Film Review: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1971, McCabe & Mrs. Miller takes place in the town of Presbyterian Church at the turn of the 19th Century.

Presbyterian Church is a mining town in Washington State. When we first see the town, there’s not much to it. The town is actually named after its only substantial building and the residents refer to the various parts of the town as either being on the right side or the left side of the church. The rest of the town is half-constructed and appears to be covered in a permanent layer of grime. This is perhaps the least romantic town to ever appear in a western and it is populated largely by lazy and bored men who pass the time gambling and waiting for something better to come along.

When a gambler who says that he is named McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides into town, it causes a flurry of excitement. The man is well-dressed and well-spoken and it’s assumed that he must be someone important. Soon a rumor spreads that McCabe is an infamous gunfighter named Pudgy McCabe. Pudgy McCabe is famous for having used a derringer to shoot a man named Atwater. No one is really sure who Atwater was or why he was shot but everyone agrees that it was impressive.

McCabe proves himself to be an entrepreneur. He settles down in Presbyterian Church and establishes himself as the town’s pimp. Soon, he is joined by a cockney madam names Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie). The two of them go into business together and soon, Presbyterian Church has its own very popular bordello. Sex sells and Presbyterian Church becomes a boomtown. It attracts enough attention that two agents of a robber baron approach McCabe and offer to buy him out. McCabe refuses, thinking that he’ll get more money if he holds out. Mrs. Miller informs him that the men that he’s dealing with don’t offer to pay more money. Instead, they just kill anyone who refuses their initial offer.

Three gunmen do eventually show up at Presbyterian Church and we do eventually get an answer to the question of whether or not McCabe killed Atwater or if he’s just someone who has borrowed someone else’s legend. The final gunfight occurs as snow falls on the town and the townspeople desperately try to put out a fire at the church. No one really notices the fact that McCabe is fighting for his life at the time and, as befits a revisionist western, there’s nothing romantic or dignified about the film’s violence. McCabe is not above shooting a man in the back. The killers are not above tricking an innocent cowboy (poor Keith Carradine) into reaching for his gun so that they’ll have an excuse so gun him down. McCabe may be responsible for making Presbyterian Church into a boomtown but no one is willing to come to his aid. The lawyer (William Devane) that McCabe approaches is more interested in promoting his political career than actually getting personally involved in the situation. Mrs. Miller, a businesswoman first, smokes in an opium den with an air of detachment while the snow falls outside.

It’s a dark story with moments of sardonic humor. It’s also one of director Robert Altman’s best. The story of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and the three gunmen is far less important than the film’s portrayal of community growing and changing. Featuring an ensemble cast and Altman’s trademark overlapping dialogue, McCabe & Mrs. Miller puts the viewer right in the heart of Presbyterian Church. There are usually several stories playing out at once and it’s often up to the viewer to decide which one that they want to follow. Yes, the film is about Warren Beatty’s slick but somewhat befuddled McCabe and Julie Christie’s cynical Mrs. Miller. But it’s just as much about Keith Carradine’s Cowboy and Rene Auberjonois’s innkeeper. Corey Fischer, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, and a host of other Altman mainstays all have roles as the people who briefly come into the orbit of either McCabe or Mrs. Miller. Every character has a life and a story of their own. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a film that feels as if it is truly alive.

As with many of Altman’s films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller was not fully appreciated when initially released. The intentionally muddy look and the overlapping dialogue left some critics confused and the film’s status as a western that refused to play by the rules of the genre presented a challenge to audience members who may have just wanted to see Warren Beatty fall in love with Julie Christie and save the town. But the film has endured and is now recognized as one of the best of the 70s.

Icarus File No. 18: Brewster McCloud (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1970, Brewster McCloud takes place in Houston.

A series of murders have occurred in the city. The victims have all been older authority figures, like decrepit landlord Abraham Wright (Stacy Keach, under a ton of old age makeup) or demanding society matron Daphne Heap (Margaret Hamilton, who decades earlier had played The Wicked Witch in The Wizard Of Oz). The victims all appear to have been killed by strangulation and all of them are covered in bird droppings. Perplexed, the Houston authorities call in Detective Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy) from San Francisco. Shaft only wears turtlenecks and he has piercing blue eyes. He looks like the type of guy you would call to solve a mystery like this one. It’s only later in the film that we discover his blue eyes are due to the contact lenses that he’s wearing. Frank Shaft is someone who very much understands the importance of appearance. As one detective puts it, when it comes to Shaft’s reputation, “The Santa Barbara Strangler turned himself in to him. He must have really trusted him.”

Perhaps the murders are connected to Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort), who lives in a bunker underneath the Astrodome and who seems to be fascinated with birds. Brewster dreams of being able to fly just like a bird and he’s spent quite some time building himself a set of artificial wings. A mysterious woman (Sally Kellerman) who wears only a trenchcoat and who has scars on her shoulder blades that would seem to indicate that she once had wings continually visits Brewster and encourages him to pursue his dream. However, she warns him that he will only be able to fly as long as he remains a virgin. If he ever has sex, he will crash to the ground.

Brewster thinks that he can handle that. Then he meets a tour guide named Suzanne Davis (Shelley Duvall, in her film debut) and things start to change….

Brewster McCloud is a curious film. The story is regularly interrupted by a disheveled lecturer (Rene Auberjonois) who is very much into birds and who, over the course of the film, starts to more and more resemble a bird himself. The film is full of bird-related puns and there are moments when the characters seem to understand that they’re in a movie. Frank Shaft dresses like Steve McQueen in Bullitt and his blue contact lenses feel like his attempt to conform to the typical image of a movie hero. (A lengthy car chase also feels like a parody of Bullitt’s famous chase scene.) When the old woman played by Margaret Hamilton dies, the camera reveals that she’s wearing ruby slippers and a snippet of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is heard. As played by Bud Cort, Brewster is the perfect stand-in for the lost youth of middle class America. He knows that he’s rebelling against something but he doesn’t seem to be quite sure what. Brewster, like many idealists, is eventually distracted by his own desires and his once earnest plans come cashing down. Brewster becomes an Icarus figure in perhaps the most literal way possible, even if he doesn’t come anywhere close to reaching the sun. As with many of Altman’s films, Brewster McCloud is occasionally a bit too esoteric for its own good but it’s always watchable and it always engages with the mind of the viewer. One gets the feeling that many of the film’s mysteries are not necessarily meant to be solved. (Altman often said his best films were based on dreams and, as such, used dream logic.) With its mix of plain-spoken establishmentarians and quirky misfits, Brewster McCloud is not only a classic counterculture film but it’s also a portrait of Texas on the crossroads between the cultures of the past and the future.

Though it baffled critics when it was released, Brewster McCloud has gone on to become a cult film. It’s a bit of a like-it-or-hate-it type of film. I like it, even if I find it to be a bit too self-indulgent to truly love. Quentin Tarantino, for his part, hates it. Brewster McCloud was released in 1970, the same year as Altman’s Oscar-nominated M*A*S*H. (Both films have quite a few cast members in common.) Needless to say, the cheerfully and almost defiantly odd Brewster McCloud was pretty much ignored by the Academy.

Previous Icarus Files:

Made-for-TV Movie Review: Nightmare in Chicago (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Taking place over the course of one very long day and night in December, this 1964 made-for-television movie opens with the discovery of a murdered woman in Indiana. She is the latest victim of a killer that the press has nicknamed “Georgie Porgie.”

Georgie Porgie, who has killed five blondes in the Midwest, is actually a nondescript man named Myron Ellis (Philip Abbott). Myron is middle-aged, short, and fairly normal-looking. That, along with the fact that he’s always moving, is one reason why he has yet to be captured. The only thing that really stands out about Myron is that, due to a medical condition, he is extremely sensitive to light and always wears dark glasses, even at night. When Myron isn’t murdering someone or stealing a car, he’s haunted by the voice of his dead sister.

Because he is a nomadic killer, the authorities in Chicago are worried that Myron is coming to their town next and it turns out that they’re correct. Myron is already in Chicago and he’s looking for his next victim. In a rather disturbing scene, he strangles a woman that he meets at a strip club, managing to do so without any of the many people around them even noticing. Myron wanders up and down the streets of Chicago, looking for his next victim. With his polite manners and his bland appearance, no one suspects that the polite man on the street corner is actually a murderer.

