Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) on Netflix
Bob and Carol Sanders come home from a weekend retreat where complete honesty was the theme. They share the idea with their friends Ted and Alice Henderson, who are doubtful.
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- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.8/108,342 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes79%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bob Sanders, a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles, and his wife Carol return from a weekend retreat convinced that complete honesty is how they want to live. They bring their enthusiasm to their closest friends, Ted and Alice Henderson, who are more conservative and stay doubtful. On a film shoot in San Francisco, Bob sleeps with a young production assistant. He tells Carol when he comes home, describing it as a physical act and not an emotional one, and Carol takes the news without anger. Carol passes the story on to Ted and Alice, and Alice, upset by the affair and by Carol's calm, has trouble with it.
Cast
- Donald F. Muhichas Psychiatrist
- Noble Lee Holderread Jr.as Sean Sanders
- Linda Burtonas Stewardess
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Paul Mazursky got the idea from a Time magazine article about gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, described as being in a hot tub with naked people at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He visited Esalen with his wife as the only two people in their group who knew each other.
SPOILER
The first draft ended with the four characters crying in each other's arms after an aborted orgy, then pulling themselves together on their way to a Tony Bennett show. Mazursky instead went with a "Fellini ending" he likened to the close of 8½ (1963), with the couples walking outside as "What the World Needs Now Is Love" plays.- For the psychotherapist scene, Paul Mazursky cast his own therapist, Donald F. Muhich, whom he had been seeing, to act opposite Dyan Cannon. Muhich went on to appear in three further Mazursky films.
- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was the first American film to open the New York Film Festival, doing so on September 16, 1969.
