Quintet * (1979, Paul Newman, Bibi Andersson, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey) – Classic Movie Review 7533

In the same year as he did the successful romantic comedy A Perfect Couple, director Robert Altman made this disastrous sci-fi mystery muddle Quintet (1979), set during a distant future inhospitable ice age, with Paul Newman starring as the seal-trapper hero Essex, who sets out for revenge when his girlfriend Vivia (Brigitte Fossey) and brother are killed in blast. He has a fling with Ambrosia (Bibi Andersson), and when he finds out that the killer is dead, looks for his killer St Christopher (Vittorio Gassman).

It is a bleak and obscure futurist fantasy in which everybody is playing unfathomably mysterious games, taken at a slow pace by Altman over a long-seeming two-hour running time, with a lack of tension and suspense. It does, however, come complete with stylish visuals of Montreal in winter, shot by Jean Boffety, the film’s one truly distinctive element.

Also in the cast are Fernando Rey, Nina Van Pallandt, David Langton, Tom Hill and Monique Mercure.

It is Newman’s second disappointing movie with Altman, made after Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976). Its understandable box office flop led to Alan Ladd Jr’s fall as head of production at 20th Century Fox.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7533

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