That Cold Day In The Park (1969) (Arrow)

[moviemaker]

ARROW VIDEO
Release date: April 8, 2024

TWO-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tom Ralston
Illustrated collectors' 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
DISC ONE

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
New audio commentary by critic Samm Deighan
Isolated music and effects track in lossless mono
Crazy in the Rain: Altman's Vancouver, a newly produced featurette revisiting the locations by Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women
Archive 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
Image gallery
DISC TWO (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE)

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of a newly extended 114-minute version of the film re-integrating previously deleted material from a surviving pre-release print
Original lossless mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

TRAILER:
https://www.youtube.com/supported_br...tube.com/watch

[Nitroes]

Great film I have that Arrow and the Eureka! release and the Olive release

I came by it by accident in the cinema as I think it played in the background in No Skin Off My Ass and I quickly did my homework and bought the crap VHS from the USA. There was simply no other way to see it 30+ years ago.

The Olive release (2013) was a revelation after years of mushy NTSC VHS.

[moviemaker]

Nitroes, thanks for sharing that great little anecdote. I'll share my tale (tail?).

Fresh off the bus in LA circa 2000, I caught "3 Women" at the Sunset 5, back when it was the place for revival screenings alongside the pre-Tarantino New Beverly. I only knew Altman from the classics: "The Long Goodbye," "McCabe," "Nashville" (Joan Tewkesbury would later become my screenwriting teacher, but that's another story).

"3 Women" haunted me. Coming hot off "Lost Highway" and "The Big Lebowski," I realized Altman had basically invented that whole left-of-center, reality-is-negotiable thing that would define my taste forever.

Discovering it was part of a trilogy led me to "Images," which made my neck hairs do their little standing ovation. So having owned Criterion's "3 Women" for years, and then finding a great copy of Arrow's "Images" with booklet on eBay, I was eager to complete the trilogy for my collection. But then came "That Cold Day in the Park," where Sandy Dennis's lonely, possessive caretaker hit way too close to home.

See, I had my own Sandy Dennis experience when I started directing commercials. A female talent manager, roughly my age, took me under her wing. Friendly advice became lunch meetings became... something uncomfortably more. When I tried to pump the brakes back to friendship, things got weird. She spun elaborate tales about relationships with famous people and others that, let's say, existed more vividly in her mind than in reality. Classic people-pleaser that I am, I'd failed to set boundaries until it felt more "Sunset Boulevard" than mentorship.

Altman started in commercials, too, and I can't help wondering if he drew from similarly... educational Hollywood experiences for his psychologically fraught characters.

Anyway, recently, I scored the ultra-rare Arrow 2-disc Altman set from the most unlikely source: Tower Records Dublin.

Below are a few pix of my latest, um, score:

[Show spoiler]

[Nitroes]

Films are such lovely captures of memory real or imagined.

It's worth going through everything Altman has done especially his stagey stuff like Streamers and my real love Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

And if people liked the recently departed Philip Baker Hall in Midnight Run and Hard Eight the epoch-making Secret Honor is an absolute must.

If I could only ever watch one director's films there's a lifetime of joy and nuance in Altman.


Imagine if Altman's own company Lions Gate (which he sold) was still taking chances on cinema that's even slightly interesting.

Thank **** for A24 (who distribute through Lions Gate no less).