General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Brewster McCloud

Brewster McCloud is a 1970 American fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Altman, written by Doran William Cannon, and produced by Lou Adler, in which a reclusive young man living beneath the Houston Astrodome builds a pair of wings so that he can fly.¹^•² It was Altman's first film after the success of *M*A*S*H* (1970) and was released the same year.³

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer / producer	Robert Altman; screenplay credited to Doran William Cannon; produced by Lou Adler¹
Principal cast	Bud Cort (Brewster), Sally Kellerman (Louise), Michael Murphy (Det. Lt. Frank Shaft), William Windom (Haskell Weeks), Shelley Duvall (Suzanne), René Auberjonois (The Lecturer), Stacy Keach (Abraham Wright)³
Release	Houston premiere 5 December 1970; New York opening 23 December 1970 at the Coronet Theatre; Los Angeles opening 3 February 1971¹
Runtime and rating	104 minutes (AFI; listed as 105 minutes by some reviewers), rated R, Metrocolor, Panavision¹^•⁴
Cost	Budget cited as $1.8 million in the Los Angeles Times; a 28 August 1970 Daily Variety item listed a final cost of $5.6 million¹
Critical scores	87% Tomatometer from 23 reviews and 80% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 72 from 12 reviews on Metacritic²^•⁵
Setting	A fallout shelter beneath the Houston Astrodome, the first feature film shot inside that structure²^•¹

Spoilers

Plot

Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) is an owlish, intellectual young man who lives hidden in a nuclear fallout shelter beneath the Houston Astrodome and works on constructing a pair of mechanical wings with which he hopes to fly.²^•³ In the AFI synopsis he is employed as chauffeur to the 120-year-old flying ace Abraham Wright, follows a rigid regimen of exercise and a health-food diet, and is observed by a pedantic ornithologist known as The Lecturer.¹

His mentor is Louise (Sally Kellerman), a mysterious woman described variously as a maternal supporter, a guardian angel who wears only a trench coat, and a de-winged fairy godmother; she encourages his flight fantasies but warns him of the dangers of sex.²^•¹^•⁶ Despite that warning, Brewster becomes involved with Suzanne (Shelley Duvall), a shallow stadium usherette, and this involvement brings about his downfall.³

Meanwhile Brewster's enemies begin dying off, including a national anthem singer and his penny-pinching boss, and the deaths draw the attention of Police Det. Lt. Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy), a broad parody of Steve McQueen's character in Bullitt, complete with piercing blue contact lenses and a wardrobe of turtlenecks and leather shoulder holsters.²^•³ According to the Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry, Louise arranges on Brewster's behalf a series of homicides, always involving birds.⁶ In the ending, Brewster does fly, magnificently, before fluttering exhaustedly and crashing to the floor of the Astrodome, where he dies.⁶

Style and themes

The film is a contemporary take on the Icarus legend, the Greek myth of a boy who flies too close to the sun, and it mixes the comic frenzy of a Chuck Jones cartoon with European art-cinema influences from Fellini, Godard, and Truffaut, along with in-joke homages to The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Bullitt (1968).³ The Science Fiction Encyclopedia describes the story as told elliptically, emphasizing a symbolic, avian iconography through crosscutting, and notes that the film foreshadows themes that became important in Altman's later work.⁶

Narration and density. Roger Ebert, reviewing the film in the Chicago Sun-Times in December 1970, wrote that it was even more densely packed with words and action than *M*A*S*H*, so that viewers keep thinking they are missing things. He noted the bird lecturer whose remarks about birds are reflected in human lives, a radio announcer tracking an epidemic of strangulations, and Altman's habit of adding background action and making scenes allude to each other. Ebert concluded that he was not sure the film was about anything and wondered whether it was primarily style, an expression of Altman's personal sense of humor.⁴

