“Bertolucci and Brando conspire magnificently, some­times awkwardly, to create not just a film about an affair, but the affair itself — an affair which we have the option of resisting or ac­cepting on a gut level, and which like most affairs (and unlike most current films) is better experi­enced than written about.”

“Suddenly moviegoers of both sexes have encountered ... Marlon Brando’s pseudo-sensitive stud’s swagger, Burt Reynolds’s coy centerfold swagger, and Norman Mailer’s ballsy literary swagger.”