Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

(On Cable TV, March 2020) Mainstream Hollywood’s take on the sexual revolution of the 1960s gets one of its definitive examples in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Writer-director Paul Mazursky takes on the radical openness of the time with his protagonists seeking enlightenment (or maybe just a sense of cool) through affairs and proposed swinging. But nothing quite goes as planned, which definitely keeps the film more interesting than a simple time capsule. A typical problem with 1960s films is that they often feel like watching your parents trying to goof off—we know it’s not going to hold and, in the meantime, it’s just embarrassing. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, in its breathless embrace of free love and infidelity, occasionally runs into this problem. But keep watching because Mazursky eventually arrives at a conclusion that anticipates the post-hedonistic letdown of the 1970s. Or maybe the film is more about messy feelings than the attraction of free sex, and that works just as well. In addition to Mazursky’s welcome ambivalence about the whole thing, the film does benefit from a solid cast—with specific mentions to the ever-beautiful Natalie Wood and a pleasantly goofy Elliott Gould. While permeated by the smell of the 1960s, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice has aged better than the average drama of the time: it doesn’t go for easy answers, moral characters or irony. It’s still definitely a period piece, but not an unbearable one.