That Cold Day in the Park
Nov 12, 2013
(Robert Altman, 1969, United States, 35mm, 112 min)
Even enthusiastic Robert Altman fans may have missed the film that scored the (then-young) director a contract for M*A*S*H—only in recent years has this strangely poetic psychological thriller gained acclaim as an overlooked masterpiece.
In That Cold Day in the Park, Altman dives into the cloistered world of Frances, a lonely spinster, who rescues a young man from the rain, only to reveal how far she will go to keep him as her own. In an age when cinema too often saw women as objects and fear as formulaic, That Cold Day in the Park cast a woman at the helm of a visually subtle but spine-chilling tale, and to this day it is a must-see for Altman aficionados.
Preservation funding for That Cold Day in the Park provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation.