Brewster McCloud (1971)

Robert Altman was an on and off director - a hit or a miss director you could say. Some movies are very good pieces of fantasy, drama and poetry, while other movies you wonder why he wanted to film these stories at all.

At his best, he celebrated the poetry and wonder and mystery of everyday life, American style. At his worst, he could be pretentious, a little insulting and a little juvenile. But I’d rather focus on the good movies he did, which “Brewster McCloud” is in the middle. He’d done very well the previous year with “M-A-S-H”. And the movie studio, MGM, gave him a huge lunch table to work on for his next film.

Unfortunately, it is not his best movie but it is still interesting. Coming from the early to mid 1970’s when he was on a roll making movies, it is very much of its freewheeling, give it to the man, freedom loving era, but it doesn’t really hang together as a movie. I give this movie 2 stars - fair if anything.

Bud Cort, an early actor for Altman movies, and still acting and working today, plays the self-titled hero. Brewster McCloud is a man-child, as was in the movies in that time, who takes revenge on some very reprehensible adult figures. He is also building a mechanical suit that will enable him to rise above the nasty, unpleasant, adult world of the movie.

Shot in the city of Houston, Texas, he comes up against some of the worst people you can find anywhere. Altman definitely owes a lot to films like “The Little Prince” and a lot of comic books and fantasies from around the world and the USA. Unfortunately, a good idea has to be delivered in a movie in a good way, which the movie doesn’t do. There are many flubs and many ridiculously done scenes. Some of the adult, evil characters are not very well put together and their sequences are just too short to really deliver the justice Altman puts on their heads. The photography is a little too grimy for such a professional studio movie. Some of the whimsy wears thin and the counter cultural idea of being above the adult world isn’t really well put together and it doesn’t hang together in the current world now.

The younger actors are only under Altman’s thumb in the movie. It was the young Shelley Duvall’s first movie, an actress who would definitely go on to other Altman movies, like Michael Murphy and Roger Schuck who were also in the film. He was a master of the actors he used and he knew how to bring out some of their best acting. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do that here. The movie gets an A- for effort and some good scenes, but overall it’s not the best Altman movie. He did better after. Some of the scenes seem rushed like when he’s battling an old gangster in the early part of the movie.

Altman got to shoot in the then newly built Astro Dome of Houston fame. The concluding sequence is even set there, when Brewster McCloud is battling the evil adult villains. Altman is realistic enough to see that goodness does not always triumph, but he doesn’t really deliver the message as well as in subsequent movies. I grew up on his movies but this is not one of his best - thankfully, he did better later.

Brewster Mcclouds model

The Mccloud villain.