Harold and Maude

Dir: Hal Ashby

1971

*****

There is a scene in the Farrelly brothers’ 1998 comedy hit There’s Something About Mary where Cameron Diaz’s character is asked what her favorite romantic film is. Her character, being quirky (there was something about her after all) answered ‘Harold and Maude’ and a whole new generation became aware of the 1971 classic. It is a great, perhaps one of the greatest romantic films ever made but it never, ever, appears on ‘greatest’ lists or is even considered a romance film but only a dark comedy. There is a darkness to the story, its an existentialist drama after all (I usually hate existentialist films, although the German’s make good ones) but the darkness comes from some of the earlier scenes that deal with suicide and death. I’m not sure why It’s A Wonderful Life is never considered a ‘dark’ existentialist drama for similar reasons but I digress, I believe people’s perception that it is dark is due to the huge age difference between the couple in love. It’s certainly towards the top of my list of favorite romantic films as well as my favorite comedies of all time. There are no films quite as lovely as Hal Ashby’s films. The film starts with us being introduced to Harold Chasen (the hilariously straight-faced Bud Cort). At only eighteen years of age, Harold finds himself somewhat obsessed with death, staging elaborate fake suicides, attending funerals of people he didn’t know and choosing to drive a hearse, rather than the flash sports car his socialite mother (Vivian Pickles) has bought for him. The elaborate fake suicides are the funniest part of the film and are possibly one of the funniest moments in cinema of all time. Harold’s mother sets him up appointments with a psychoanalyst, but the analyst is befuddled by his case and fails to get Harold to talk about his real emotions. At another stranger's funeral service, Harold meets Maude ( played by the wonderful Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old woman who shares Harold's hobby of attending funerals. He is entranced by her quirky outlook on life, which is bright and excessively carefree in contrast with his own morbidity. The pair form a bond and Maude shows Harold the pleasures of art and music and teaches him how to make the most of his time on earth – as well as how to play banjo. 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 dates, by appearing to commit gruesome (and utterly hilarious) acts such as self-immolation, self-mutilation and seppuku. She tries enlisting him in the military instead, but he deters his recruiting officer uncle by staging a scene in which Maude poses as a pacifist protester and Harold seemingly murders her out of militaristic fanaticism. When Harold and Maude are talking at her home he tells her, without prompting, the motive for his fake suicides: When he was at boarding school, he accidentally caused an explosion in his chemistry lab, leading police to assume his death. Harold returned home just in time to witness his mother react to the news of his death with a ludicrously dramatized faint. As he reaches this part of the story, Harold bursts into tears and says, "I decided then I enjoyed being dead." As they become closer, their friendship soon blossoms into a romance and Harold announces that he will marry Maude, resulting in disgusted outbursts from his family, analyst, and priest. Maude's 80th birthday arrives, and Harold throws a surprise party for her. As the couple dance, Maude tells Harold that she "couldn't imagine a lovelier farewell." Confused, he questions Maude as to her meaning and she reveals that she has taken an overdose of sleeping pills and will be dead by morning. She restates her firm belief that eighty is the proper age to die. Harold rushes Maude to the hospital, where she is treated unsuccessfully and dies. In the final sequence, Harold's car is seen going off a seaside cliff but after the crash, the final shot reveals Harold standing calmly atop the cliff, holding his banjo. After gazing down at the wreckage, he dances away, picking out on his banjo Cat Stevens' "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out". If you don’t have a lump in your throat or a tear in your eye by the time the credits roll then you’re not human. Colin Higgins wrote Harold and Maude as his master's thesis when he was a student at UCLA. He was working as a pool boy at producer Edward Lewis's house when he showed the script to Lewis's wife. She was so impressed that she got Edward to give it to Stanley Jaffe at Paramount. He sold the script to Paramount 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. Hal 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. That shows you just how much of a great guy Ashby was. Higgins says he originally thought of the story as a play but it was turned into a novel before the film. Everything about the film is perfect, from the performances to the direction. Timing is everything and this has to be the best edited comedy I can think of. Believe it or not, Elton John was initially offered the part of Harold as Ashby thought it would be great if he also did the music but luckily he declined. I like Elton John but Bud Cort was the perfect Harold and Elton suggested his friend Cat Stevens instead and I think his music suited the film far greater. It is, as far as I’m concerned, a perfect film. It’s one of those iconic films that represents the big step from 60s cinema to 70s cinema. Hal Ashby was a genius, so few films but nearly all of them masterpieces.