The Robert Altman That Got Away

Posted by morlockjeff on November 25, 2006

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Now that the news is starting to sink in that Robert Altman will NEVER make another movie, I can’t help but recall the director’s legacy and what he gave us – the good and the bad – over the years. Although most critics and fans point to “Nashville” as his seventies masterpiece, I’ve always been partial to his unique spin on the Western, “McCabe and Mrs. Miller.” But, I also admire an earlier film that he directed that has been conspicuously absent or missing from his filmography in most of the recent obituaries on the man. “That Cold Day in the Park” was made between “Countdown” and “M*A*S*H*” in 1969 and was based on a novel by Richard Miles. A gender twist on John Fowles’s “The Collector,” the film stars Sandy Dennis as a lonely spinster whose apartment overlooks a park in Vancouver. One wintry day she spots a young man on a park bench who appears to be homeless. She invites him into her home to get warm but ends up encouraging him to stay. The fact that the stranger (Michael Burns) pretends to be mute only adds to the ensuing strangeness. His little joke backfires, however, when he arouses Dennis’s long-suppressed sexual feelings and becomes a prisoner in her apartment.

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Dennis ended up getting typecast as neurotic women in many films but she is excellent here, going from voyeur to an obsessive/compulsive nutcase. The sequence where she hires a prostitute (a great cameo appearance by Luana Anders) for Burns and then watches them is particularly creepy. Dennis would go on to work with Altman again in “Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” in 1982. You can also spot Michael Murphy here in a minor role. Murphy, of course, would become one of Altman’s repertory players, appearing in at least eight of his films including the lead in the made-for-cable series “Tanner ’88“.

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Even though “That Cold Day in the Park” has a more straightforward narrative structure than any of Altman’s subsequent films, all of the familiar Altman stylistics are already on display – overlapping dialogue, a eye for the odd detail, an editing style that emphasizes character behavior, a more natural sound mix, and an extensive use of the zoom lens (which is employed more intelligently than in most films). Yet, unlike Altman’s later work, “That Cold Day in the Park” maintains a tautness, a tension that becomes increasingly claustrophobic as Dennis becomes completely unhinged. Unfortunately, this film is rarely shown on television and is now out of print on VHS. The only way you’re going to see it is if you invest in an all-region DVD player and purchase the Pal version which is available in England.

A very poor quality bootleg of the film is also posted in sections on YouTube:

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7 Responses The Robert Altman That Got Away

Posted By Klondike : November 25, 2006 4:11 pm

Not to veer too far off, tangentially, from an excellent blog, but your mention of the vastly overlooked Cinema gem "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" made me wonder (yet again this year) just how much the creators of HBO's Deadwood owe Bob Altman for the captivating catharsis of his unique brand of "Frontier Realism", warts and all. Talk about the mud, the blood & the beer!

Posted By RHS : November 25, 2006 5:10 pm

I think it's a credit to Altman's ecclectic aesthetic (now there's a workout for the tongue) that you could name a dozen films that got away. I don't know if mine would be the bizarre Images (1972), a showcase for Suzannah York, or the kooky A Perfect Couple (1979), which gave sadsack character actor Paul Dooley a chance to play the leading man. Maybe that's Altman's legacy; without being a populist, he really did offer something for everybody.

Posted By claudenorth : November 26, 2006 12:37 am

And then there are Brewster McCloud and Thieves Like Us, which were released on laserdisc and are long overdue for their DVD debuts. (And I'm still wondering why Fox didn't include HealtH in their Altman box set…)

Posted By mary : November 26, 2006 6:43 pm

Always loved Mc Cabe and Mrs. Miller, Brewster Mc Cloud. Saw That Cold Day….. when it was first released and I was too young to care who the director was. Fascinating, haunting– but never realized it was directed by Altman, and wouldn't have guessed from my memories of the film. Hope to see all his wonderful movies in deluxe editions soon.

Posted By sharon : January 12, 2007 11:30 pm

I remember a movie i watched a long time ago and it was already started but was stuck watching anyways so i never got the title. It was about a shy woman who married a well to do kinda royal man. She is at her new home in this mansion and is welcomed by a cold hearted woman who seems to always bring up the late woman of the house and how she could never measure up to her and how everyone loved her. At the end was a twist that the dead wife was killed by her husband then by someone else and the new wife wants to protect her husband and says she did it then is cleared and the one who really did it was the crazy houskeeper. This movie was soo good i want to see it again but don't know who plays in it or what it was called. How do i find out? It is driving me crazy so if anyone knows I would love to know. thank you very much sharon

Posted By Richard : June 29, 2007 3:53 pm

That Cold Day in the Park is one of my all time favorite movies. I love Sandy Dennis and she is great in this film. Plus the fact it is shot in my hometown is an added bonus. Too bad this film is never shown on TV because people are missing a unique and entertaining in an offbeat way a character study of a lonely woman. It's an incredible performance. Too bad it's not on DVD in a widescreen mode.

Posted By Deborah : July 1, 2010 6:58 pm

I was a big fan of Michael Burns in the late 60s and early 70s. He was terrific character, and much underrated. Too bad he gave up acting.

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