Police Commissioner Lombardo (Ted Knight) and Detectives McVea (Robert Ridgley) and Brockman (Charles McGraw) decide that the best way to catch the killer would be to set up a dragnet on the highway, stopping cars and shining flashlights at the drivers to see who has the weakest eyes. The only problem is that there is also a nuclear missile convoy scheduled to move through the city at the same time. With the highways congested and the killer not above wrecking his own car to throw the police off his trail, Lombardo tries to both capture the killer and make sure nothing happens to the convoy.

Nightmare In Chicago is a short and efficient thriller. It’s well-acted and rather serious in its approach. Especially when compared to more recent films with similar plots, Nightmare In Chicago deserves some credit for not trying to turn its serial killer into some sort of diabolical mad genius. Myron, like all serial killers in real life, is a maladjusted and rather stupid person who has only gotten away with his crimes due to pure luck. He’s not a Hannibal Lecter-style supergenius. Instead, he’s just a creep who has many, many issues. The film also does a good job of capturing the manic energy and eventual exhaustion of pulling an all-nighter. It’s an effective little film with a memorably sordid story.

For modern audiences, probably the most interesting thing about Nightmare in Chicago is that it was directed by Robert Altman and was, in fact, his second non-documentary film after The Delinquents. At the time he made this film, Altman was largely working in television. Nightmare In Chicago was one of the first made-for-TV movies and it was a ratings and critical success. Seen today, it’s easy to spot Altman’s trademark attention to detail in the film. While it’s far more straight-forward than the majority of his feature films, Nightmare in Chicago still displays the talent that eventually led to Robert Altman become one of Americas most important filmmakers.

Film Review: The Delinquents (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1957 and filmed on a $63,000 budget in Kansas City, The Delinquents tells the story of Scotty White (Tom Laughlin).

Scotty is eighteen. He’s not a bad kid. He’s just a bit directionless and he’s got a slight rebellious streak. Today, Scotty would not be considered to be that wild of a teenager but, by the standards of 1957, he’s dangerous. He’s a criminal. He’s a rebel. He’s an outsider. He’s a degenerate. He’s a delinquent and it doesn’t matter how in love he and 16 year-old Janice (Rosemary Howard) may be, Janice’s parents don’t want Scotty anywhere near their daughter. She’s too young to date, they say. Scott’s got a bed reputation, they say. Scotty is set to soon leave for college and he’s got his entire future ahead of him. But it doesn’t seem like much of a future without Janice as a part of it.

Poor guy! Is it any surprise that he ends up hanging out with two legitimate delinquents, Cholly (Peter Miller) and Eddy (Richard Bakalyan)? At first, Cholly and Eddy seem like great friends to have. They even come up with a scheme to allow Scotty to spend some time with Janice. (The plan doesn’t work, of course. But it’s the thought that counts.) However, when the police show up to bust a wild delinquent party, Cholly and Eddy suspect that Scotty might be a rat! When their attempts to get Scotty drunk enough to confess fail, they end up driving a passed out Scotty into the country so they can dump him on the side of the road. However, they decide to stop to rob a gas station first. Believe it or not, this leads to even more trouble.

It also leads to the question of why they couldn’t have waited to rob the gas station until after they got Scotty out of the car. Watching The Delinquents, I came to suspect that many of the characters just weren’t that smart. Seriously, how difficult is it to be a delinquent in Kansas City? But as dumb as Cholly and Eddy were, Scotty was even dumber because he continually got outsmarted by the both of them. Maybe Janice’s parents had a point about him….

