The Cold Room

Plot synopsis:
Carla Martin (Amanda Pays) is leaving an English parochial boarding school for the summer to live with her estranged father at an inn in East Berlin. The headmistress (Ursula Howells), a nun, gives her a 1936 guide to Berlin, telling her she may find it useful, even though Berlin has surely changed as much as she has. Her best friend, Sophie (Lucy Hornack), gives her a bag of marijuana.
Hugh Martin (George Segal), her father, who lives on Central Park West, greets her at the Berlin Airport, surprised at how grown she looks. Carla is a bit embarrassed that he has given her a teddy bear, as she is nearly seventeen years old. She addresses him on a first name basis, and a camera pan reveals that he just bought the teddy bear at the airport. As they cross through the Berlin Wall, Carla is terrified that she will be personally searched and caught with drugs.
Hugh has a thirty-year-old girlfriend named Lili (Renée Soutendijk), who recommends Frau Hoffman's (Elizabeth Spriggs) inn because of the local character being significant to Hugh's historical research. Carla is convinced that there are rats behind the wall and wants to leave. Hugh has Frau Hoffman humour her and show her that there is merely a broom closet next door, though that room is not deep enough to convince her. Hugh insists it's probably just part of the next room.
Carla sees flashes of another girl in the wardrobe mirror, starts tapping the wall behind it and gets taps back, and tearing away at the wallpaper, she opens the wall to find a disused cold room, for the hotel was once a butcher's shop and home, and a Jewish dissident named Erich (Anthony Higgins) hiding inside. She begins sneaking him food from the hotel kitchen, along with utensils and her father's razor, to help him. Carla is experiencing two realities, one in which she is Carla Martin and another in which she is Christa Bruckner, daughter of butcher Wilhelm Bruckner (Warren Clarke) a proud member of the Nazi Party who calls her a "little slut" and rapes her in the night. Christa also has lines of cuts in both of her palms. Carla is ashamed by the rape and scrubs herself thoroughly in the bathtub.
Hugh is concerned that Carla may be going insane like her mother did and finally makes good on his insistence at having her seen by a doctor (George Pravda). When the doctor comes, she has stripped the sheets on her bed for their dirtiness and is not wearing anything under the bed covers, so her father steps out for the examination. The doctor cannot find anything wrong, and when she tells him that her father raped her the night before and asks him to examine her, he sees only inflammation from the scrub brush and identifies her as "virga intacta"—she was not raped.
Christa and Erich begin lovemaking, as Christa fears she is pregnant by her father and psychologically needs to have the possibility that any baby born is Erich's. She carves their names into a cross centred on the letter I on the wall of the cold room. Soon after, Hugh finds her huddled in a nightgown inside the wardrobe, which is filled with rotten food. Hugh and Lili get her dressed and take her out of the hotel. As they are getting into the car, Herr Bruckner drags her back into the butcher shop and insists he needs her for deliveries. In reality, this is to give Frau Hoffman time to reveal Erich to the Gestapo. When they return, Moltke (Clifford Rose), who had previously interrogated her about a visit to a Jewish man referred to her by Erich (something Carla was not able to accomplish in her own experience), is waiting in her bedroom. Erich shot one of Moltke's men, and Moltke killed him.
Hugh and Lili carry Carla back to the room with Frau Hoffman's assistance. When Carla regains consciousness, she begins accusing Frau Hoffman of having killed Erich. Not being able to tell Hugh from Herr Bruckner, she stabs him in the chest near the shoulder with a knife she has hidden. Coming to her senses, she and Lili ride with him in the ambulance.
Hugh now with his arm in a sling, the police are called to open the wall behind the wardrobe, which Carla had never actually opened. The planks Herr Bruckner had sealed it up with are removed, and Carla investigates it, filled with rats as she initially suspected, discovering the place where Christa and Erich's names are carved into the wall. Frau Hoffman is unable to hide her shame. Hugh takes Carla back to the airport to live with her aunt, with whom she lived prior to boarding school.

Tags: tragedy, murder, flashback

Review:
It'll leave you...um...cold.
This was a made-for-cable affair, but is/was available on VHS.
The main and overriding sense one gets in watching this film is, "Great Scott!
Will somebody wake these people up?" Which is another way of saying it is boring and dreary.
But more than that, it seems like the whole production is in some sort of funk.
Start with George Segal.
I'm a fan.
He may be remembered to people now as the guy from "Just Shoot Me." But up until the early 80s, the guy was a capital-letters Movie Star, whose main asset was a sense of fun and vigor he brought into the various quirky roles he played.
