Harold and Maude is a 1971 film directed by Hal Ashby. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humor, and existentialist drama, revolves around the exploits of a morbid young man, Harold (played by Bud Cort), who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, as he develops a relationship with septuagenarian Maude (played by Ruth Gordon).
The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Funniest Movies of all Time[1], number 69 in its list for most romantic [2] and number 42 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”[3] The film was a commercial flop in its original release, and critical reception was extremely mixed. However it has since developed a large cult following.[4]
The screenplay upon which the film was based was written by Colin Higgins, and published as a novel in 1971. The movie was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area. Harold and Maude was also a play on Broadway for some time. A French adaptation for television, translated and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, appeared in 1978. It was adapted for the stage and performed in Québec, starring Roy Dupuis.
Plot synopsis
Harold Chasen is a boy of nineteen who feigns his own death numerous times. Harold and his mother (Vivian Pickles) live in a mansion in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mrs. Chasen throws a lavish dinner party which is followed by Harold’s theatrical “suicide” in his mother’s dressing room. He squirts fake blood over her mirrors and himself. Mrs. Chasen, who is hardly impressed by her son’s newest antic, declares that it is “too much” and sends him to counseling. After a brief interaction with his counselor, Harold indulges his preoccupation with death by buying a hearse and driving it to a stranger’s funeral. The actually somber occasion of someone’s funeral is the first time that Harold makes the acquaintance of his friend Maude.
Upon arriving home, his mother sees his car and lectures him about growing up. She tries to inculcate her son with the importance of joining the Army like Harold’s uncle Victor; and voices her conviction that it is time for Harold to get married. The next day, Harold goes to another funeral and sees Maude again. Maude moves in closer to Harold and strikes up a conversation with him, offering him licorice, and admitting she does not know the deceased. Maude divulges to Harold that she is, however, cognizant of the fact that the man who died was eighty, which is, according to her, the “proper age” to die. The pair moves outside after the funeral where Maude absconds with the priest’s car. At the next funeral, Maude pulls beside Harold and offers him a ride home in his hearse which she has purloined. Harold tells Maude the hearse is his, and drives her back to her “house,” a derailed train car. Maude proffers him tea, but Harold declines, going instead to his counseling meeting where he concedes he has no friends.
Candy Gulf is Harold’s first blind date. When Harold fakes his own death by setting himself ablaze, she runs from the house screaming. When Harold pays his second visit to Maude, he is utterly nonplused at the sight of her modeling nude while an ice sculpture is being hewn. Maude shows Harold her vaporizer that produces scents such as “snowfall on 42nd Street.” Maude tells Harold that everyone should be able to play an instrument, whereupon Harold, who admits he cannot play anything, borrows a banjo and attempts to play. They drink tea which is followed by a montage of date scenes including one where Maude is transfixed by a helpless tree in the city. After illegally parking and admiring the tree, Maude resolves to steal the tree as well as another car.
Harold’s mother, who “took away” the hearse, gives him a new Jaguar as a gift. Later on, Harold uses his welding skills and manual dexterity to morph the Jaguar into another hearse. The next scene shows Maude and Harold driving the tree to the forest where it will be able to grow in most salubrious conditions. Although their deed is a contravention of the law, they plant the tree, and flout the law again on the way home. The pair indulges in what appears to be marijuana and Harold opens up about his life at home.
Harold’s second date is with Edith Phern. To escape this date, Harold pretends to sever his hand, which is, in fact, a false one, in front of Edith and his mother. Seriously irked by the pranks her son is incessantly playing, Mrs. Chasen sends Harold to talk to his Uncle Victor about joining the armed forces. Taking his uncle to the coast, Harold pretends to become enthralled by his war stories. A protester—Maude—becomes embroiled in an altercation with Harold and the uncle, who is unaware of Maude’s true identity, watches in horror as the woman falls to her “death”. The subject of Harold joining the Army is definitely jettisoned.
To celebrate their victory, Harold and Maude go to the bay and watch the sun set. As Harold takes Maude’s hand, he briefly glimpses numbers tattooed on her arm (such as those used to identify prisoners in Nazi concentration camps). The next day, Harold goes on his third and final blind date with a so-called Miss Dore, an actress who rejoices in the sobriquet of “Sunshine.” He shows her his harakiri sword and pretends to commit seppuku. Confirming that the the sword is only a prop with a sliding blade and impressed by Harold's acting, Doré acts out Juliet’s death scene from Romeo and Juliet, pretending to stab herself as well. Harold's mother enters and believing that Sunshine is dead bemoans that she was Harold's last date.
Harold takes Maude to the fair, after which the couple sleep together. The next day, Harold tells his mother he envisages marrying Maude. Mrs. Chasen subsequently sends Harold to see his uncle, counselor, and priest, all of whom disapprove. Harold throws Maude a surprise 80th birthday party, embellishing the inside of her home with sunflowers, and after the party Maude admits that she has taken poison tablets and will be gone by midnight. As she had said before, eighty years old is the proper age to die.
Rushed to the hospital, Maude expires. In the morning, Harold drives his jaguar-hearse to a cliff. The car goes off the cliff and crashes into the sand. The camera pans to the top of the cliff and we see Harold at the top of the cliff strapping on his banjo. He plays a few notes and Cat Stevens' "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" is reprised and Harold is seen dancing and skipping away as the credits roll.
Themes
Hal Ashby, the director of the film, shared certain ideals with the era’s youth culture, and in this film he contrasts the doomed outlook of the alienated youth of the time with the hard-won optimism of those who endured the horrors of the early 20th century, contrasting nihilism with purpose. Maude's past is revealed in a glimpse of the concentration camp ID number tattooed on her arm as well as her talk with Harold about using an umbrella to defend herself from thugs at political meetings before moving to America.
Harold is part of a society in which he is of no importance, existentially he is without meaning. Maude has survived and lives a life rich with meaning. It is in this existential crisis, shown against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, that we see the differences between one culture, personified by Harold, handling a meaningless war, while another has experienced and lived beyond a war that produced a crisis of meaning.
Suicide attempts
Harold tells Maude when they are talking candidly at her house the reasons why he fakes his death so often. When Harold was at boarding school, he set his science lab on fire. Escaping the fire, Harold slid down the laundry chute and ran home to hide. When the police came, Harold could not be found. Believed to be dead the police came to his house and told Mrs. Chasen (Harold’s mother) that Harold was dead. Coming up from the back balcony, Harold watched as his mother fell over in grief for the police officers. Harold then states that, “I decided then I enjoyed being dead’.
Throughout the movie, Harold “kills” himself a total of seven to eight times. He tells his psychologist that he has made similar attempts 15 times, a rough estimate.
1. Hanging himself in opening scene: Harold hangs himself while his mother is on the phone in the opening scene, in which she barely blinks twice.
2. Slitting his throat in his mother’s bathroom: after this act, we see Harold seeing a psychiatrist.
3. Floating dead in pool: Harold floats face down, fully clothed, as his mother swims laps around him.
4. Shooting towards his head: Harold initially points a gun at his mother and then shoots close to his head as his mother is reading off the questionnaire for his dating service.
5. Fire: For the first blind date, Harold pretends to set himself on fire, scaring away his date.
6. Hand chopping: The second blind date ends abruptly with Harold chopping off a fake hand.
7. Juliet scene: For the final date, Harold performs a seppuku by stabbing himself with a fake harakiri sword in the stomach. Instead of this date running off as the others have, Sunshine Doré instead joins in: she recites lines from Romeo and Juliet, stabs herself and “dies” with him.
8. Car: Harold sends his Jaguar/hearse off a cliff. From the initial scene, the audience may believe Harold was stricken with enough grief from Maude’s death to kill himself. However, the camera pans up to the cliff to show Harold playing Maude’s banjo and dancing away casually.
Honors
Harold and Maude is #45 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Years... 100 Laughs, the list of the top 100 films in American comedy. The list was released in 2000. Two years later, AFI released the list AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions honoring the most romantic films for the past 100 years, Harold and Maude ranked #69.[2] Entertainment Weekly ranked the film #4 on their list of “The Top 50 Cult Films.”[5]
In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten" – the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres – after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Harold and Maude was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the romantic comedy genre.[6][7]
American Film Institute recognition
At the 29th Golden Globe Awards, Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon received a nomination for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy film, respectively.[8][9]
Cast
Cover of the Harold and Maude video, with lead actors Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort
- Dame Marjorie “Maude” Chardin (Ruth Gordon) is a 79-year-old spitfire who wears her hair in braids across her head like a crown. Maude is an abysmal driver who delights in listening to music and who believes in living each day like it is your last. The movie does not disclose anything about her tattoo, which is believed to be a Nazi concentration camp tattoo.
- Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is a nineteen-year-old, pale boy (he becomes more tan as the film progresses) who craves human interaction but is smothered by his mother’s controlled, materialistic world. Obsessed with death, he drives a hearse, attends random funerals and fakes suicides, for effect. Through meeting and falling in love with Maude, he discovers there is more to life than death and begins living for the first time.
- Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles) is Harold’s mother. An affluent, middle-aged woman who surrounds herself with the best of everything. Hoping to straighten out her son, Mrs. Chasen arranges computer dates and bestows a myriad of lavish gifts upon him, all to no avail.
- Glaucus (Cyril Cusack) is the sculptor who makes the ice statue of Maude and lends them his tools to transport the tree.
- Uncle Victor (Charles Tyner) is Harold’s uncle, who is a military general. He vainly attempts to entice Harold into joining the armed forces.
- Sunshine Doré (Ellen Geer) is an actress who is about twenty years old. On Harold’s third blind date, she lies down and “dies” beside him.
- Priest (Eric Christmas): Maude steals his car. He also tells Harold not to marry Maude.
- Psychiatrist (G. Wood)
- Candy Gulf (Judy Engles) is Harold’s first blind date, whom he scares off by feigning to set himself afire.
- Edith Phern (Shari Summers) is Harold’s second blind date, whom he scares off by pretending to cut off his hand. This distasteful antic prompts Mrs. Chasen send Harold to talk to Uncle Victor about the armed forces.
- Motorcycle Officer (Tom Skerritt, credited as “M. Borman”)
- Director Hal Ashby has a cameo in the picture, watching a model train at an amusement park.
Music
The soundtrack is by Cat Stevens, and includes two songs, “Don’t Be Shy” and “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” that he composed specifically for the movie, and which were unavailable on vinyl for over a decade; they were eventually released in 1984 on the compilation Footsteps in the Dark. A vinyl LP soundtrack was released in Japan, although without the two songs Cat Stevens wrote for the film, and including five songs not actually in the film (“Morning Has Broken,” “Wild World,” “Father & Son,” “Lilywhite” and “Lady D'Arbanville”). The first official soundtrack to the film was released in December 2007[10], by Vinyl Films Records, as a vinyl-only limited edition release of 2500 copies. It contained a 30-page oral history of the making of the film, the most extensive series of interviews yet conducted on "Harold and Maude."
Track listing
This is the track listing for the first official release of the soundtrack to Harold and Maude.
References
External links
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Films directed by Hal Ashby |
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