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.
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.