UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

classicsoncall Watching today, almost a half century after it was made, the movie comes across like a parody of the Sixties with it's free love and preoccupation with the sexual revolution. But if you were around back then, this was, I presume, a serious treatment of people in search of fulfillment and meaning and getting as much sex as you can while the getting is good. It also features Robert Culp wearing all of the most pretentious looking clothes one might have appropriated to impress like minded hedonists - Nehru jacket, frilly shirt, love beads and whistle - the kind of outerwear that I, even as a teenager at the time, fully regarded as a complete turn off.The best scene for me had Ted (Elliott Gould) trying to make love to his wife Alice (Dyan Cannon) right after learning their friend Bob (Culp) had a fling in San Francisco, with wife Carol (Natalie Wood) being so understanding about it. It's a scene every guy can relate to, because even knowing that his wife is seriously not in the mood, bad sex is still way ahead of anything in second place, and there's no giving up until he either scores or it becomes totally hopeless. With the cut away, you have to use your imagination on how that one turned out.Gould had another great scene when he confessed his infidelity about a fling in Miami. Trying to come to grips with it he's got the peanuts falling out of his mouth and he's just hilarious. Actually, all the principal players did a fantastic job with their characters, to the point that it's impossible to say who was best.Others reviewing the picture here make note of it's dated quality, and in a lot of respects I agree - the clothes, the hair styles, the whole Sixties vibe that pushes the envelope on relationships, open marriages and wife swapping in it's heyday. If you weren't around for the decade, this one offers a nice time capsule snapshot of the era, one you could sit down with and gaze in awe at how folks often put themselves into some ridiculous situations. And while you're at it, don't forget the astonishing gazpacho.

jeffhaller This movie is demanding. If you want to appreciate what is there and there is a lot, you gotta stay focused. The humor does not hit you over the head and it is satire, so it isn't really laugh out loud stuff. I couldn't see this movie when it came out, it was rated R. And I am sure I would have hated it until I was around 40. Tonight was my first experience and it was nothing like what I expected. It starts out like a sort of documentary examining a group not unlike Marriage Encounter. Then two of these participants continue their lives with all of their "learning" ignoring their instincts. Alice, who is certainly much less uninhibited than the others, turns out to be the hero because she didn't sacrifice her values to go along with some idiotic idea of becoming a more focused person. The ending is a knockout. It brings happy tears. This film cannot date. And it is remarkable that it reflected so honestly on its own era. Not a casual entertainment.

sddavis63 I admit that I was a bit puzzled by the perspective of this movie. All the way through, it seemed to be building to the logical conclusion that the four main characters were going to end up swinging together, culminating in Alice's expected suggestion to the other three that they have an orgy. All the way through it seemed to be a celebration of the sexually free-wheeling 60's, with Bob and Carol essentially enjoying an open marriage - not only having affairs but telling each other about them and sometimes even meeting each other's lovers - and basically trying to convince Ted and Alice to join them in this lifestyle of freedom. Then, in the end, it didn't happen. That didn't upset me - I was pleased by the ending of the movie, but still surprised. The lasting message that I got from the movie was that, ultimately, sex without love is an empty thing, but love without sex is a wonderful thing. Thus, the concluding scenes of the four deciding that their friendship made it impossible to begin a sexual relationship and the eye contact they make with strangers while on their way to the Tony Bennett concert, while all the way the closing song ("What The World Needs Now Is Love") plays in the background. I loved the ending and thought it perfectly appropriate. I also loved the beginning of the movie with the encounter session which was absolutely hilarious.Robert Culp & Natalie Wood & Elliott Gould & Diane Cannon as the respective title characters were fantastic all the way through, and their performances made an interesting story even better. The only thing I never really figured out was the decision to open the movie with the "Hallelujah Chorus"? What was the relevance? I wasn't sure. Small point, though, in an overall great movie.

CanyonLove ***SPOILER*** Today, talk of performance-related erectile dysfunction is on every woman's lips, if you'll pardon the expression. Group or open sexuality, for the uninitiated straight first-time "vanilla" male, particularly in the same room/bed with another male, can be a very stressful situation.Simply put: Despite the appeal and willingness of Carol & Alice, neither Bob or Ted, in their situational anxiety, were able to "get it up". Watch carefully and you'll see the disappointment on the faces of the women.As the former public relations director and spokesman for the 1970s Sandstone Retreat (imdb: "Sandstone") I often compared the psychological benefits of well-introduced group sex with the well-guided initial psychedelic experience. Both experiences often result in highly euphoric, life changing, long lasting insight.Finally, B&C&T&A, despite the wardrobe, is by no means a quaint relic of the swinging 60s/70s. Real life realizations of their entirely rational human impulses occur every day and night in every large city and small town around the world.The Sexual Revolution, and the realities of polyamory, polyfidelity, the swinging lifestyle and safer sex practices remain alive and well in God-fearing America in the 21st Century.