Harold and Maude
Harold and Maude is a 1971 American romantic black comedy–drama film directed by Hal Ashby and released by Paramount Pictures. It incorporates elements of dark humor and existentialist drama. The plot follows the exploits of Harold Chasen (Bud Cort), a young man who is intrigued with death, and who rejects the life his detached mother (Vivian Pickles) prescribes for him. Harold develops a friendship, and eventual romantic relationship, with 79-year-old Maude (Ruth Gordon) who teaches Harold about the importance of living life to its fullest. The screenplay by Colin Higgins began as his master 's thesis for film school. Filming locations in the San Francisco Bay Area included both Holy Cross Cemetery and Golden Gate National Cemetery, the ruins of the Sutro Baths and Rose Court Mansion in Hillsborough, California. Critically and commercially unsuccessful when first released, the film eventually developed a cult following, and first made a profit in 1983. The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1997, and was ranked number 45 on the American Film Institute list of 100 funniest movies of all time in 2000. The Criterion Collection released a special edition Blu-ray and  DVD in 2012. Plot. Harold Chasen is a 19-year-old man obsessed with death. He stages elaborate fake suicides, attends funerals (usually for people that he doesn't know), and drives a hearse, all to the chagrin of his self-obsessed, wealthy socialite mother. His mother sends Harold to a psychoanalyst, sets him up with blind dates, and buys him a luxury car, all schemes he subverts in his own way. Harold meets 79-year-old Maude one day while at a random stranger's funeral mass, and find they share a hobby. Harold is entranced by Maude's  quirky outlook on life, which is bright and delightfully carefree in contrast with his moribund demeanor. Maude lives in a decommissioned railroad car and thinks nothing of breaking the law; she is quite skilled at stealing cars and will swiftly uproot an ailing tree on public property to re-plant it in the forest. She and Harold form a bond and Maude shows Harold the pleasures of art and music (including how to play banjo), and teaches him how to make "the most of his time on earth." Meanwhile, Harold's mother is determined, against Harold's wishes, to find  him a wife. One by one, Harold frightens and horrifies each of his appointed computer dates, by appearing to commit gruesome acts: self-immolation, self-mutilation, and seppuku. His mother tries enlisting him in the military by sending Harold to his uncle, who lost an arm serving under General MacArthur in the Second World War, but Harold deters the recruitment by staging a scene where Maude poses as a pacifist protester and Harold seemingly murders her out of militarist fanaticism. As Harold and Maude grow closer, their friendship blossoms into a romance. Holding her hand, Harold discovers a number tattooed  on her forearm, indicating Maude survived the Nazi death camps. Harold announces that he will marry Maude, resulting in disgusted outbursts from his family, analyst, and priest. Unbeknownst to Harold, Maude has been planning to commit suicide on her eightieth birthday. Maude's birthday arrives, and Harold throws a surprise party for her. As the pair dance, Maude tells Harold that she "couldn't imagine a lovelier farewell." When Maude reveals that she has taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and will be dead by midnight, Harold rushes Maude to the hospital. After learning of Maude's death, Harold is  shown speeding down a country road, and sending the car off a seaside cliff. After the crash, the final shot reveals Harold standing calmly atop the cliff, holding his banjo and wearing colorful clothing for the first time in the film. After gazing down at the wreckage, he dances away to "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out". Director Hal Ashby appears in an uncredited cameo, seen at a penny arcade watching a model train at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Production. UCLA film school student Colin Higgins wrote "Harold and Maude" as his master's thesis. While working  as producer Edward Lewis's pool boy, Higgins showed the script to Lewis's wife, Mildred. Mildred was so impressed that she got Edward to give it to Stanley Jaffe at Paramount. Higgins sold the script with the understanding that he would direct the film but he was told he wasn't ready, after tests he shot proved unsatisfactory to the studio heads. Ashby would only commit to directing the film after getting Higgins' blessing and then, so Higgins could watch and learn from him on the set, Ashby made Higgins a co-producer. Higgins says he originally thought of  the story as a play. It then became a 20-minute thesis while at film school. The film script was turned into a novel and then a play, which ran for several years in Paris. Ashby felt that the actress portraying Maude should ideally be European and his list of possible actresses included