Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish

 

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50^th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish

 

 

9 out of 10

 

First a correction: I wrote above that this comedy is within the first fifty of Variety’s Top 100, I just saw that it is in fact ranked 90^th, I could have edited the above, but maybe this way I will remember – what counts is that it is good entertainment, and it has two of my favorite thespians in the cast: Elliott Gould and Natalie Wood

West Side Story https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/west-side-story-based-on-plays-by.html is one of the motion pictures, that will be part of the History of Film – unless the MAGA crowd and their Orange Buffoon decide otherwise, who knows, to burn what they call ‘woke’ culture and its archives – and Natalie Wood is Maria there

 

West Side Story is a musical, modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is also about love, albeit a very different narrative, this is the time of the sexual revolution, The Flower Power, make love not war period, or the aftermath, and the two couples from the title will experience ‘honesty’

Paul Mazursky has directed Harry and Tonto https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/harry-and-tonto-written-by-josh.html another film that I enjoyed – in the introduction to Bob & Carol we have the two of them visit this unusual therapy place, Natalie Wood has the role of Carol Sanders and Robert Culp is Bob Sanders

 

The retreat has nude women and men sun bathing, taking baths together, probably having sex, though intimacy is not shown, cinema had not yet advanced so far – recently, I have enjoyed Splitville, and less of Die My Love, but they both show much more than we were used with - the main pint would be ‘openness’

I have read recently about polyamorous relationships, which may have their roots in the Flower Power of the sixties and further back, part of the humor comes from the exaggerations: this scene takes place in a restaurant, where they meet heir friends, Ted Henderson aka Elliott Gould and Alice aka Dyan Cannon, and they have dinner

 

Carol is amusing when she insists on getting the waiter to open up, asking ‘what does he really think’, which prompts the poor man to start worrying and ask in his turn if it was the wine, or what was wrong, incomprehensive of this strange attitude, reminding me of Monty Python https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/05/and-now-for-something-completely.html with the Indian restaurant

Bob travels to San Francisco and upon his return, he admits he had an affair, no, not that, it was just sex with a woman, and then the reaction is somewhat bizarre, in that Carol appears to accept the situation, she is ‘proud’ her spouse was so sincere, and then she tells Ted and Alice, who are horrified, the man insisting Bob should have kept the secret

 

Nevertheless, Ted has his own trip to Miami, and he ‘cheats’ on his wife, they define that by being dishonest, and then he brings it out in the open (spoiler alert, as if somebody reads this far) when the four of them are together, and Alice has either a breakdown, or an epiphany, perhaps a Flow moment of some kind…Flow is a classic of psychology https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html Alice starts undressing, and they have open conversations, are they attracted to the spouse of their friends, denial is followed by confession, and then potentially by sex, although I am not positive on that

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’