His star was fading when this was made and it is clear why.
In THE COLD ROOM, he seems preoccupied, dazed, out of it.
Just sad to see a once- vibrant person bring nothing to the table.But he's not the only one.
Pays (Mrs. Corbin Bernson), has little spark to her character.
The whole plot involves people in present-day Germany, one of whom discovers a link to a past romance with a character from Germany's Nazi past.
It might have helped if Pays (or anyone else) brought a little energy to the set.
But since the whole thing is pretty lifeless, directed by the book, scripted with no surprises, etc...the "who cares" factor is high.
The movie is inoffensive but seems almost intentionally boring.
Like the people who made it wanted it to be quickly forgotten..
Flasbacks to Nazi Germany.
Enjoyed this film starring George Segal, (Hugh Martin), who plans a trip to visit his girl friend, Lili,(Renee Southendjik) who lives in Germany during the cold war and decides to bring his daughter Carla Martin,(Christa Bruckner).
Carla attended a Catholic College and was given a book from a Nun concerning Berlin, Germany during 1936 and WW II and Carla becomes very interested in this book and it has a great effect on Carla's visit to Germany.
This is something like a story of "Diary of Anne Frank" and Carla begins to have visions of what it was like during these war years.
Carla does not get along very well with Lili and causes all kinds of problems in her hotel room and starts moving furniture all around the room and even starts to steal large amounts of food, silverware, cups plates and acts like a completely crazy person.
This is a very interesting film and worth your time in viewing..
Every Which Way. Incredibly bleak and almost unwatchable.
One of the rules of a good film is to create a world that is accessible.
I get the main character's slipping in and out of the current reality.
The problem is that things are so bleak in the contemporary that the past seems not so terrible.
There is all this angst and anger.
I thought to myself, this girl should be sent packing.
She is the consummate brat.
He father is pleasant to her, but because of the death of her mother, she resents him horribly.
That said, he is about as dense as one can be.
At one time, he is scolding her for smoking a cigarette; the next he is forgiving of the most outlandish behavior.
I know he has no knowledge of the flipping in and out but that's an unfair part of this film as well.
It's confusing because the central figure acquires new personalities as she shifts in and out of the past; but why?
Isn't she really the same person and if she isn't, how does she keep a grip on reality in each place (an memory for that matter).
I don't think I could watch it a second time..
Flawed but kind of interesting.
This is a somewhat ambitious movie about an adolescent English girl (Amanda Pays) visiting East Germany with her divorced American father (George Segal).
The girl (who's kind of an annoying brat to begin with)becomes possessed by the spirit of a previous young female tenant of the house, who during WWII was hiding a Jewish male lover in a "cold room" behind the wall.People say a lot of bad things about this movie.
But considering it was made by the guy that wrote the piece-of-crap script for the piece- of-crap 80's movie "Fatal Attraction", I thought it was OK.
It isn't very well-executed, but frankly it's a hell of a lot more ambitious than "Fatal Attraction" (which was basically a crappy re-make of "Play Misty for Me" made to cash in on 80's AIDS hysteria).
George Segal is OK as the father.
Unfortunately, Amanda Pays, in her first film, is simply not a strong enough actress to do this role very convincingly.
(She's a very pretty girl though who later appeared most famously in the Rob Lowe movie "Oxford Blues").
The other actors all seem to be East European, perhaps ones living in Britain or whatever country they actually filmed this in.
James Dearden does a pretty bad job of directing this, leaving all kinds of loose ends everywhere.
Thank god though he wasn't responsible for the source material (I haven't read the book this was based on, but I'm sure it's far, far better than anything this talentless Hollywood hack could have come up with).At times this seems almost like a children's movie.
But then it also contains scenes like where the possessed protagonist has a fever dream where she experiences her forbear's experience of being raped by her father--and then she falsely tells the East German authorities SHE was raped by her own father!
(Luckily a doctor inspects her and it turns out ghosts can't rupture hymens).
I think if they took a few scenes like this out, this could be kind of a decent high-school horror companion piece to "The Diary of Ann Frank".
As it is, it's a very flawed film, but a kind of interesting one..
Father Confusion.
"A British girl is traveling with her estranged father in order to attempt to rebuild their relationship.
Shortly after they arrive in East Germany, the girl begins to suffer from strange sensations and mental lapses, where she remembers events from World War II that she could never have experienced herself.
