Harold and Maude

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Harold and Maude
Directed by Hal Ashby
Produced by Colin Higgins
Charles B. Mulvehill
Written by Colin Higgins
Starring Ruth Gordon
Bud Cort
Vivian Pickles
Eric Christmas
Cyril Cusack
Ellen Geer
G. Wood
Music by Cat Stevens
Editing by William A. Sawyer
Edward Warschilka
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) December 20, 1971 (U.S.)
Running time 91 min.
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget $1,200,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile
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Harold and Maude is a cult classic movie directed by Hal Ashby in 1971. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humor, and existentialist drama, centers around the exploits of a morbid young man — Harold — who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes him as he develops a relationship with septuagenarian Maude.

The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all time,[1] 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[2] as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was a commercial failure when it was released and the critical reception was extremely mixed. It now has a large cult following.[3]

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.

The movie has given rise to two new words: "Harolding" (hanging around cemeteries) described by Douglas Coupland in "Harolding in West Vancouver" (1996); and "Maudism" or "Maudianism", the philosophy of living each day to the fullest.[4] This may also have a link to the phonetically-similar philosophy of Mod-ism.

The entire soundtrack for the movie is by Cat Stevens.

Contents

[edit] Summary

The film first introduces us to Harold, an alienated young man from a wealthy family who lives in a large mansion with his domineering mother. Harold stages realistic mock-suicides. This has evidently been going on for so long that his mother takes no notice, other than when Harold causes a particular mess with his fake blood. For amusement, Harold attends funerals of people he doesn't know. At these he repeatedly sees Maude, a woman who befriends him a week before her eightieth birthday. Maude is very much his opposite: a senior citizen, energetic, impulsive, and light-hearted. The two form an unlikely friendship and Harold becomes much more open. He learns how to play the banjo and helps Maude "liberate" a tree suffering from smog in the city to be replanted in a forest. He also tells Maude about how, after seeing his mother's reaction when he was believed to have been killed, he decided that he enjoyed being dead. Maude consoles him ("A lot of people enjoy being dead"), but tells him that life should be lived to the fullest. Meanwhile in his home, his mother feels that it is time that Harold got married. Using a dating service, she arranges for him to have three dates, all of which end disastrously as Harold creatively fakes his death for each of the girls. (The last girl, an actress, recognizes that the "suicide" is fake, but because she proceeds to act out the death of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet, Harold's mother is led to believe that Harold killed her.) Harold and Maude become very close, until Harold gives her a token saying "Harold loves Maude" and the two sleep together. The next day, he tells his mother that he plans on marrying Maude, despite attempts by his mother, Uncle Victor, and others to dissuade him. On Maude's eightieth birthday, Harold intends to pop the question but the celebration is halted when he learns that Maude has deliberately swallowed a fatal dose of unidentified tablets: "I'll be gone by midnight." She is rushed to the hospital; however, they are unable to save her. Harold is grief-stricken and drives his car recklessly down a road and towards a cliff overlooking a beach. The audience is led to believe that Harold is killed when the car crashes into the sand below, but it is revealed that it is only another pretend suicide. Harold is still alive on the cliff overhead. As he walks away, he takes out Maude's banjo and begins to play cheerfully.

[edit] Themes

Hal Ashby, the director of the film, was part of the San Francisco youth culture, and in this film he contrasts the doomed outlook of the alienated youth of the time against the hard won optimism of those that 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.

Harold is part of a society in which he has no personal importance and existentially, therefore, he is without meaning. Maude, however, has survived and lives a life rich with meaning. It is in this existential crisis, shown against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, so that we see the difference of how one culture, personified by Harold, is handling one meaningless war, while another has experienced and lived beyond another war that produced a crisis of meaning, the Holocaust.

[edit] Awards

Harold and Maude is #45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Year... 100 Laughs, the list of the top 100 films in American comedy. The list was released in 2000.

[edit] Cast

Cover of the Harold and Maude video, showing lead actors Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort
Cover of the Harold and Maude video, showing lead actors Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort

[edit] Crew

[edit] 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 that were unavailable 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, though without the two songs Cat Stevens wrote for the film but including five songs not 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 on 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 conducted on "Harold and Maude."

[edit] Track listing

This the track listing for the first official release of the soundtrack to Harold and Maude.

Side A:

  1. "Don't Be Shy"
  2. "On The Road To Find Out"
  3. "I Wish, I Wish"
  4. "Miles From Nowhere"
  5. "Tea for the Tillerman"
  6. "I Think I See The Light"

Side B:

  1. "Where Do The Children Play?"
  2. "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out"
  3. "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (banjo version)" - (previously unreleased)
  4. "Trouble"
  5. "Don't Be Shy (alternate version)" - (previously unreleased)
  6. "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (instrumental version)" - (previously unreleased)

Bonus 7" single: A: "Don't Be Shy (demo version)" - (previously unreleased) B: "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (alternate version)" - (previously unreleased)

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • 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.
  • In all shots of Ruth Gordon (Maude) driving the hearse, it is being towed because Gordon never learned how to drive a car.
  • Among the cult followers of Harold and Maude are Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, who pay extensive tribute to the film in There's Something About Mary. In the movie, the character of Mary thinks that Harold and Maude is "the greatest love story of our time."
  • Wes Anderson has stated that the film was a large influence on his own style of films, most notably Rushmore.
  • Harold and Maude played for a total of 1,957 showings from mid-1972 until June 1974 at the Westgate Theater in Edina, Minnesota. Ruth Gordon appeared for the first anniversary celebration and both Gordon and Cort showed up for the second anniversary. [1]
  • Actors originally considered for the role of Harold Chasen: John Rubinstein, Bob Balaban, Danny Fortas, Todd Sussman, Elton John, and John Neilson.
  • Actresses originally considered for the role of Maude: Dame Edith Evans, Dame Cicely Courtneidge, Gladys Cooper, and Cathleen Nesbitt.
  • Charles B. Mulvehill (producer of Harold and Maude) and Shari Summers (Role of Edith Fern) married immediately following the completion of Harold and Maude in director Hal Ashby's home.
  • Harold and Maude was originally supposed to be 3 hours long.
  • Hal Ashby has a cameo as the bearded man watching model train, and Cat Stevens has a cameo as the man in front of Maude at the funeral.
  • In a 6th season episode of Family Guy where Peter's mother dates Tom Tucker, Peter comments on how they are like Harold and Maude. This is followed by Stewie doing the priests speech from the film.

[edit] References

  1. ^ AFI's 100 YEARS...100 LAUGHS
  2. ^ http://www.loc.gov/film/titles.html National Film Registry list of films, 1989-2006
  3. ^ Peary, Danny. Cult Movies, Delta Books, 1981. ISBN 0-517-20185-2
  4. ^ HAROLD & MAUDE/Maudianism
  • The official Harold and Maude soundtrack

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
v • d • e
Films directed by Hal Ashby

The Landlord (1970) • Harold and Maude (1971) • The Last Detail (1973) • Shampoo (1975) • Bound for Glory (1976) • Coming Home (1978) • Being There (1979) • Second-Hand Hearts (1981) • Lookin' to Get Out (1982) • Zapped! (1982) • Let's Spend the Night Together (1983) • The Slugger's Wife (1985) • 8 Million Ways to Die (1986)