This Bold '60s Dramedy Took Taboo Into the Mainstream (2024)

The Big Picture

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice explores midlife crises and marital woes in the midst of a cultural revolution.
Paul Mazursky's film delves into gender politics and the changing attitudes towards marriage in the 1960s.
The movie, despite its '60s setting, remains relevant today by showing the struggle to stay vital in changing times.

As the 1960s transitioned into the 1970s, America experienced a cultural revolution the likes of which it hasn't seen since. The Civil Rights Movement, the sexual revolution, and the proliferation of drug use completely upended the normal order of American society in the first half of the 20th century. Hollywood found itself in a similarly transitional period, and aging movie moguls turned the reigns over to young directors who wanted to make films about what was really going on. It was in this environment that Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a surprisingly frank exploration of polyamory, was released by a major studio at the tail end of the '60s.

Robert Culp and Natalie Wood star as Bob and Carol Sanders, a well-to-do married couple who decide to become more open with their feelings after a weekend getaway at a self-help retreat. Their newfound openness is put to the test when Bob, a documentary filmmaker, has an affair with a young assistant while on a shoot in San Francisco. Bob tells Carol the truth, and she forgives his infidelity, much to the surprise of their uptight friends Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice Henderson (Dyan Cannon). Alice can't believe Carol would accept her husband's unfaithfulness, while Ted finds his eye wandering during a business trip to Miami. Things come to a head when the four find themselves jumping into bed together while on vacation in Las Vegas, with messy results. While some films that had their finger on the pulse have aged poorly, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice has aged like wine, and many of its observations about midlife crises and marital woes are just as relevant today as they were in 1969.

This Bold '60s Dramedy Took Taboo Into the Mainstream (1)

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Middle-Aged Malaise and the Counterculture Intersect in 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was the directorial debut of Mazursky, who started out as an actor in such films as Stanley Kurbrick's Fear and Desire and Richard Brooks' Blackboard Jungle before turning to screenwriting. Mazursky was almost 40 by the time he helmed his first film, and, like the characters in B&C&T&A, was already married with children. While movies like Easy Rider, released the same year, examined the counterculture through the lens of wayward youths, Mazursky's was from the perspective of adults entering middle age, with all the baggage that comes along with that.

What's fascinating about Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, which Mazursky co-wrote with Larry Tucker, is that it finds its characters dealing with a transitional period in their lives as the country was dealing with its own radical transformation. Born in the 1930s, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are too young to be fully part of the greatest generation and too old to be considered baby boomers. They're stuck somewhere in between, both fascinated by the revolution of the 1960s and terrified of it. They want to prove that they're hip to changing times, yet their conservative upbringings color their experiences with sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Getting old is hard enough, but to do so during a period of mass cultural upheaval is truly a head trip.

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Paul Mazursky Explores Women's Liberation Through Sexuality

Marital infidelity was nothing new in the 1960s, but what did change were certain attitudes about it. While affairs were usually carried out in private, the era of free love led to many couples straying with their partner's consent, with some even choosing to forgo the traditional strictures of marriage. Of course, as in all things, there existed double standards for men and women. As he would later do in An Unmarried Woman, Mazursky explores the seismic shift taking place during the Women's Liberation Movement, as both Carol and Alice break through the expectations of the traditional housewives they were raised to become.

When Bob admits his affair to Carol, he's almost upset that she isn't upset about it. Her acceptance acts like a green light for Bob to sleep around more, and he encourages Ted to partake in some extramarital activities of his own. Yet when Bob returns home from a trip unannounced and finds his wife in bed with another man, his embrace of free love suddenly flies out the window. Carol has proven her independence, and for all of Bob's supposed progressive values, he can't quite handle it, leading to a hilarious scene where he tries to prove his acceptance of the situation by offering a drink to the tennis instructor (Horst Ebersberg) in his bed.

Alice, meanwhile, is aghast at Bob's infidelity and Carol's approval of it, and she's appalled that Ted isn't troubled by it. She unloads this during a therapy session in which she questions her life up to that point. In Vegas, Ted admits to having a one-night stand while out of town, sparking Alice to propose what she believes is the only possible solution to their current predicament: a foursome with Bob and Carol. Like Bob, Ted is unsettled by his wife's newfound sexual freedom, proving once again that what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander... at least in the goose's eyes.

'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice' Is Both a Film of Its Time and Outside of It

If Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice were made today, it would likely be independently financed.Yet through a miracle of historical circ*mstances, it was distributed by Columbia Pictures and became a box office hit that earned four Oscar nominations (including Gould and Cannon for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original Screenplay for Mazursky and Tucker, and for Best Cinematography). To understand how and why it got produced by a major studio and embraced by audiences and the academy alike is truly one of those "you had to be there" moments that happened throughout the late '60s and '70s, as Hollywood fought to maintain its relevance by appealing to younger audiences.

Yet even though the characters dress in Tie Die and wear hippie beads, the film isn't any less relevant today than it was in 1969. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice may be a quintessential '60s movie, yet its themes about gender politics, getting older, and trying to remain vital during changing times remain universal. More than anything, it shows what can happen to people who become too comfortable in their lives and suddenly find themselves on the other side of middle age, asking themselves where the time went and what they can do to get some of it back before it's too late.

The film ends with Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice wandering around Las Vegas as the soundtrack plays – almost ironically – "What the World Needs Now Is Love." As the song goes, it's the only thing that there's just too little of. Funny how, for as much as things change, they somehow stay the same.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is currently available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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