Is this a case of mental breakdown, is it possible memories from a past life, or is she dealing with a rip in the fabric of time and she is actually experiencing the events for real?" asks the DVD sleeve's synopsis.James Dearden's "The Cold Room" opens with the telling definition: "Possession: psychological state in which an individual personality is replaced by another." In this case, possession can also be mind-numbingly dull.
When she throws up her milk, you'll know ill-tempered Amanda Pays (as Carla Martin) is becoming Nazi-era rape victim "Christa Bruckner".
Her father, George Segal (as Hugh Martin), wants to bridge the generation gap, as Ms. Pays goes mad.
Pretty, model-like Pays has some serious father problems.
Anthony Higgins (as Erich) has a good supporting role.
*** The Cold Room (1984) James Dearden ~ Amanda Pays, George Segal, Anthony Higgins.
Physological mumbo jumbo.
George Segal is the estranged father of a 17 year old girl.
She is a troubled youth and is played quite ably Amanda Pays.
In an attempt to reconnect with his daughter, Segal takes her from London to East Berlin.
She is not happy and quite rude to him but he continues to try and please her.
The East Berlin setting makes for empty streets and strange encounters.
Why he picks this locale is never explained.
It's a grim place.
The daughter gets into all sorts of strange physic changes which makes her unbalanced and unpredictable.Warren Clarke has a marvelous part as a "heavy" which is a far cry from his performance as Detective in "Dalziel and Pascoe" (61 episodes)a It's worth your time if you really need diversion.
There are some real "plot holes" so don't expect a satisfactory ending..
The Cold Room.
The movie lights upon "unfinished" business, as shown from the dreams of Amanda Pays' character.
The unfinished business is almost reminding of the Gordon Lightfoot song, If You Could Read My Mind.
On a vulture note, a hint of a sub-parallel; a similarity to Seward's Ice Box/Polar Bear Garden - Alaska, USA.World War, US War History buffs and students pour through info.
for study, research and writing.
While doing so, watching the movie becomes an opportunity to consider such possible aforsaid symbolism; then, to refine it; to supplicate the history/movie experience.Whether or not the movie's possible symbolism fits into a template like format, using other content to describe something - like an allegory from symbolism, is interesting.
Ambitious history buffs, amateur code breakers and students might find some "meat and potato" substance there..
Don't Bother with This Dismal Mess.
I had high expectations for this film, hoping to catch a glimpse of East Germany during the Cold War. Moreover, the story was reputed to include an element of time travel, which is a genre that I enjoy.
But The Cold Room is an unmitigated mess.
Never does director James Dearden make an effort to clarify what is happening on screen.
Is Carla Martin the same person as Christa Bruckner, or is she a lookalike or distant relative?
Does she actually return to the days of Nazi Germany, or is this simply a dream sequence?
Who rapes her, if indeed she is raped at all, and why does Carla stab her own father instead of Christa stabbing Wilhelm, the butcher?
And why does Carla's father, Hugh Martin, arrange for a father-daughter reunion in East Germany, of all places?
Nothing is explained by final curtain, so the audience is left to wonder why they have invested an hour and a half of their lives in watching this dismal, boring story slowly unfold upon itself.
It is difficult to sympathize with any of the characters.
George Segal is a smiling, long-suffering wimp, hardly changing expression or attitude - - even after being stabbed in the chest by his own daughter.
He has learned nothing about her, except that she might be a tad mentally unbalanced.
Amanda Pays seems to be a good actress, but her character is hopelessly self-centered and spoiled.
Who can really blame her for being confused about what is happening around her?
Even reading ahead in the script would provide not a clue!.
"And how is the fraulein today?".
The video sleeve offers a number of alternatives for character Carla Martin's (Amanda Pays) strange behavior - mental breakdown, past life memories or some sort of time travel induced paranoia.
Personally, I'm going with the mental illness angle.
She exhibited the signs of a split personality and the story brought it home near the finale at the point when her father (George Segal) and fiancée Lili (Renee Soutendijk) walked her out of the apartment and the alter-ego Christa Bruckner was led off by her Nazi butcher father (Warren Clarke).
Up till then, the story was developing along a psychological thriller angle mixed with elements of horror and could have played out in any number of different directions.
The young Pays appears here in her very first acting role, so in that respect she's generally effective if somewhat one-dimensional.
I didn't care for the character of her father who was overboard in his attempt at being an understanding parent.
I mean, even getting stabbed in the chest didn't seem to bother him all that much on the ride in the ambulance.
For many viewers this will be just plain confusing and not worth the effort, so expecting a neat wrap up to the story just isn't going to make it happen.