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Harold and Maude Customer Reviews (13 - 15 of 68 Reviews)

'Harold And Maude' (Paramount) Running time: 90 minutes
Review no.227.Main reason I even decided to check out this classic 1971 film is because of it's mere mention in the 'There's Something About Mary' blockbuster movie.Plus,I've heard a few women mention now and again how much they enjoyed this release.Good comedy/drama would be the best way I could describe it.Two unlikely people meet(by chance)at a funeral,a suicidal/spoiled rich kid Harold Chasen(Bud Cort)and 79 year-old/having a zest for life Maude(Ruth Gordon-R.I.P.)as the two seem to get along well.I thought that Harold was a total scream,the way he'd either dream about or,a few times 'act out' a death wish.Maybe not a thrill a minute here,but at least some good acting with several rather humorous moments.See it with someone you care about.A quick footnote:really dug the several Cat Stevens tunes that were played through out the movie.

The baby boomers have seen the enemy ... and it is themselves!
This movie is sooo 1971 - and that is not a bad thing. It was directed by a member of "the greatest generation" (Hal Ashby) about a member of his parents' generation (Maude) helping a member of the baby boomers' generation (Harold) choose to seize life rather than go on embracing a kind of living death. The details of the film have been rehashed by several hundred previous reviewers, so I won't do that once again. I will point out that it is interesting that the intended audience for this film - the baby boomers of 1971 who were then in their teens and twenties who so embraced this film then and still do through all of the websites dedicated to its nostalgia - have become what they claimed to abhor in this movie over the last 35 years. They have, in fact, become the most prudish bunch of old people since the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock. Their collective slogan has changed from "Let It All Hang Out" to "Let All Who Do Not Conform Be Hanged!". Thanks to the collective legislative efforts of the baby boomers - shortly to begin their second stint in diapers - we do not dare let a 20 year old (Harold's age in the movie) drink one beer even in the bedroom of his own house. We do not dare let bar owners (now only in some jurisdictions, but coming soon to a jurisdiction near you!) allow smoking in their establishments by anyone no matter what their age, and worst of all the land is dotted with zero-tolerance policies in which a child who shows up to school with an unauthorized aspirin is often treated the same as a child who shows up to school with crack cocaine or a gun as far as expulsion goes.
The point of my rant is this - If the Maude of the film were somehow brought back to life today, more than likely she would find Harold acting more like his mother than even his mother did and would likely want to take that handful of pills that ended her life a second time - for completely different reasons.
This really is a great film, and I would really hope that when I am 79 I am a cross between the Maude of this movie and Einstein and his compadres in the film "IQ". More than that though, I watch this film to remind me how it is a daily battle to stay young at heart and open to the simple pleasures of life. A battle that so many of my older fellow baby boomers have long since lost.

A SHIMMERING CELEBRATION OF LIFE
I first saw HAROLD AND MAUDE in the early Seventies as it made the Art House circuit, slowly becoming one of the most beloved little films ever made. The script was Colin Higgins' graduation piece from film school, and wise beyond his youth. His loss is still felt as a loss for all of us.

Hal Ashby took the story under his wing and brought out all the heart and joy, as well as the very. very black humor (which is what keeps it a little film. . .most people just can't get past Harold's faked suicide attempts). The late Ruth Gordon (who with her husband and partner Garson Kanin was responsible for screenplays such as ADAM'S RIB and PAT AND MIKE) was absolutely perfect for the role of Maude, a woman with an unbelievably hard past (I won't spoil it for you) who has decided not to retreat into a shell, but to embrace the light of life on her own terms. Bud Cort (whose real name is Walter Edward Cox. . .Wally Cox? Good name change!), fresh from M*A*S*H and Robert Altman's BREWSTER McCLOUD, is just as perfect as Harold, moving his character from the pit of despair to the sunshine of friendship with Maude in a believable way.

The rest of the cast grasps the dark comedy and runs with it, from Vivian Pickles as Harold's dense, snooty mother to Eric Christmas as the very repressed local Priest to Charles Tyner and his unfolding arm as Harold's gung-ho Uncle Victor. Watch for Tom Skerritt as a police officer and Cat Stevens as the man standing in front of Maude at a funeral.

And Cat Stevens' music: what more can be said about how perfect his gentle songs are for this movie? He wrote some new songs and fit a couple of older works into HAROLD AND MAUDE, and since there was no soundtrack album at the time, his new music was unreleased for many years. In 1984 the compilation album FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK finally put on vinyl the songs DON'T BE SHY and IF YOU WANT TO SING OUT, SING OUT, and of course the two have appeared since then on other compilations.

The DVD release offers a nice transfer of the movie, letterboxed, and two different trailers for the original theatrical release (each of which show that Paramount had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to sell this wonderful film).

Fortunately for us all, HAROLD AND MAUDE has grown through word of mouth into one of those films that is very, very special. It's laugh-out-loud, fall-out-of-your-seat funny, and it will make you cry. Go into it with your eyes and mind open, and experience a one of a kind movie. Don't be shy.

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