When initially released in 1971 Harold and Maude was panned by critics and moviegoers alike. However, it found a group of younger, college-aged viewers that adored it and turned it into a cult classic. It was quirky and has been described as “an offbeat movie fairy tale which is a fairly original slice of black humor, morbidity, alternate lifestyles, and sentimentality.”
As with so many of our Reel Classics, Harold and Maude today is viewed as a classic.
The film stars Bud Cort as young Harold Chasen. Harold is not a happy young man. He has no friends, is obsessed with death, continually fakes suicide and drives a hearse. He entertains himself by attending funerals of folks he doesn’t even know. He lives with his wealthy mother who is convinced that all he needs to do is get married and everything will be alright. She is continuously trying to set him up with dates with young brides-to-be.
It is at one of these funerals that young Harold meets Maude Chardin (Ruth Gordon), a seventy-nine year old woman who is very much the opposite of Harold. She is obsessed with life and seeks out excitement and adventure where she can find it. She too attends numerous funerals of strangers — something they have in common. They strike up what would appear to be an unlikely friendship and this friendship grows as Harold begins to hang out with Maude. Maude works to show Harold what life is and how to enjoy it. She is not so interested in material possessions (though she is not opposed to at times “borrowing” some from others) but is focused on the experiences in life. She becomes determined to teach Harold how to live life to its fullest.
With Harold’s obsession with death, he repeatedly fakes his own suicide by means of gunshot, hanging, stabbing, etc. — often in front of his mother or his “date” arranged by his mother. His mother tends to ignore the behaviors but sends him to a psychiatrist for therapy in the hopes that he will be made “normal.” However, we find that it is Maude’s influence on Harold that impacts his view of life and its purpose.
Maude lives in an old, abandoned railroad car and thinks nothing of “borrowing” a car to get her where she needs to go, or digging up an ailing tree in town to replant it in the forest where it can thrive. She shares with Harold her love of music and art (including how to play the banjo). She urges him to make the most of what time he has here on Earth.
Harold finds himself falling in love with Maude and says he wants to marry her. Not surprisingly, he receives negative feedback to such a thought from his mother, his therapist, and his priest. As their relationship has grown, Harold discovers one evening while holding Maude’s hand that she has numbers tattooed on her arm. She shares with him that she had been a prisoner in the Nazi prison camps. He also learns that she was a political “radical” when she was young and involved in the suffragette movement. These insights stoke his feelings for her.
As mentioned above, the dismay by Harold’s family and acquaintances to his attraction to a seventy-nine-year-old woman was echoed by many critics and viewers alike. The script was written by Colin Higgins, based on a master’s thesis he had written while attending UCLA film school. Higgins was working as a pool cleaner for film producer Edward Lewis, and shared the script with Lewis’ wife, Mildred. She was so impressed that she got her husband to present it to Paramount Studios. Hal Ashby was signed to direct the film and insisted that Higgins be made a co-producer. Higgins went on to adapt the script into a novel and later a play that ran for a number of years in Paris.
The initial release did not do well at the box office, and critics were not kind. Roger Ebert wrote “And so what we get, finally, is a movie of attitudes. Harold is death, Maude life, and they manage to make the two seem so similar that life’s hardly worth the extra bother.” The review in The New York Times stated that the actors “are so aggressive, so creepy and off-putting, that Harold and Maude are obviously made for each other . . .”
However, the film found success in repertory theatres and among the younger generation. The popularity was likely aided by a wonderful soundtrack of songs by Cat Stevens. After several years of running in these theatres the film recouped its costs. It continued to be a cult favorite for years — I remember seeing it multiple times at The Kentucky Theatre in Lexington.
More recent reviews have been much kinder. In 2017 the critic for the Chicago Tribune wrote: “I’m sorry, Harold and Maude, for denying you for so long. You’re my favorite movie once again.” The critics’ consensus on Rotten Tomatoes states: “Hal Ashby’s comedy is too dark and twisted for some, and occasionally oversteps its bounds, but there’s no denying the film’s warm humor and big heart.”
Harold and Maude is part of the Criterion Collection of films. In their description of the film they write: “Harold and Maude, which took values that had been expressed by youthful rebels and dropouts in the late 1960s — peace, love, understanding, distrust of authority, a determination to march to the beat of a different drummer — and put them in the mouth of an old woman embroiled in one of the oddest and most original love stories ever filmed . . . It just wants people to be themselves and to be appreciated instead of judged — and to spread bliss by reaching out.”
In 1997 Harold and Maude was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2005 the Writers Guild of America ranked it at #86 on their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays, and Entertainment Weekly ranked it at #4 on their list of “The Top 50 Cult Films.”
Other accolades include various rankings by the American Film Institute, including #45 on their list of top 100 comedies, #69 on their list of most romantic films and #9 in the romantic comedy listing.
Colin Higgins, the pool cleaner who wrote the original screenplay, went on to become a successful film writer and director, including the film 9 to 5. When asked why the film hit it so big with the younger generation he said: “We’re all Harold, and we all want to be Maude. We’re all repressed and trying to be free, to be ourselves, to be vitally interested in living, to be everything we want.”
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An interesting side story here. Ali MacGraw was the wife of Paramount Studios boss man Robert Evans at the time. When she saw the scene of Harold and Maude kissing, she insisted that her husband cut that scene. Ashby had intended to have a scene showing the couple making love, but the studio rejected that. Evans reportedly stated that such displays of affection would repulse most audiences. Ashby was upset: “That’s sort of what the whole movie is about, a boy falling in love with an old woman; the sexual aspect doesn’t have to be distasteful.” He did manage to get the scene of the couple kissing into the trailer.
As I mentioned above, one of the many highlights of this film is the music by Cat Stevens. Reportedly Elton John was initially approached about providing the soundtrack. He passed on the offer but suggested Cat Stevens. The theme of this film is Stevens’ song “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” which he wrote for this film. It captures the essence of the film. Live life, experience, enjoy! As Harold comments to Maude: “This is definitely a new experience for me.” She responds: “Oh, wonderful! Try something new each day. After all, we’re given life to find it out. It doesn’t last forever.”
Rotten Tomatoes has given Harold and Maude a critics’ score of 86% and an audience score of 93%. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) gives it a score of 7.9 of 10. In searching for free streaming sites, I found it available on the Kanopy site (available with your Clark County Public Library card), and there is a copy on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library.
Information for this Reel Classic review was gathered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.
I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trailer below let me remind you that if you enjoy these classic movies, please join me on the second Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.” I present a classic comedy film usually accompanied by a vintage cartoon. Popcorn and drinks are provided. More information about the next film is available on the library’s website and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.
