SOURCE: "Kansas City, Kansas City, Kansas City, Kansas City," in Film Comment, Vol. 33, No. 2, March-April, 1997, pp. 68, 70-1.

In the following review, Combs discusses the lack of personal references in Altman's films, noting the exception of Kansas City, which is set in Altman's home town.

In his biography of Robert Altman, Jumping Off the Cliff. Patrick McGilligan charts some lost territory in the Altman story—lost in the sense that there are whole areas of the director's life that haven't shown up in his work. Altman was born in Kansas City. Missouri, in 1925, of German immigrant stock. The family name was originally Altmann, the loss of the second n prompting Altman on occasion to refer to himself as a "closet German." But unlike others of his filmmaking generation—say, Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola, who are of different stock but have their Catholicism in common with Altman—he has...