Harold and Maude

Ruth Gordon is a great actress. Her performance in this film is the entire reason I give it 3 stars. If you like Ruth, this is a film you will want to watch although she is in better films than this one. This film is a dark comedy about a young rich brat who drives his control freak mom nuts by faking suicides, & having an affair with a woman (Gordon) old enough to be his grandma. What scared me when I watched it was the woman playing his mom was much more my type than Ruth but that would make this film an incestuous sin. It is an extremely dark comedy which matches the generation it was made in with Nixon still in office & the protests of a Vietnam War that still dragged on when it was released. I would not recommend this to young children now as the suicide theme would be damaging & confusing to a generation now that is more & more prone to it. As far as Gordon's character stealing cars & motorcycles, while it might have been considered amusing & charming then, I don't think it would be considered that way now. This film was a cult favorite of college students in the early 1970's. About that time, all college students were drugged & strung out. I'd say after viewing it, you'd pretty much have to be that way to enjoy it. Multiple viewings really don't enliven that experience. This film is a major contributor to the reason anyone needs to be stoned. I wish AFI had not put it on their list of 100 comedy films, as I can think of several others that belong there. One viewing of it will tell you that AFI sometimes makes mistakes too. It made the list because of a cult following, not because it is a quality film. AFI is as political in it's choices as anyone.

Here is possibly the most unusual, and in my opinion, the best comedy ever made. "Harold & Maude" begins with a heavy dose of black humor, with the death-obsessed Harold performing 'suicides' as a way of rebelling against his domineering mother. His vehicle of choice is a hearse, and when he's not explaining his pitch-black fantasies to his shrink, he's crashing funerals. The film takes an unexpected turn with the introduction of Maude, a vivacious octogenarian who shares Harold's penchant for attending the funerals of strangers, but instead of being obsessed with death, she is obsessed with life. Her unique outlook and interesting activities, which include grand theft auto, endear her to Harold, and the two kindred spirits form a close relationship, which eventually blossoms into romance. This may seem quite unbelievable (and frankly, disgusting) for a twenty-something to fall for an eighty-year-old, but through Ashby's beautiful, skilled direction and Bud Cort's and Ruth Gordon's wonderful performances, the love story is entirely convincing and quite beautifully handled. The humor, is as I said, to begin with, very black, but there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, particularly with Harold's methods of scaring of dates picked for him by his mother, and the reaction of Harold's family and friends to the news of his infatuation with Maude. Cat Stevens' beautiful soundtrack makes this film even more beautiful. While this may be not for everyone, those who can appreciate it will enjoy it immensely.

Harold is a bored, self-indulgent, spoiled brat who treats everyone like an inferior. With too much time on his hands, he's also obsessed with death. He finds, Maude, an elderly hippie with her own version of life and death and spirituality. Together they enjoy each other's company and end up having sex. Harold horrifies everyone by telling them he's going to marry Maude. The film makes everyone except for Harold and Maude look like complete idiots or worse. It insults religious faith and the military and society in general. Of course, after all of Maude's exaltations of the wonder of life, she takes enough pills to commit suicide. Why? We are never told but it clearly conflicts with Maude's joy of life teachings. Anyway, Maude dies and Harold is so depressed about losing Maude, that he drives his car off a cliff, jumping out in time to dance and play a banjo on the cliff-side. Thus, celebrating life. No doubt, this film is unique, yet the writer and director have a warped sense of life itself and as such are incapable of truly teaching the joy's of life. They attack religious faith and miss out how faith makes life all the more joyful. They attack the tradition of military defense against those that hate freedom and liberty. The very basis of our ability to enjoy life is achieved by those that have given up their lives so that others, like Harold and Maude, can squander it by belching their idiotic drivel. Harold takes from society but gives nothing back. His family is wealthy and he chooses not to work but instead to spend all his time indulging in his morbid fantasies. Maybe if he got a job and became an active participant in society he wouldn't find his life so empty. He's a pathetic moron and Maude is little more than a senile lunatic that should have been committed. This film misses the point by a long shot since the film-makers themselves have demonstrated that they couldn't possibly imagine what the real joys of life include.