dames Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans, Gladys Cooper, and Celia Johnson as well as Lotte Lenya, Luise Rainer, Pola Negri, Minta Durfee, and Agatha Christie. Ruth Gordon indicated that in addition she heard that Edwige Feuillère, Elisabeth Bergner, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, and Dorothy Stickney had been considered . For Harold, in addition to Bud Cort, Ashby considered all promising unknowns, Richard Dreyfuss, Bob Balaban, and John Savage. Also on his list were John Rubinstein, for whom Higgins had written the part, and then-up-and-coming British pop star Elton John, whom Ashby had seen live and hoped would also do the music. Anne Brebner, the casting director, was almost cast as Harold's mother, when Vivian Pickles was briefly unable to do the role. Novelization. A novelization by Higgins was released alongside the film; they differ in several respects, including the film's omission of certain scenes  and characters. Other different details include the novel's version of Maude having white hair (unlike Ruth Gordon in the film) and introducing herself as "the Countess Mathilde Chardin," a different name and title than used in the film. In the novel, Maude's home is characterized as a "cottage" (unlike the retired railroad car Maude inhabits in the movie), and she and Harold briefly interact with Maude's neighbor, Madame Arouet, who is not present in the film. The novel includes an additional scene during the tree-planting expedition where Maude leads Harold in climbing to the top of  a very tall pine tree to show him the view over the forest from near its summit. Release. Critical response. "Harold and Maude" received mixed reviews, with several critics being offended by the film's dark humor. Roger Ebert, in a review dated January 1, 1972, gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars. He 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 visual style makes everyone look fresh  from the Wax Museum, and all the movie lacks is a lot of day-old gardenias and lilies and roses in the lobby, filling the place with a cloying sweet smell. Nothing more to report today. Harold doesn't even make pallbearer." Vincent Canby also panned the film, stating that the actors "are so aggressive, so creepy and off-putting, that Harold and Maude are obviously made for each other, a point the movie itself refuses to recognize with a twist ending that betrays, I think, its life-affirming pretensions." According to Danny Peary, author of the Cult Movies series : "The film was a runaway cult favorite, and, most memorably, in Minneapolis, residents actually picketed the Westgate Theater, and tried to get the management to replace the picture after a consecutive three-year run." The reputation of the film has increased greatly; Rotten Tomatoes, which labeled the film as "Certified Fresh", gave it a score of 85% based on 46 reviews, with an average score of 7.66/10. A consensus on the site read, "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." In 2005, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #86 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. "Sight & Sound" magazine conducts a poll every ten years of the world's finest film directors, to find out the Ten Greatest Films of All Time. This poll has been going since 1992 and has become the most recognized poll of its kind in the world. In 2012, Niki Caro, Wanuri Kahiu, and Cyrus Frisch voted for "Harold and Maude". Frisch commented: "An encouragement to think beyond the obvious!" In 2017, "Chicago Tribune" critic Mark Caro wrote a  belated appreciation, "I'm sorry, "Harold and Maude", for denying you for so long. You're my favorite movie once again." Home media. The Criterion Collection released "Harold and Maude" for Region 1 on DVD and Blu-ray on June 12, 2012, including a collection of audio excerpts of director Hal Ashby from January 11, 1972 and of screenwriter Colin Higgins from January 10, 1979, a new video interview with Yusuf/Cat Stevens, a new audio commentary by Ashby biographer Nick Dawson and producer Charles B. Mulvehill, and a booklet which includes a new film essay by Matt Zoller Seitz . Exclusive to the Blu-ray edition are a new digital restoration of the film with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack and an optional remastered uncompressed stereo soundtrack. Other exclusives are a "New York Times" profile of actress Ruth Gordon from 1971, an interview from 1997 with actor Bud Cort and cinematographer John Alonzo, and an interview from 2001 with executive producer Mildred Lewis. Accolades. At the 29th Golden Globe Awards, Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon were nominated as Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy film, respectively. The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry  in 1997, along with others deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress. "Harold and Maude" has repeatedly been ranked among the various lists compiled by the American Film Institute. In 2000 the film ranked #45 on the list of 100 Years... 