was capture moments of the relationships and tied them up beautifully. The first scene is amusing as Bob and Carol go to a remote retreat to discover themselves. The other interesting moment was when Alice and Ted are going to bed and just found out about Bob's infidelity and how disgusted they are that Carol has accepted it. Some argue that it is too long a scene, but that's what makes it amusing, watching Elliott Gould brilliantly attempting to have sex with Alice, but she is in no mood. This playful event is worth watching alone for the acting abilities of Gould and Dyan Cannon.The other great scene is when Bob rejects another fling to go home earlier and finds Carol with the tennis instructor. How it unravels is pure delight and shines the light on man's hypocrisy that it's okay for them to sleep around, but for the wife! Bob eventually comes around and accepts the situation with a great moment in cinema history.The final scene when they all get it on together is played wonderfully. But when they get to that bed, they all realize the situation they are in. Are they able to handle the reality of an orgy? A poignant moment played without dialogue right to the final frame. The very end scene is pure homage to Fellini's 8 1/2 as the characters come out of the casino with a crowd and they all march in a circle and then group together.A very interesting piece of cinema history, and one worth tracking down. Maybe out of date, but it sure shows us the period that it was aimed at, a period were it was time to liberate the mind and soul. We may need it again, as there are now evil forces attempting to shut down the human spirit for financial gain.

This is a movie that urges the viewer to feel more and think less. This new philosophy was difficult back then in 1960's when this film was released so imagine now in the 21st century trying to say what you really feel about everything rather than just think or saying all the time "I think". I don't know in English if there's a word that defines 'thinking' as an ideology/idealism/group just like "Comunism" or "Heroism", but in Portuguese we have something that sounds like "Thinkism" (which has nothing to do with the art form), a word that reflects how the act of think became a idealism so annoying and badly used that if a person starts to comment on something and it starts saying: "I think that..." means that the person is adept of "Thinkism", she or he are not sure of what they're saying and no one will listen to what they're saying. You gotta be sure of what you're telling and for that you got to feel this, experience something, share it to other people and ask them how they feel. Is it simple? No. And in real life is ten times harder then just say everything like the characters presented in this great film. The 'enlightment' meeting that Bob and Carol (played by Robert Culp and Natalie Wood) attended with many other couples about tell what they really feel about each other was something that every writer wanted to write: those dialogs, those almost dreamy situations, and how this one particular scene moved the whole film into the concept of this two couples who are willing to tell how they feel about themselves, sex, drugs, cheating, new partners and all the things around them. The other couple is played by Dyan Cannon and Elliott Gould. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" was groundbreaking in the 1960's because took films and society into another level by showing that societies shouldn't be so sexually repressed, so puritan and so critical of what happens behind four walls. The film and the American society of that time worked as mirrors to each other, one showing what they really were back then, a reflexion of how things were getting different and better. And the film is relevant today because you're not going to see anything so different, so original and so thoughtful than this film. It really makes one to think about his relationships, or a couple to be more open to each other without being too much on the defensive or fear a negative reaction; it really works as a therapy. Not to mention that this is Paul Mazursky's best screenplay, direction and film and the wonderful cast is amazing in their roles which was a daring act for everyone involved considering the themes dealt which made other well established actors refused to be in it. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" really makes you think and feel something unique. One of the best films of the New Hollywood (1967-1979). 10/10

***SPOILER*** Today, talk of performance-related erectile dysfunction is on every woman's lips, if you'll pardon the expression. Group or open sexuality, for the uninitiated straight first-time "vanilla" male, particularly in the same room/bed with another male, can be a very stressful situation.Simply put: Despite the appeal and willingness of Carol & Alice, neither Bob or Ted, in their situational anxiety, were able to "get it up". Watch carefully and you'll see the disappointment on the faces of the women.As the former public relations director and spokesman for the 1970s Sandstone Retreat (imdb: "Sandstone") I often compared the psychological benefits of well-introduced group sex with the well-guided initial psychedelic experience. Both experiences often result in highly euphoric, life changing, long lasting insight.Finally, B&C&T&A, despite the wardrobe, is by no means a quaint relic of the swinging 60s/70s. Real life realizations of their entirely rational human impulses occur every day and night in every large city and small town around the world.The Sexual Revolution, and the realities of polyamory, polyfidelity, the swinging lifestyle and safer sex practices remain alive and well in God-fearing America in the 21st Century.