Brewster McCloud[2] is a 1970 American black comedy film directed by Robert Altman, and starring Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, Shelley Duvall, William Windom, and René Auberjonois.

The film follows a young recluse named Brewster McCloud (Cort) who lives in a fallout shelter under the Houston Astrodome, where he is building a pair of wings in order to fly.

As the opening credits roll, wealthy Houstonian Daphne Heap begins to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the field of the Astrodome, but stops the band, insisting that it's off-key.

As the credits end, we see Brewster in an Astrodome fallout shelter, where a pet raven defecates on a newspaper headline about a speech by then–Vice President Spiro Agnew.

Scenes are interspersed throughout the film of a lecturer who regales an audience including an enthusiastic young woman with a wealth of knowledge of the habits of birds, as he becomes increasingly birdlike himself.

The victims are all authoritarian or overtly racist figures, including Daphne Heap and the aged, wealthy and vicious landlord Abraham Wright.

Brewster eludes the police with the apparent help of Louise but he eventually drives her away — and dooms himself — when he ignores her advice about sex by hooking up with Astrodome tour guide Suzanne Davis.

[10] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four and, comparing it to M*A*S*H, wrote that it was "... just as densely packed with words and action, and you keep thinking you're missing things.

"[11] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded three out of four stars and wrote, "Once again Altman has taken a story (this time a rather weak one) and given it a distinctive spirit and flavor thru casting, cinematic devices and odd juxtapositions.

"[14] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times believed that the film was "not in a class" with M*A*S*H, but opined that "I doubt that the new year will give us a more startling, bizarre and rowdy piece of business.

"[15] John Simon wrote, Brewster McCloud is a pretentious, disorganized, modishly iconoclastic movie which, in the manner of its Icarus-like hero, aspires to fly high and merely drops dead.

"[16] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "A fairly promising comedy-fantasy is bumbled because the script idea lacks theme and clarity and point and the cast the ability to battle poor material".