Brewster McCloud (1970)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Robert Altman

Writer:

Doran William Cannon (written by)

Release Date:

18 August 1971 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy

Tagline:

THIS MAY BE OVER YOUR HEAD.

Plot:

Brewster is an owlish, intellectual boy who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome. He...

Plot Keywords:

Flight | Police | Bird | Fallout Shelter | Loss Of Virginity

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Bud Cort	...	Brewster McCloud
Sally Kellerman	...	Louise
Michael Murphy	...	Det. Lt. Frank Shaft
William Windom	...	Weeks
Shelley Duvall	...	Suzanne Davis
Rene Auberjonois	...	The Lecturer
Stacy Keach	...	Abraham Wright
John Schuck	...	Officer Johnson
Margaret Hamilton	...	Daphne Heap
Jennifer Salt	...	Hope
Corey Fischer	...	Officer Hines
G. Wood	...	Det. Capt. Crandall
Bert Remsen	...	Officer Douglas Breen
Angelin Johnson	...	Mrs. Breen
Dean Goss	...	Officer Ledbetter

Also Known As:

Brewster McCloud's (Sexy) Flying Machine (USA) (original script title)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:A (original rating) | Finland:K-12 (1980) | Argentina:18 | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Astrodome - 8400 Kirby Drive, Houston, Texas, USA

Company:

Lions Gate Films

Trivia:

When Doran William Cannon was writing the script, he had in mind Austin Pendleton to play Brewster. Pendleton, who was in Skidoo (1968) written by Cannon passed on it so he can do Catch-22 (1970)

Goofs:

Factual errors: The license plate "BRD SHT" would have been disallowed; Texas had a long list (in about five languages) of things you could not have on custom plates.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in A Decade Under the Influence (2003)

Soundtrack:

Brewster, Don't Blow Your Mind

Classic Cult Classic: For the Birds

This movie is a million things at once. Some may find that as a bit of a turn-off, but then that's what a cult classic film is really about, isn't it?

Brewster McCloud is a reclusive boy who lives in the basement of the Houston Astrodome. He has a short job as chauffeur for a miserly old man. He is looked down upon for his meek appearance and his quiet manner. He dreams of building himself a set of wings and using those to fly away from all this suffering.

That's how the film starts, anyway. There are three basic stories in the movie: (1) Brewster McCloud's coming-of-age story, (2) the parallel metaphor of Brewster McCloud's dream of flying away from worldly sorrow, and (3) the murders of people who mistreat Brewster and who all die with raven droppings on their faces.

The real irony of this film is how the character of the Lecturer keeps pointing out similarities between the characters and certain birds, and yet the ending comes around, and we learn how unlike birds we are. There is so much information about birds, you wonder if this was an adult remake of an after-school special.

Overall, I'll have to use the word most of the other reviewers have used: quirky. There are things which are very different. There is the Pythonesque beginning where, as a woman sings the National Anthem and the credits roll, she stops, tells the band to try again in the right key, and the credits restart as well as the singing. There are small bits such as when a police officer holds up a lighter when his partner says there's only one way to know for sure if there's marijuana in a cigarette. And there is my favorite character, the Lecturer, who lectures the audience about the behavior of birds while he himself starts making strange noises and begins pecking at seeds...