YMMV / Carnal Knowledge

• He Really Can Act:
  • Art Garfunkel had been chosen by Mike Nichols for the Ensemble Cast of Catch-22, but was still best-known as the Lesser Star in Simon & Garfunkel. His impressive portrayal of Sandy opened up a modest acting career for him alongside his music.
  • Ann-Margret proved she could be a serious actress here, even earning an Oscar nomination.
  • Candice Bergen's complex performance as Susan turned her overnight from "Edgar Bergen's beautiful daughter who also does movies" into a star.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Jonathan delivering an Ed McMahon-esque "Heeere's Bobbie!" during the slide show, years before Jack Nicholson would immortalize a similar line in The Shining.
• Hollywood Homely: Cindy calls Bobbie a "tub of lard". Granted, her sedentary lifestyle probably doesn't put her in the best physical shape. Still, she's talking about a character played by Ann-Margret!
• One-Scene Wonder: The women all basically qualify, but Rita Moreno as Louise counts in particular, since she's only in the final five minutes of the film.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The frank conversations about sex, as well as nudity and some fairly graphic sex scenes made this film a huge censorship flashpoint in 1971. Most famously, the city of Albany, Georgia banned it. This was appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, where it was overturned. It was an important decision, limiting the right of government to censor material, and establishing that serious, non-titillating depictions of sex in art don't fit the definition of obscenity.
• Values Dissonance: Even at the time, there was much debate on whether the film itself shared its main characters' unenlightened views about women, or if Jonathan and Sandy are meant to be seen as losers whose toxic ideas about women and sex are the cause of their problems.

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