100 Laughs, the top hundred comedies. Two years later "Harold and Maude" ranked #69 on the AFI list 100 Years... 100 Passions, honoring the most romantic films of the past century. In 2006 the film ranked #89 on the AFI list 100 Years...100 Cheers, recognizing the most inspiring movies. In June 2008 AFI revealed  its 10 Top 10: the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, placing "Harold and Maude" at #9 in the romantic comedy genre. In September 2008 "Empire" ranked "Harold and Maude" #65 among their 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film #4 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films." Music. The music in "Harold and Maude" was composed and performed by Cat Stevens. He had been suggested by Elton John to do the music after John had dropped out of the project. Stevens composed two original songs for the film, "Don't  Be Shy" and "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" and performed instrumental and alternative versions of the previously released songs "On the Road to Find Out", "I Wish, I Wish", "Miles from Nowhere", "Tea for the Tillerman", "I Think I See the Light", "Where Do the Children Play?" and "Trouble" (all from his albums "Mona Bone Jakon" or "Tea for the Tillerman"). "Don't Be Shy" and "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" remained unreleased on any album until the 1984 compilation "". Additional music in the film is sourced from well known compositions. "Greensleeves" is played  on the harp during dinner. The opening bars of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 are heard during the scene of Harold floating face-down in the swimming pool. The Sunnyvale HS Marching Band plays "The Klaxon" by Henry Fillmore outside the church following a funeral. A calliope version of the waltz "Over the Waves" by Juventino Rosas is played at the amusement park. Harold and Maude waltz together in her home to "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II. The soundtrack album charted at number 173 on the US "Billboard" 200 in July 2021. 1972 soundtrack. The first soundtrack  was released in Japan in 1972 on vinyl and cassette (A&M Records GP-216). It omitted the two original songs and all instrumental and alternative versions of songs and was generally composed of re-released material that was in the film, along with five songs that were not in the film. 2007 soundtrack. The second soundtrack was released in December 2007, by Vinyl Films Records, as a vinyl-only limited-edition release of 2,500 copies. It contained a 30-page oral history of the making of the film, comprising the most extensive series of interviews yet conducted on "Harold and Maude . 2021 soundtrack. A Record Store Day limited edition, available in yellow or orange vinyl, was released July 2021. It contained all the main songs from the 2007 album, but omitted the bonus material. 2022 soundtrack. The full soundtrack album received its first regular wide commercial release on February 11, 2022, to commemorate the film's 50th Anniversary. The entire album was remastered at Abbey Road Studios. The disc includes previously unheard audio masters discovered in the Island Records/A&M archive for the two original songs Stevens wrote for the film, Don't Be Shy" and "If You Want To Sing  Out, Sing Out." While there was an LP, this was also the album's first-ever release on CD. Adaptations. Colin Higgins later adapted the story into a stage play. The original Broadway production, starring Janet Gaynor as Maude and Keith McDermott as Harold, closed after four performances in February 1980. The Yugoslav premiere of the play was staged at the Belgrade Drama Theatre (BDP) on March 23, 1980, two months after its performance on Broadway. Directed by Paolo Magelli, the main roles were played by Tatjana Lukjanova (Maude), Milan Erak (Harold), and Žiža Stojanović (Mrs. Chasen). After Milan Erak 's passing, the role of Harold was taken over by Slobodan Beštić. The play was on the BDP repertoire until 2003 when Tatjana Lukjanova passed away. A French adaptation for television, translated and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, appeared in 1978. It was also adapted for the stage by the Compagnie Viola Léger in Moncton, New Brunswick, starring Roy Dupuis. A musical adaptation, with songs by Joseph Thalken and Tom Jones, premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ, in January 2005. The production starred Estelle Parsons as Maude and Eric Millegan as Harold. Unproduced sequel and prequel. Higgins  expressed interest in 1978 about both a sequel and prequel to "Harold and Maude". The sequel, "Harold's Story", would have Cort portray Harold's life after Maude. Higgins also imagined a prequel showing Maude's life before Harold, "Grover and Maude" had Maude learning how to steal cars from Grover Muldoon, the character portrayed by Richard Pryor in Higgins' 1976 film "Silver Streak". Higgins wanted Gordon and Pryor to reprise their respective roles.