and other types of experimentation with interpersonal relationships inside American society. Mazursky would write and shoot a few more stories set in California, including Alex in Wonderland and Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Vincent Canby of The New York Times panned the film as "unpleasant because it acts superior to the people in it, which is no mean feat because Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are conceived as cheerful but humorless boobs, no more equipped to deal with their sexual liberation than Lucy and Desi and Ozzie and Harriet." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, however, gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "The genius of 'Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice' is that it understands the peculiar nature of the moral crisis for Americans in this age group, and understands that the way to consider it is in a comedy." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "a scintillating social comedy and a movie which could turn out to have more to say about you than any flick you'll see this year." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three-and-a-half-stars out of four and called it "the best comedy of the year," with acting that was "eminently tender and believable." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post declared it "the sharpest American comedy in several years ... It may be the same old marital war, but the battle lines and the weapons are modern, and this makes all the difference in the world between a comedy that feels 'new' and one that feels second-hand." Writing in The New Yorker the film critic Pauline Kael praised both the film and director Mazursky, calling it "a slick, whorey movie, and the liveliest American comedy so far this year. Mazursky, directing his first picture, has developed a style from satiric improvisational revue theatre—he and Tucker [co-writer] were part of the Second City troupe—and from TV situation comedy, and, with skill and wit, has made this mixture work—though it looks conventional, it isn't." John Simon called Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice 'deplorable'. The film holds a score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 61 reviews with the consensus: "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice isn't as subversive as it thinks it is -- but it is smart & sophisticated & funny & well-acted." Natalie Wood decided to gamble her