Bud Cort appeared in two of my favorite (and two of the quirkiest) movies from the 1970s: "Harold and Maude" and "Brewster McCloud." He also appeared in a cameo at the tail-end of "Sweet Charity," another of my favorites. Given that little resume of movie roles, he has forever won a place in my heart, as has this movie. "Harold and Maude" is a modest little masterpiece from Hal Ashby, and deserves to be viewed as more than just an eccentric little cult hit appreciated by an elite few. It's hard to think of another movie whose success relies so entirely upon its pitch-perfect tone. Ashby's film walks a tightrope between black (almost too black) comedy and sentimental (almost too sentimental) pathos, but manages to blend the two perfectly to produce something quite unlike anything else I've ever seen. Harold is a gloomy misfit with a morbid death obsession, who likes to stage his own fake suicides in order to win the attention of his dithery and oblivious mother (Vivian Pickles, in an uproarious performance). He meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), an eccentric old lady with a taste for fast driving and an unparalleled lust for life. Maude teaches Harold how to enjoy the world around him instead of letting it slowly pass him by, while Harold gives Maude someone to share her days with. It's an achingly beautiful movie, in a low-key kind of way. Ashby is the king of understatement, and everything, both the outrageous comedy and the tender, sad moments, are delivered simply and effectively. He's got great actors in a great story, and he trusts both enough to stand back and let them work their magic. Ruth Gordon gives one of my favorite film performances of all time as Maude. It would be easy to dismiss her role as easy, if it were not for those quiet moments when Maude lets her enthusiastic guard down and we get glimpses of some sadness in her life that she's made a willful decision not to let overcome her. There are moments in this movie that actually made me think differently about the world we live in. Just for an example, there's a scene when Harold and Maude are sitting by a pond, and Harold gives Maude a ring he won for her in a carnival. She clutches it to her chest, thanks him for it, and then throws it into the water. Harold at first looks outraged that she would throw his gift away. But she says, "Now I'll always know where it is," and Harold's hurt look transforms into a smile of understanding. If I could think about life the way the character of Maude does in this movie, I know I would be a happier person. "Harold and Maude" is a shining gem from the 1970s, and one of those movies I just have to watch every once in a while. Along with the two leads, there's of course Pickles' off-the-wall performance, and very funny support from actors in minor roles, like Harold's therapist ("sagging buttocks") and his war-crazed uncle. Plus, there's the wonderful score comprised of Cat Stevens songs, which caps off the tone of the movie beautifully. Grade: A+

I'm not sure how well I can articulate the ways in which this movie disappoints me. I'll throw out some random thoughts, and see if they lead me in the direction of a coherent opinion. There's a difference between a "free spirit" and a "loose cannon"; Maude definitely struck me as the latter. I imagine an alternate ending wherein the doctors save Maude's life after she takes the tablets, but while at the hospital she's arrested for multiple auto theft. Faced with spending years in prison (although she's 80, she's in good health), she suffers a complete loss of composure and/or a breakdown, and Harold sees how Maude's "independence" is actually a reckless disregard for the rights of others. Everyone in the movie is a caricature rather than a character, but since that's so blatantly obvious I can't fault the movie for it. I figure it must be deliberate. Still, the scene where Harold breaks down in his shrink's office makes me suspect that there IS supposed to be some depth to Harold, but the writer didn't develop it. Harold IS more than merely "eccentric", he's truly disturbed, and it would take more than his adventures with Maude to bring him any sort of peace. If, as I assume we are expected to, we end up seeing his analyst/therapist/whatever as a buffoon on an equal footing with the mother, the uncle, and the priest, I can only say that THIS doctor may be a fool, but Harold STILL needs professional help. Perhaps, after Harold drives his car off the cliff, he goes back home and calls Sunshine. She may be a flaky actress wannabe, but she was the one who SAW THROUGH Harold's staged suicide, and was willing to play along. From her OWN death-scene it appears that Sunshine is a very BAD actress, though, so perhaps that's why Harold shunned her. All this being said, I personally wasn't troubled by the "ick" factor of Harold and Maude consummating their love. I wouldn't PERSONALLY have found Maude sexually appealing when I was his age, but I credit Harold with recognizing that true love and passion have very little to do with the beauty of our bodies and much to do with the beauty of our minds.