Production

The original screenplay, titled Brewster McCloud's (Sexy) Flying Machine, had passed from studio to studio and developed a reputation as one of the most famous unproduced scripts in Hollywood; Bob Dylan expressed interest in it at one time.³ Music producer Lou Adler made his entrée into feature filmmaking with the project, announced in February 1969 as a collaboration with producer Phil Feldman and musician John Phillips; the working title was shortened to Brewster McCloud's Flying Machine and finally to Brewster McCloud.¹ Actor Michael J. Pollard was initially set to play the title role but dropped out soon after joining the project, and Adler then sent the script to Altman, who was editing *M*A*S*H* at the time; when Altman signed on, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer agreed to back the picture.¹

Screenwriter Brian McKay worked with Altman on a revision but dropped out over creative differences, leaving Altman to fashion his own script, often on the fly.¹^•³ Doran William Cannon, the only writer to receive onscreen credit, was denied involvement in the production; Altman later said he had rewritten the script totally, and that the original author had sold it to Adler on the condition that nobody could share the writing credit.¹^•⁷

Principal photography began in Houston, Texas, on 22 May 1970 and was completed by the end of July or early August.¹ Judge Roy Hofheinz permitted the filmmakers to shoot inside the Houston Astrodome, the first time a feature film had been shot inside the structure, and the location agreement stipulated that the world premiere be held there.¹ Shooting inside the Astrodome was scheduled for 10 to 20 June 1970 so that filming took place only while the Houston Astros baseball team played away games.¹ Production difficulties included Altman's replacement of cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth with Lamar Boren during the shoot, clashes with leading man Bud Cort, and the director's brief hospitalization with a hernia.³

Casting and debut. Bud Cort had appeared in *M*A*S*H*, as had six other actors cast in this film: Sally Kellerman, René Auberjonois, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, G. Wood, and Corey Fisher.¹ The film marked the screen debut of Shelley Duvall, whom Altman discovered at an engagement party for a local Houston artist; she went on to appear in six of his films.³ John Phillips wrote four songs for the picture without visiting the set, drawing on Adler's daily telephone accounts of the production and his impressions of Houston.¹

Reception

Critics were either baffled by or hostile to the film's peculiar charms. Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave it 1.5 out of 5 and called it "imitation hip," while Variety called it "a sardonic fairy tale for the times, extremely well cast and directed."² Roger Ebert gave a positive review, writing that the film conveyed "a live intelligence, rushing things ahead on the screen."⁴ James Aubrey, the new studio head of MGM, disliked Altman and the film and condemned it to a quick play-off in saturation bookings across the country; Altman had predicted it would join *M*A*S*H* in dominating the 1970 Oscar race.³ Despite the commercial failure, Altman championed the film as one of his favorites, and it enjoyed cult status among college film societies during the 1970s.³

Aggregated modern scores reflect the divided response: 87% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 23 reviews with an 80% audience score, and a Metascore of 72 from 12 reviews.²^•⁵ Later assessments have often treated it as a minor but distinctive Altman work. Time Out's 2010 review called it one of the director's "weird, little masterpieces" and a kooky, Pynchonesque fantasy.⁸ A BFI program note called it "an honourable failure" in which the director tries to do and say everything at once.⁹ The film was long unavailable on home video until Warner Archive released it on DVD in 2010 with a widescreen transfer.⁸

Place in Altman's career

Brewster McCloud was the first film Altman made after *M*A*S*H*, and the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research describes it as the least seen of his features from the early 1970s; the film's publicity promised "Something else" from the director of *M*A*S*H*, with Altman's photo included on the poster as a selling point.¹⁰ The Rough Guide to Film characterizes it as the wacky comedy that followed his breakthrough, an example of his ability to follow a well-received film with a commercial disappointment.¹¹ Altman himself, in a later interview, said that both of his 1970 releases made top-ten lists and described Brewster as "a very, very bizarre film" that he did not think would ever have been highly successful with a broad audience.⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1970s › Released 1970 to 1976

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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