Review of Brewster McCloud (1971) by Stephen M — 10 Mar 2008

"Brewster McCloud" is usually dismissed as a fairly disastrous follow-up to Altman's breakthrough success, "M*A*S*H", but it's actually a charming little movie, well worth a look.

Bud Cort plays a latter-day Icarus, building a sophisticated winged apparatus which will enable him to fly under his own power. As well as being guided by a mysterious guardian angel (Sally Kellerman), whose scarred back evidences the surgical removal of her own set of wings(!), Brewster is also protected by a serial strangler, who promptly dispatches any obstructive meddlers in his path.

In other hands, this could have been a nauseating slice of hippie whimsicality, but Altman's approach is refreshingly unsentimental and his comedy is often startlingly cruel. The loudspeaker announcements of "M*A*S*H" have been replaced with radio news bulletins, charting the progress of the police's strangler investigation, and a college professor's lecture on birds is cleverly intercut with the action, to illustrate the bird-like foibles of the human race.

The standout performances are G. Wood's cynical police captain, Michael Murphy's narcissistic West-Coast super-cop, Stacy Keach's old shylock and Rene Auberjonois' lecturer. Fans of "The Wizard of Oz" will enjoy a reference featuring Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West.