Twenty-year-old man finds his soul mate in 80-year-old woman. This is a movie of its time. The main point of the film is that eccentricity is good; authority is bad. As such, it became a cult favorite with the hippie generation, but it is a chore to sit through it now. Harold and Maude are two of the most self-absorbed characters in the history of cinema. They are meant to be endearing but are extremely annoying, particularly Maude, as she is played by Gordon, an actress with annoying mannerisms. The humor is forced and unfunny and the emotions are phony. The scenes featuring Pickles, as Harold's mother, provide very mild amusement. Everything else is lame.

This is a terrible movie. With a few exceptions, everyone I knoe hates it with an EXTREME passion. The only people I know that like it do so because they want to be Maude when they turn 77 or whatever. What about Harold? *PLOT SPOILER* He ends up more messed up after the relationship than he did before he ever met Maude. What is this movie trying to say? This is one of the few cult classics I will probably never understand. The themes are too scatter brained to make a point, the characters are completely screwed up. Is Maude a hero or a villain? I don't think we know. Maybe that's what we're supposed to discuss, but, quite frankly, I don't care. My rating: 2/10

The self-destructive and needy wealthy teenager Harold (Bud Cort) is obsessed by death and spends his leisure time attending funerals, watching demolishing of buildings, visiting junkyards, simulating suicides trying to get attention of his indifferent, snobbish and egocentric mother and having sessions with his psychologist. When Harold meets the anarchist seventy nine year-old Maude (Ruth Gordon) at a funeral, they become friends and the old lady discloses others perspectives of the cycle of life for him. Meanwhile his mother enlists him in a dating service and tries to force Harold to join the army. On the day of the eightieth anniversary of Maude, Harold proposes her but he finds the truth about the end of the cycle of life. The cult "Harold and Maude" was a huge success in Brazil for people of my generation with a refreshing and funny exposition of themes like death, love and life through the friendship and love of a teenager and a septuagenarian woman. The complex Harold is a young man that needs the attention of his indifferent mother. He found in his childhood the only moment that she really seemed to be worried about him after a serious accident in school and he uses to fake suicides trying to have the same attention back. Maude is an anarchist old woman not attached to material stuff like properties or collections that steals cars for self-locomotion. Along a few days, Maude gives a lesson of life to Harold, changing his behavior and feelings forever. The performances of Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort in this weird love story are unforgettable and the soundtrack with Cat Steven's songs is another plus. Unfortunately "Harold and Maude" has been forgotten in Brazil by the distributors and neither the VHS nor the DVD has been released in my country; I just have a tape recorded from the cable TV. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Ensina-me a Viver" ("Teach me to Live")

Here's a strange movie! No wonder it's considered a "cult classic," which usually translates into "sick-movie-that-a-select group- of-sick people-love." In this case, it's a story of a 79-year-old degenerate ("Maude," played by Ruth Gordon) hooking up with a 19-year-old "Harold Parker Chasen" (Burt Cort). Yes, sometimes it's funny but mostly just an excuse for "Maude" to give us her dumb New Age philosophies. This perverted film could only have been made in the sleazy '70s. Earlier in the movie, before Cort meets Gordon and falls for her, the teen fakes a number of suicides. That was very good dark humor and the best part of the film.

In the late 1960s, a trend in literature and film -- that of attempting to make the lives of WASPy East Coast tycoons-to-be look wretched and soul-destroying -- swept over America. Those of us in the "flyover" states, contentedly munching our cake and participating in league bowling and working for a living, were profoundly mystified by this trend, particularly since films like "Harold and Maude," "Love Story," "The Graduate," etc. tended to make the "richie" parents paragons of evil, to the point they were cartoon characters. Oh, yeah, it's so terrible that you stand to inherit more money than 20 of my relatives put together will make in their whole lives. Let me hold the hankie while you blow your nose. NOT. It was, as another reviewer pointed out, hard for me to get past the "squick factor" of contemplating a 20-year-old guy in bed with a 79-year-old woman, but it was even harder for me to like dour Harold or annoying Maude. They both seemed utterly amoral and unsympathetic. The only reason I watched this movie is that I love Ruth Gordon. But I did not like her character in this film.