Date: 16 November 2003 Summary: Welles---Frankenheimer/Altman
The triple-headed script is the accomplished, seasoned transformation
promised by That Cold Day In The Park, and was inexplicably mistaken for an
antiwar protest in some quarters. Welles is the main tributary.
An early tracking shot along the operating tables perhaps reveals that the
unit was not responsive at first to Altman's camera style, which very
effectively organizes material propounded by Frankenheimer. Two reports
require verification, one that Lardner disowned the script as by another
hand, and the other that Auberjonois conceived the blessing of the jeep on
the set, a detail of pointed structural significance. Add to this that the
loudspeaker voiceovers and the superimposed titles after the credits
("...and then there was KOREA") were dictated by circumstances in
post-production, reportedly.
The point of the film is clearly stated in the final voiceover ("putting our
soldiers back together"). Countless details, as well as the overall
structure, demand formal analysis. Gen. Hammond's unit flag is seen as red
in the shot that has him proposing a football game to Col.
Blake.
The even keel of the democratic, sane mind is placed in contradistinction to
the hysterias it encounters. The only serious criticism that might be
offered is George Burns's joke that "the trouble with America is the folks
who know how to run it are too busy driving cabs and cutting
hair."
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