Thursday, September 23, 2021

Movie review - "That Cold Day in the Park" (1969) ***

 Early Robert Altman. Shot in Canada and it feels like a Canadian film. Sandy Dennis is one in a long line of 50s-60s repressed spinsters whom one suspects is a stand in for  gay male from the writer, though I may be wrong about that.

She picks up a guy from a park (Michael Burns) and gives him clothes and a bed and is hot for him. The guy pretends to be mute but can chat and lives with his sister - who is often nude and seems to want to sleep with him. Dennis wants to sleep with him too. He doesn't want to sleep with her so she hires a hooker for him (Luana Anders, very good) and locks him in his room.

Its unsettling and weird and quite interesting to watch. It felt long - I would've preferred her to be ga-ga earlier but then I like my stories more conventional.

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