The Delinquents is pretty much a standard youth-in-trouble exploitation film, one that owes more than a little bit of debt to Rebel Without A Cause. The main reason why anyone would watch the film is because it was not only the directorial debut of Robert Altman but also the acting debut of Tom “Billy Jack” Laughlin. And let’s give credit where credit is due. Though I doubt either one of them would have claimed this film as an example of their best work, there is some obvious talent to found in The Delinquents. Laughlin gives an appealing performance, even though Scotty’s an idiot. And Altman keeps the action moving and even manages to come up with some visually striking sequences, like the opening jazz performance and the “wild” delinquent party. Viewed today, The Delinquents is an interesting preview of what was to come for both Altman and Laughlin. Though the plot is nothing special and it’s hard not to laugh at the portentous narration (which was apparently added by the studio and without Altman’s knowledge), The Delinquents is an energetic exploitation film and a reminder that even Kansas City had its mean streets.

Scenes That I Love: The I’m Easy Scene From Robert Altman’s Nashville

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today would have been Robert Altman’s 100th birthday, it only seems right that today’s song of the day should come from his best film. In this scene from 1975’s Nashville, Keith Carradine sings I’m Easy as Altman’s camera finds each of his lovers in the audience, all convinced that Carradine is singing expressly to them.

This song won Nashville it’s only Oscar. It also made Keith, who wrote the song, the only Oscar winner amongst the fabled Carradine family.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Robert Altman Edition

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of the great director, Robert Altman! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Robert Altman Films

MASH (1970, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Harold E. Stine)

The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

Nashville (1975, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Paul Lohmann)

3 Women (1977, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Charles Rosher, Jr.)

14 Days of Paranoia #5: Bloodknot (dir by Jorge Montesi)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1995’s Bloodknot, we are introduced to a grieving family.

Evelyn (Margot Kidder) and Arthur (Allan Royal) are mourning the death of their oldest son, who was in the military and who died during a military operation in the Middle East. Their other son, Tom (Patrick Dempsey), spends his time working on cars and helping out local racecar driver Mike (Craig Sheffer). Youngest daughter Gail (Ashleigh Ann Wood) doesn’t really have much of a personality but she’s definitely worried about her mother.

Suddenly, Connie (Kate Vernon) shows up in town. Wearing a uniform that is slightly too large for her, Connie claims that she served with Evelyn’s dead son and that they eventually became more than just friends. That’s strange, Evelyn says, he never mentioned you. Connie replies that she encouraged him to write more but, for whatever reason, he didn’t. Everyone agrees that what’s important now is that Connie has introduced herself to the family. Soon, Connie is living at the mansion and making flirtatious eye contact with both Arthur and Tom. One might expect Evelyn to be concerned about this but instead, Evelyn is too busy walking around in a depressed daze and blaming her “sinful” past for all the recent tragedy.

You probably already guessed that Connie is not who she says she is. Indeed, Connie has come to the family with an agenda of her own. She’s looking for vengeance and I won’t spoil it by revealing what she’s upset about but I will say that it’s fairly dumb and makes less sense the more that you think about it. Tom’s girlfriend, Julie (Krista Bridges), suspects that Connie is a liar but can she prove it? Julie even talks to the officer from whom Connie stole her uniform after Connie met and seduced her at a bar. Why would Connie, who seems to be willing to kill anyone, leave that one person alive? Obviously, it’s so Julie can learn the truth but still, it’s an oversight on Connie’s part that makes little sense.

(Julie isn’t a very interesting character but she does get to wear a really nice pair of boots so at least she’s got that going for her.)

Looking at the members of this film’s cast — Patrick Dempsey, Craig Sheffer, Kate Vernon — and you have to wonder if someone specifically said, “Let’s make an paranoia-themed, erotic thriller with the least interesting actors of the 90s.” (Yes, Dempsey got better but, in this film, he was still doing the goofy awkward thing.) This film goes through all the usual steps. Connie starts out as being friendly and then progressively reveals herself to be more and more unhinged. The men are reduced to stuttering incoherence by the sight of Connie smiling at them. For this type of film to work, the actors have to be fully willing to embrace the melodrama but instead, both Kate Vernon and Patrick Dempsey give oddly lowkey performances, with Vernon’s attempt at a seductive smile instead coming across like a smirk that should have clued everyone in to the fact that she was not to be trusted. If you’re appearing in a film like this, you should at least have a little fun. As for Craig Sheffer, he’s as mind-numbingly dull as ever.

The film does improve a bit towards the end, largely because Connie’s secret reason for harassing the family is so implausible that it can’t help but be a bit entertaining to listen to the characters discuss it. Overall, though, this was pretty boring. Let this film be a lesson to all — embrace the melodrama!

Previous entries in 2025’s 14 Days Of Paranoia:

Cattle Queen of Montana (1954, directed by Allan Dwan)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Pop Jones (Morris Ankurm) and his daughter Sierra Nevada (Barbara Stanwyck) leave their ranch in Texas and head up to Montana to take over some land that Pop has inherited. Evil Tom McCord (Gene Evans) wants the land for himself and conspires with a member of the local Blackfoot tribe, Natchakoa (Tony Caruso), to take it over. After a surprise attack leaves Pop dead, Sierra is nursed back to health by Colorados (Lance Fuller), the son of the Blackfoot chief. Sierra tries to reclaim her land from McCord, with the eventual help of the mysterious gunslinger Farrell (Ronald Reagan).

There are a lot of reasons why this B-western doesn’t really work, a huge one of them being that Barbara Stanwyck was several years too old to be playing Morris Ankrum’s innocent daughter. The biggest problem though was casting Ronald Reagan as a mysterious gunslinger. Farrell is a character who is supposed to keep us guessing. We’re not supposed to know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. But as soon as Ronald Reagan shows up and starts to speak, we know everything we need to know about Farrell. There was nothing enigmatic or even dangerous about Ronald Reagan’s screen persona. He came across as being more open and honest as just about any other actor from Hollywood’s Golden Age. For the role of Farrell, it appears that he went a day without shaving and he tried not to smile while on-camera but he’s still good old dependable Ronald Reagan. That pleasantness and lack of danger may have kept him from becoming an enduring movie star but it did serve him very well when he moved into the political arena.

Cattle Queen of Montana was one of the 200 westerns that Allan Dwan directed over his long career. It’s not one of his more interesting films, though he does manage a few good action sequences. A far better Dwan/Reagan collaboration was Tennessee’s Partner, which was released four years after this film.

I Watched Art Show Bingo (2017, Dir. by Matthew Fine)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

Wil Hunter (James Maslow) wanted to be a painter in New York but instead, he ended up working for his Dad’s storage unit business with his brother, aspiring filmmaker Orrie (Jesse Pepe). When Wil’s ex-girlfriend, Susan (Lillian Solange Beaudoin), arranges for Wil to have a tent at a local art show, it revives Wil’s dreams of making his living as an artist. While Orrie films a documentary about what’s goes on behind-the-scenes at an art show, Wil gets to know fellow artists like Chief (Robert Wilson Seymone) and Vic (Jason Kypros). He also falls in love with the owner of tent-next-door, Rachel (Ella Lentini).

Art Show Bingo is a sweet movie, a love story with an edge of authenticity. I get the feeling that it was made by people who actually have experience with art fairs and “starving artist” shows because all of the little details feel true, like the customers who try to set their own prices, the kids who don’t often understand that are should be looked at but not touched, and the snooty judges who dislike everything they see. I’ve been to enough amateur art fairs that I immediately recognized a lot of the situations and the characters in Art Show Bingo. (After seeing this movie, I’m definitely going to be nicer the next time I go to one.) Personally, I was not really that impressed by Wil’s paintings but art is often in the eye of beholder and his work did get better as the movie went on. Orrie got on my nerves but I liked both Wil and Rachel and I really wanted to see them get together.

I liked Art Show Bingo a lot more than I thought I would. It wasn’t perfect but it still left me smiling.

Scenes That I Love: Angie Dickinson Hits Lee Marvin In Point Blank

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Point Blank (1967, directed by John Boorman)

Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest of the screen tough guys, Mr. Lee Marvin! Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1967 film, Point Blank. In this short but emotionally exhausting scene, Angie Dickinson hits Lee Marvin’s career criminal, over and over again. Marvin, for his part, barely reacts. This scene is the epitome of Lee Marvin’s mystique. He played men who only showed emotion when it was necessary. Dickinson hits Marvin to try to make him feel something but Marvin’s career criminal in beyond such concerns.

From Point Blank, here is today’s scene that I love: