Harold and Maude
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Movie Reviews of Harold and Maude
Movie Review: A quirky life affirming classic film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a film about a young man running toward death and an old woman running toward life. They run into each other and a fine film results. The three main characters, Harold, Maud, and Harold's father, are exceptional and make the film highly entertaining through the tensions between Harold and Maud and Harold and his mother. Ruth Gordon is such a fine actress that she makes this film soar. Her approach to this eccentric character is warm and life affirming. Bud Cort is superb as Harold, looking all of 17 years old throughout the film. Vivian Pickles is also superb as Harold's mother. Maud is a mentor and muse for the somber Harold and through adventure after adventure he opens up to the life experiences around him. There is one scene which summarizes Maud's wisdom. When she is being taken into an emergency room on a stretcher, Harold says: "But Maud I love you." To which Maud lovingly and serenely answers: "That is wonderful Harold, now go out and love some more." The simplicity and truth behind this short exchange struck me to the heart. The film is totally life affirming and the dark humor helps make it more so.
Because the film makes fun of the fashion of the times, the fact that it was made in 1971 does not date the film but rather seems more like a sly commentary on the hair, jewelry, clothes, and cars of that period. Cat Steven's soundtrack is joyful and a perfect compliment to the 1970 feel of the movie and its themes.
The film is now almost 40 years old and has become an American classic; primarily because the themes explored around the tensions, the push and pull, between our desire to live and our desire to give up are so perfectly portrayed in the film.
Movie Review: Classicq
Summary: 5 Stars
The problem with Harry is he keeps trying to kill himself. Don't worry, he is not really bidding on the farm. He just wants a little motherly affection, which he doesn't get. Nowadays, the kid would be on about 70 types of medication. In 1971, mom just put you in analysis and tried to get you married and out of the house.
Harry really doesn't say much until he meets Maude. Maude is a lot like Harry--she lives in a train cabouse and likes to steel cars to express herself-only she is about six times Harry's age. The two strike up a friendship and eventually, make love. Only Maude actually is trying to kill herself, and dies on the night he preposes to her.
This is another great movie by the great editor turned director Hal Ashby, shot in the bay area at the start of the 1970s. As in The Last Detail, Harold and Maude has quick sequences that are immediate but have a lot of ressonence. Maude is friend, sister, mother and lover to the angry but ultimately kind Harry. None of this is said, but Ashby is able to make big statements with very small scenes. Ashbys' ecconomy was incredible
At first I was a little disappointed because the movie shows little of San Fransisco proper, which is always good to see, but even better in 1971. Then I realized keeping Harold and Maude's sticking to the back roads and suburbs gives this the small, local feel that made Ashby's films so intimmate and immediate. Never doubt a master.
Please, please please, do NOT try to remake this film
Movie Review: TOP 100 MOVIES OF ALL TIME
Summary: 5 Stars
THIS MOVIE IS HEART MOVING, AND TEACHES A VALUBLE LESSON ABOUT HUMANITY AND THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE! FOR ME, GROWING UP IN THE SEVENTIES WAS A TIME FOR FOR REFLECTION AND FINDING YOUR DIRECTION IN LIFE. WHAT'S MY PURPOSE? THE MESSAGE, THE MEANING FROM THIS MOVIE STILL TO THIS DAY SEEMS EVEN MORE RELEVANT. THE MOVIE IS ABOUT A VERY WEALTHY YOUNG MAN(BUD CORT) WHO FEELS HE HAS NO PURPOSE IN LIFE AND IS CONSUMED WITH THE THOUGHT OF DEATH, WHICH WE ALL MUST FACE SOONER OR LATER. HIS MOTHER IS VERY INSENSITIVE TO HIS FEELINGS, AND ONLY CARES ABOUT MATERIAL THINGS IN LIFE AND, MAKING SURE HER SON GETS TO THE ARISTOCRATIC LEVEL WHICH SHE BELONGS TOO. HE MEETS THIS ELDERLY WOMAN (RUTH GORDON)SEVERAL TIMES AT DIFFERENT FUNERALS(HE LIKES TO GO TO FUNERALS)AND THE MOVIE TAKES OFF FROM THEIR WITH A LOT OF COMEDY RELIEF, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE LEARNING PROCESS FOR THIS YOUNG MAN. THE VALUABLE KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM THIS MOVIE FOR ME WHEN I WAS 17, IS A LESSON THAT SHOULD BE LEARNED BY ALL OF US SEARCHING FOR A PURPOSE IN LIFE. WE ALSO SHOULD NOT TAKE THINGS IN LIFE SO SERIOUSLY, AS WITH EVERYTHING IN LIFE, ALL WILL PASS AND WE WILL DIE. MAUDE(RUTH GORDON)TEACHES HIM THE VALUE OF LIFE, THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL DESPITE HER TERRIBLE SECRET. SHE WAS A SURVIVOR OF THE HOLOCAUST!
SO, LIVE LIFE, BE GOOD, AND LOVE. THIS IS A MOVIE THAT SHOULD BE WATCHED BY ALL PEOPLE, YOUNG OR OLD WHO FEEL A LITTLE EMPTY ABOUT THEMSELVES AND NEED SOME INSIGHT. EVERYONE COULD LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS INCREDIBLE HEART MOVING CLASSIC!
Movie Review: Wild applause at a Berkeley theater
Summary: 5 Stars
The first of perhaps 4 times I saw Harold and Maude was at a theater in Berkeley on University Avenue. I must have been the only person in the audience who had never seen this iconic black-humor film before, because the entire audience applauded for every credit that came on the screen both at the beginning and again at the end. It was obviously a cult film with a rabid cult following, and I wondered what I was getting myself in for.
Well. I had no idea what I'd been missing! Harold and Maude (Maude is played by the inimitable Ruth Gordon in one of the best roles of her very long career) is perhaps the blackest of black comedies - and it's a hoot and a half - and then some. It portrays the unlikely but, given the context, perfectly understandable relationship (love affair?) between a death-obsessed teenager, Harold, and an life-celebrating octogenarian widow, Maude. They meet (where else) at a funeral of someone that neither of them knows and they recognize their weird common-ground: funerals.
This movie is sweet. It's endearing, touching, beautiful, life-affirming - it's a romance and a passionate plea to reach out and grab life by the lapels, suck it of its essence before it's too late.
Marvelous, marvelous - but a warning: you've got to be a certain kind of quirky person in a particularly quirky frame of mind to appreciate it. If you fit the description, this might become one of your favorite movies of all time.
Movie Review: A mind-expanding movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a mind-expanding movie from the era in which mind-expansion was actually considered desirable. Many social issues are addressed in this movie, while it keeps the watcher amused with terrific comedy.
The story revolves around Harold, a rather lost youth on the verge of manhood, who has developed an obsession with death. He finds himself frequently at odds with the typical ideals of our society, as personified by his materialistic and rather aloof mother, a zealously patriotic uncle, and the girls his mother expects him to date. At a funeral, he meets Maude, an elderly woman who seems to share his interest in death, but who exhibits a surprisingly vigorous outlook on life. The director symbolically foreshadows this by showing Maude carrying a bright yellow umbrella like a flower amidst the field of black umbrellas at the funeral. Harold falls in love with the lively Maude, and I expect most viewers will, as well. The inimitable, unforgettable Maude is played wonderfully by Ruth Gordon, and Bud Cort also delivers an excellent performance as Harold. Much of the music in the film is that of Cat Stevens.
I give this movie my very highest recommendation. I found it both thought-provoking and hilarious when I first saw it in the early seventies, and it has remained one of my favorites for many years now. I promise you'll never view May-December romances quite the same after seeing this movie.