Cast:
Natalie Wood (Carol Sanders), Robert Culp (Bob Sanders), Elliott Gould (Ted Henderson), Dyan Cannon (Alice Henderson), Horst Ebersberg (Horst), Lee Bergere (Emilio), Donald F. Muhich (Psychiatrist), Noble Lee Holderread Jr. (Sean Sanders), K. T. Stevens (Phyllis), and Celeste Yarnall (Susan) Directed by Paul Mazursky.
Review:
"You start out thinking there are rules, but as life goes on you find out it doesn't work that way."
Oh sure, Paul Mazursky was a director of social movies, but how many people made their debut in film that was a director's debut film? The Brooklyn native was the son of a piano player (who often took him to the movie theater) and a laborer; interested in acting from a young age, he graduated from Brooklyn College. Right before graduating, he mounted a production of a play, and it stoked the interest of a writer who was getting a script of his filmed; Mazursky as introduced to Stanley Kubrick for what became Fear and Desire (1952). The film wasn't a huge hit, so he waited tables alongside serving as a uniformed messenger for a delivery service for a time, and he also did his own nightclub act in the mid 1950s. He would dabble in a variety of supporting roles over the years in film and television, with his first writing job being for The Danny Kaye Show in 1963, where he reconnected with Larry Tucker. Tucker and Mazursky would write on the show for four years. They did their first script together for an idea that Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider had about a fictional rock-and-roll group; the resulting pilot became The Monkees, the only script that the two worked on in the resulting series run. In 1968, they wrote their first film script with I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968). He made his debut feature as a filmmaker with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). In addition to directing, Mazursky wrote this film with Larry Tucker (who served as producer). He would direct a variety of features over the next two decades, such as Harry and Tonto (1974; the only one of his films to win an Academy Award, which went to Art Carney for acting), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), and Enemies, A Love Story (1989). Mazursky stated his technique as one with plenty of preparation, from rehearsing with the actors for weeks to planning out shots before filming would start. A five-time Academy Award nominee, Mazursky died at the age of 84 in 2014. For this film, Mazursky was inspired by an article he read in Time magazine about Fritz Perls, a "gestalt therapist" that was described as being in a hot tub with naked people at a place called the Esalen Institute (located in the Slates Hot Springs in Big Sur, California), a place formed in 1962 dealing with New Age therapy. Mazursky was interested in seeing what the fuss was about and he went up there with his wife. The result of being the only couple at a place like that resulted in a flurry of script pages, and Mazursky later went to Tucker to collaborate on finishing the script. The film was a general success with audiences and for its crew, obviously.
How many movies were there that said one word about infidelity or even the idea of swapping wives at the time? When it comes to interpersonal relationships in society, it shouldn't be surprising that a movie like this came around as a comedy-drama. I do recall that I once knew people that were associates of people that I used to call good friends that participated in an open marriage for a brief time (because obviously you have to tell someone this rather than keep it hidden). Since I was a college student, it amused me (I am probably the type who takes bitter amusement at things), particularly in an era where phones communicate information far faster than in 1969. There was supposed to be a point to the previous sentences, but I sure as hell can't tell you what it means, aside from the fact that certain things seem far funnier when they aren't happening to you, as if making fun of annoying people is enjoyable (therapy or no therapy). In short: the times may change, but certain habits in romance do not, no matter how one tries to pass off insecurity as members of the revolution, with full honesty and emotional openness seem more like brand names than the vanguard for sexual liberation, where the adults seem more like they want to be kids. The movie is more of a well-shot curiosity rather than a fully endearing classic, but it still is generally involving enough to make its pursuit of human interest feel real. He aspired to make an atmosphere of familiarity among his actors that would make it so the actor knows the can't make a mistake, one where his style is all about making people think things are improvised, although the psychotherapy scene (involving Muhich, Mazursky's real-life psychoanalyst) was slightly improvised. On the one side of the quartet, you have the freshly born couple of "new honesty" that play deep into irony when freely talking about love affairs in Culp and Wood. Culp (fresh off the end of I Spy) is probably the most interesting to me of the four, in that he seems the most pathetic in his earnestness of new-found feeling, captured greatly in a scene where he talks with a guy who was having fun under the covers with his wife. If the 1970s would end up being called the "me decade", Culp and his mannerisms in reacting to the dawn of a time where one remodels oneself is destined for strange things galore. Wood had basically gone into semi-retirement by the time of this film, and she would appear as a main actor in four films over the next decade-and-a-half. Her vulnerability in the face of "found freedom of the sexes" is quite striking in how well she does in how rich in irony it all is. She may be enthusiastic about trying to push ahead in openness, but you still see the real person inside when it comes to seeing the cracks in trying to play enlightenment all the way through. On the other side of the quartet is a square couple in Gould and Cannon (both who rose to prominence with this film after years of Broadway and television, respectively), brittle and uptight as could be expected from people that are as effective in the teetering side of matrimony, which is probably best represented by a long ten-minute sequence between the two that sees a whole argument scrub itself in resolute realness. They are all insecure, it just so happens some of them look different when presented as fully honest or emotionally open. You generally can see at least one of these people as someone you might know, whether that involves hypocrites practicing marriage or stiff spirits. It does so without playing to some sort of moral high ground, as the director clearly likes these people enough on a level to play fair and let the audience make their own ideas. The ending is ideal in its messy resolutions that basically have the characters in a circle with one idea of what they didn't want on the pursuit of what they believe they want as people with lovers (some folks thought at the time that it was a cop-out ending, but come on now, I've seen bigger cop outs). As a whole, this is the kind of movie that moves to its own beat in portraying the human element in most of the messy qualities that come with attempts at trying to fix one's marriage or grow in emotional honesty, which results in a useful feature of its time. It isn't quite great, but it is a suitable messy movie of messy people from 1969 worth checking out as the first venture from Paul Mazursky.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
Next up, an old movie on the ledger since 2019.
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