Harold and Maude
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Movie Reviews of Harold and Maude
Movie Review: A movie worthy of both cult AND classic status.
Summary: 5 Stars
In one of THE original cult movies (4 years before ROCKY HORROR & 7 years before BLOODSUCKING FREAKS) Bud Cort plays 20 year old Harold, a young man who has a morbid fascination with death. For leisure he drives his long-suffering mother mad by enacting fake suicides to get attention such as "hanging" himself and "slashing" his throat and wrists, much to the chagrin of Harold's pompous mother who sends him to see a shrink. A true believer in the old "mother knows best" adage, she answers and fills out the questionaire for her son. So its not that surprising when we learn that Harold drives a hearse and for leisure he attends strangers' funerals.However, one such funeral changes Harold's life forever. Its at one of these gatherings that he first meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a 79 year old who is not your average crocheting, cookie baking Grandma. For leisure Maude likes to steal cars. And from here their friendship grows, with the eternally optimistic Maude encouraging Harold to embrace life instead of dwelling upon death. Their relationship soon blossoms into an unconventional, but true love; which again meets with mother's disapproval.
Written & Co-Produced by Colin Higgins, HAROLD AND MAUDE was unfairly overlooked on its initial release but over the years gained a strong following; and todays ranks as one of the very best black comedies/love stories ever made. Special highlights for me included Harold's efforts to escape being drafted into the army, and also Harold's hari-kiri "suicide" demonstration for one of the young women his mother has set him up with.
Both leads are excellent, especially Bud Cort; who was/is so convincing in his role that he found himself typecast for life- and some people really believed he was as "out there" as Harold in real life!! So poor old Bud was given the silver lining before the cloud! Hopefully one day some director will use his talents in the way he deserves. Ruth Gordon is hard to resist as Maude- she's probably the kind of Grandma every kid wishes they had.
Of course, the movie is also famous for the soundtrack by Cat Stevens which complements the film beautifully. If you haven't seen HAROLD AND MAUDE before then I strongly urge you to rent a copy. It's not for all tastes with its inconventional love story and its (often very) black humor; but this is one of those rare films that leaves you feeling alive and exhilarated after watching it and commands repeat viewings. Unless you're a P.C old prat who believes the "suicides" in the movie to be "injurious to the public good"(!!) and the idea of a 20 year old and an 80 year old being in love to be "immoral". (No prizes for guessing who I'm talking about). Maybe a little icky.
The DVD features aren't great, just a couple of different trailers for the film; but I can't recommend this movie highly enough. Put it on your must-see list. HAROLD AND MAUDE gets my seal of approval (Woop de doo, I hear you say) and despite being more than 30 years old it doesn't appear to have dated at all, and remains relevant today. Watch it and judge for yourself.
Movie Review: Friendship divining rod
Summary: 5 Stars
Harold and Maude is one of those movies which transcends the goals of ordinary movies which seek mostly to entertain. This film actually manages to become an indicator of human compatibility. If you like the movie, you will probably get along with me and anyone else that likes it.
To enjoy this movie you have to be able to laugh at difficult subjects like death. The conversion of a classic car into a pimped out hearse has to make you giggle a little. You can not be so judgmental that a little thing like a romantic relationship between the teenaged and the elderly shuts your mind off. You have to have a generally positive outlook on life. People with this grouping of characteristics seem to like others with these same traits.
Directed by the quirky Hal Ashby, this 1971 black comedy sets the tone perfectly in the beginning when a seemingly suicidal Harold (played by Bud Cort), hangs himself to the incongruous upbeat melody of a Cat Stevens song in full view of his mother. His mother (Vivian Pickle) reacts by casually telling him that dinner is ready.
Harold fills his days by inventing ways to try and shock his mother with fake suicide, attending funerals of people he does not know and sessions with his psychiatrist. It was while attending one of these funerals that he meets Maude (played by Ruth Gordon), a senior citizen, who lives life in a completely opposite manner than Harold. He is a young man obsessed with death and she is an old woman obsessed with life.
Maude's sense of freedom from possessions often materializes in her tendency to borrow other people's automobiles. She does not seem to even try to comprehend why anyone would mind. One of the funniest sequences in the movie occurs when she goes into the city to dig up a tree that is "sick from breathing all the smog". She puts it in the back of one of the trucks that she had unwittingly stolen and is chased by the police into the forest. She figures out a way to evade the police without even trying, which seems to be how she handles everything.
Maude's embrace of life starts to rub off on Harold even as his mother doggedly attempts to set him up on dates. Each new date is scared off by Harold's flamboyant suicide scenes. While his mother searches for the right woman for Harold, he thinks he has found her in Maude.
This absurdist take on boy meets girl may just be the most original attempt at a romantic comedy, but without Cat Stevens' soundtrack this movie might have fallen on its face. Stevens weaves scenes together with just the right mixture of irony and even a couple touching ballads.
This is not a film for everyone. If suicide is a sensitive topic for you, this film would be an hour and a half of cringes and frowns. Regardless, watching it is worth the risk. Like I said, this is not just about entertainment. This movie could forever be your friendship divining rod.
Movie Review: The baby boomers have seen the enemy ... and it is themselves!
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is sooo 1971 - and that is not a bad thing. It was directed by a member of "the greatest generation" (Hal Ashby) about a member of his parents' generation (Maude) helping a member of the baby boomers' generation (Harold) choose to seize life rather than go on embracing a kind of living death. The details of the film have been rehashed by several hundred previous reviewers, so I won't do that once again. I will point out that it is interesting that the intended audience for this film - the baby boomers of 1971 who were then in their teens and twenties who so embraced this film then and still do through all of the websites dedicated to its nostalgia - have become what they claimed to abhor in this movie over the last 35 years. They have, in fact, become the most prudish bunch of old people since the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock. Their collective slogan has changed from "Let It All Hang Out" to "Let All Who Do Not Conform Be Hanged!". Thanks to the collective legislative efforts of the baby boomers - shortly to begin their second stint in diapers - we do not dare let a 20 year old (Harold's age in the movie) drink one beer even in the bedroom of his own house. We do not dare let bar owners (now only in some jurisdictions, but coming soon to a jurisdiction near you!) allow smoking in their establishments by anyone no matter what their age, and worst of all the land is dotted with zero-tolerance policies in which a child who shows up to school with an unauthorized aspirin is often treated the same as a child who shows up to school with crack cocaine or a gun as far as expulsion goes.
The point of my rant is this - If the Maude of the film were somehow brought back to life today, more than likely she would find Harold acting more like his mother than even his mother did and would likely want to take that handful of pills that ended her life a second time - for completely different reasons.
This really is a great film, and I would really hope that when I am 79 I am a cross between the Maude of this movie and Einstein and his compadres in the film "IQ". More than that though, I watch this film to remind me how it is a daily battle to stay young at heart and open to the simple pleasures of life. A battle that so many of my older fellow baby boomers have long since lost.
Movie Review: An Unhappy Saint is a Contradiction in Terms.....
Summary: 5 Stars
This black comedy stars Ruth Gordon as an eccentric old lady..'When I am an Old Woman, I shall wear Purple'. She borrows, 'steals' other's cars, attends funerals of unknown people, rescues 'asthmatic' trees and saves Harold. Harold, Bud Cort, is a young man in search of his place in the big wide world. He is at odds with his mother and really is adrift..without any real direction. For attention and to rattle his mother, he fakes suicides and attends funerals. There he meets Maude and she starts to bring him out of the his shell...she helps him learn to sing his own song. This is a theme that is played upon as she gives harold the banjo. His mother tries to get him to figure out what he wants by having him talk with a psychiatrist, (notice how he and harold wear the same clothes), his Uncle..the war veteran..and by getting him married off.
This movie has some genuine funny moments. The scene of his mother filling out the computer dating questionarie is hillarious. When he fakes setting himself on fire and his date goes into hysterics..running off. He faces the camera with that wry smirk..his mother looking at him with furrowed brow..and he turns to see her expression and quickly loses that smirk..is just fine acting and an interesting film technique. The part where Maude sees the sick tree and turns quickly and parks on the sidewalk.. with car running and doors open..to try to move the tree and returns to the car as the three policeman are checking out the situation. She ask the officer if the car over there is parked right. He replies yes..as the officers look at each other laughingly. Harold and Maude steal the Mach 1 and race around the corner..squeeling tires not even stopping. The expression on the waving policeman's face is priceless.
There are just way too many really..fall out of the chair..funny parts in this movie to mention. With a great Cat Stevens' score, this is one of the best 'Black Comedies' available.
This cult film also has so many really great lines of dialogue... Harold to Maude "I love you! Maude replys "Oh! That's wonderful, Harold Go..and love some more." Maude talking to Harold about life, "Play as well as you can otherwise you got nothing to talk about in the locker room"...just to name a few.
Movie Review: "An A-List Film"
Summary: 5 Stars
For years I heard "Harold and Maude" was a fantastic movie, but I never got the chance to come across it. Looking it up on various internet sites I discovered the film was put out on DVD in 2000 and is long out-of-print. Luckily, I went to a garage sale recently and found a copy for five dollars!
"Harold and Maude" is considered by most people as one of the greatest Hollywood films ever making it on the top 10 list of various critics' list, and the movie has been preserved in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
The film is really a dark comedy that deals with a young boys infatuation with death. Harold (played brilliantly by Bud Cort) constantly thinks of ways in which to die, drives a hearse, and stages different acts of dying, all while attending funerals as if he's going to an opening of a new movie. His mother becomes frustrated as she regards Harold's behavior as odd. It is at one of these funerals where he meets an 80 year old woman named Maude, superbly played by Oscar winner Ruth Gordon (who won the golden statue for her role in "Rosemary's Baby"). The two form a bond as Harold sees Maude as somewhat of an idol, someone who has lived a long life, but is that much closer to dying, something he strives for. Through Maude the young man soon realizes the importance of staying alive and that search for happiness as life is too short. Like she says in one of the movies best scenes, "L I V E.....live!!!!!"
Many who haven't seen "Harold and Maude" are turned off by the subject matter as they don't want to watch a film that deals with death and dying. However, the movie is more than that: it is funny, poignant, well-written, and extremely well-acted. Colin Higgins wrote the screenplay and would go onto to enjoy a successful career as a director, directing Dolly Parton's first two feature-length films, "9 to 5" and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", as well as co-writing both movies and writing the huge 1978 Goldie Hawn vehicle "Foul Play".
The 2000 DVD release was, unfortunately, a barebones edition with no special features, but hopefully Paramount will someday soon give fans a "Special DVD Edition" this classic so richly deserves.