Paul Mazursky
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In the inadvertent one, the film pays bizarre homage to, of all things, the feminist touchstone film “An Unmarried Woman” by having Christian sitting at a piano and singing Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” just as Jill Clayburgh did in the earlier film, effectively taking the single whitest scene in film history and somehow making it even whiter in the process.
There are shades of Steven Shainberg’s Secretary in Babygirl, but by its finale, it ends up strangely reminiscent of Paul Mazursky’s revelatory Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. In that film, Mazursky follows the four leads as they wander out of their hotel room following their (kind of) sexual escapades. They dreamily wander around Las Vegas, drifting back to their respective partners to gaze up at them lovingly before the screen fades to black.
In one scene, director Will Gluck (Easy A) shows a television playing the 1969 Paul Mazursky couples-swapping comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
In fact, the pervasiveness of this idea in non-controversy-courting movies aimed at the mainstream multiplex may be a relatively recent development, but "Friends with Benefits" acknowledges its place as a Justin-come-lately in the history of sex-in-the-cinema by placing "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969) on a television screen in the background of one scene.
As with “Easy A,” “Friends With Benefits” is a thinly-veiled showcase of Sony electronic and entertainment products: Sony VAIO laptops, Columbia Pictures’ “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” playing on a Sony flat-screen and Kris Kross’s “Jump” courtesy of Columbia Records blasting out of a Sony Ericsson phone.
Old movies like On the Waterfront and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice play on screens in the background.
The Terminal (2004)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced by Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
Characters Plot
There are bumpy moments in Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson's screenplay (Viktor learns English even more quickly than Robin Williams' Vladimir in "Moscow on the Hudson"), and the film feels just a tad overlong, but ultimately "The Terminal" creates an intricate, fairy-tale world of its own.
Combine the stoic resolve of Charlie Chaplin's little tramp with the wonderment of Robin Williams' beleaguered defector in Moscow on the Hudson and you've got Viktor--an innocent abroad whose life skills are about to be sorely tested.
Hanks, in one of his worst performances, plays Viktor Navorski, a funny Eastern European in the tradition of Andy Kaufmans La tk e and Robin Williamss Vladimir in Moscow on the Hudson.
And by regarding the film as a neo-Moscow on the Hudson (same pidgin accent from a television comedian-turned-Oscar-winner, same institutional setting, same formula love story), the timing of The Terminal is indeed interesting: like 1984's appalling Moscow on the Hudson, the picture appears late in the first term of a Republican president who has led us into record deficit and unprecedented international instability.
The Invite (2026)
Directed by Olivia Wilde
influenced by Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Themes Plot
Upon its release in 1969, Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was both praised and criticised for being a social commentary and a verdict on marriage (and Americans) that was conveyable only through comedy. The film’s watershed financial success made it possible for others to follow suit and explore themes of consensual promiscuity on screen.
Paul Mazursky’s BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE in 1969 also treads similar ground but had oodles more maturity and profundity.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Directed by Audrey Wells
influenced by An Unmarried Woman (1978), Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
Plot Visuals
The early part of the film is like a slicker version of Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman (1978).
By herself, she bravely faces an array of contractors (many of whom look like Robin Williams in his "Moscow on the Hudson" period), finds new friends and hopes to love again.
This establishes the social structure for visitors who will be under the domain of Head butler Jennings (Alan Bates, "An Unmarried Woman").
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Directed by Joel Coen
influenced by Harry and Tonto (1974), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)
Characters Themes
There is also an orange cat who becomes a prominent character, including a road trip, that made me suspect that the Coens brothers were paying sly tribute to the 1970s road trip film Harry and Tonto.
The movie definitely takes the romance out of living in Greenwich Village in the old days; its set in 1961, not even a decade after the events of Paul Mazurskys wistful memoir Next Stop, Greenwich Village, but the winter air is thick with the desperation of the talented to break out.
The Hurt Locker (2008)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
influenced by Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
Visuals
Bigelow also lifts a scene, a bit shamelessly, from Paul Mazursky’s “Moscow on the Hudson,” in which Russian defector Robin Williams finds himself overwhelmed by choice in an American supermarket; she might have found another way to make her point about the glut of creature comforts American life has to offer.
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
Directed by Joachim Trier
influenced by An Unmarried Woman (1978)
Themes
Watching The Worst Person in the World , my mind traipsed toward another coming-of-age film: the 1978 Paul Mazursky–helmed classic An Unmarried Woman .
As a comedy about despots, the movie has forebears in everything from Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" to that underrated Richard Dreyfus vehicle "Moon Over Parador."
So I would be a fool to expect Roberts to walk off on her own like Ellen Burstyn did in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” or Jill Clayburgh did in “An Unmarried Woman.”
There is a tradition of films about transgressive outsiders transforming the households into which they are invited, from Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning in 1932 to its 1986 remake, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, by way of Pasolini’s Theorem (1968).
The basic plot formula—a shaggy-dog outsider lets some air into a stale bourgeois life—is a familiar staple from Jean Renoir’s Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) to Paul Mazursky’s yuppie Los Angelino remake Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), though the film that I thought of most during Ade’s was the (significantly funnier) 2012 Adam Sandler vehicle That’s My Boy.
Musician/Writer Matt Selou believes there are many similarities to the film Harry and Tonto – especially with the protagonist trying to fly but for some reason having to turn back at the airport and taking a car for the long distance.
It’s a character study in the tradition of, say, “Harry and Tonto” or “A Woman Under the Influence,” but it also wants to be a paranoid thriller along the lines of “The Parallax View” or “Three Days of the Condor.”
Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Directed by Satoshi Kon
influenced by Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
Themes
There are some, like “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and “My Man Godfrey,” but, still, not exactly a popular subject.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
Directed by Judd Apatow
influenced by Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Themes
In "Shampoo" or "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", to take two examples, the characters were constantly in and out of the sack with either strangers or each other.
Penn's film poses a little bit of everything in the grand tradition of films like "Five Easy Pieces," and "Harry and Tonto," in which our main character is simply another pariah in a life they simply can't belong to.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
Visuals
It’s also not the chic or glamorous L.A. that informed Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Pretty Woman, and recently Michael Tolkin’s The New Age.