That Cold Day In The Park — That Cold Day In The Park ( Blu Ray)
From the late 1960’s That Cold Day In The Park, is a slow-burn drama-thriller with light psycho-thriller undertones. It regards a repressed, prim & proper thirtysomething upper-class woman who asks a late teen man into her apartment- after observing him sitting in the cold pouring rain. With the seemingly deaf ‘n’ dumb stranger becoming her obsession. The film features two well-picked leads, a slowly unfolding feeling of mental disquiet, and a rewardingly bleak character study. Here from Arrow Video is a new double disc Blu-Ray release of this film- taking in two different cuts of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other archive & new extras.
That Cold Day In The Park was released in the summer of 1969. It was filmed in a wintery Vancouver- which adds another edge of chilled disquiet to proceedings. The film was the first feature-length from Kansas City, Missouri-born Robert Altman- who is a highly respected film-maker, having forty-one features to his name- with some big titles to his name such as classic war set comedy-drama M*A*S*H (1970), comedy edged neo-noir The Long Goodbye(1973), and LA set comedy-drama Short Cuts (1993).
The film opens in the large apartment of Frances Austen (Sandy Dennis) a thirty-something wealthy woman. It’s a winter day & is pouring with rain outside- she’s holding a lunch for her older socialite friends. While staring out of the apartment's widow she notices a young man The Boy (Micheal Burns) getting soaked to the bone on a bench- after everyone has left, she goes down to the park calling the man in. He’s seemingly both deaf ‘and’ dumb- he takes a bath, and she gives him a bed for the night. And as the next few days pass, she buys him clothes & shoes. And it becomes clear she is deeply lonely, with little or no sexual experience.
The Boy isn’t quite what he initially seems, and as will follow him going back & forth from the apartment- we find out he can speak & hear, and is involved with his drug-taking/free-spirited sister Nina (Susanne Benton).
As the film unfolds Frances's posh/ awkward persona starts to unfold, and it’s clear that she is somewhat unbalanced- becoming very possessive of The Boy. Large parts of the film take place in her large apartment- this is used to great uneasy effect going from drowsy candle-lite conversations, on to shot-through glass bricks one-sided chats.
The film's main focus is drama, with low-key psycho-thriller undertones- with the whole thing lacking both gore & nastiest. Instead, we get a feeling of slow/ steady mental decline- with the Boy's initial game-playing/ smugness disappearing as the film unfolds.
Both leads are excellent- Dennis is brimming with awkward uptightness, while Burns is the polar opposite for the first half or so of the film- with a very nuanced performance. The supporting cast is also well picked/ realized- though it’s often just the two interacting. We get some most effective moments of unease when the characters move out of the apartment- where we get mumbled & broken lines of dialogue from other people talking in the foreground.
The film comes in two different versions one at one hundred and seven minutes, and the other at one hundred and fourteen minutes- I watched the longer cut of the film, which features the once thought-lost elements- this is the first time this cut has been released.
Moving onto this new region B blu ray, and the release takes in two discs- along with an Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Brad Stevens, Anna Bogutskaya and James Flower, original press notes including an essay by Altman, and an excerpt from David Thompson’s Altman on Altman.
The first disc takes in the shorter cut, and the extras of the set. On the new side, we get commentary by critic Samm Deighan- as usual with Ms Deighan, it’s an often thought-provoking & well-researched track. She begins by talking about how the film is one of the lesser-seen and underappreciated pictures in Altman’s filmography. She talks about how the film subverts the Women's Film genre umbrella that takes in melodrama, romance, etc. She chats about the film's tragic tone, and possible influences such as gothic horror films of the 1940s, and female-led noirs. She discusses how the film shows the domestic space as a prison, and the awkward one-sided conversations. Later on, she talks about how the film toys with your expectations. She talks about Altman’s career, and other notable films similar to the film to hand. We get bios of smaller part actors as they, and why the film wasn’t a success at the box office. A track you could easily play a few times.
We have Crazy in the Rain: Altman’s Vancouver (16.57) which finds Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women revisiting locations from the film, as well as discussing the film itself. We also find out rather bizarrely that the film got double billed with Jess Franco’s WIP film 99 Women (1969).
On the archive side, we have an interview with film critic and historian David Thompson, author of Altman on Altman. Extended scenes from a pre-release print of the film, never seen on home video before. Over ten minutes of behind-the-scenes footage featuring Altman and Dennis, from the archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, theatrical trailer, and image gallery.
For those who enjoy slow-burn/ uneasy 70’s drama That Cold Day In The Park is a must-see, and this new release from Arrow is excellent- with great new HD scans of the film, and a rewarding selection of new and archive extras. It’s out now on Blu-ray and available on the ARROW here from 8th April.