In Praise of Great Films - Harold and Maude (1971)

Fifth in a series.

Many books, movies, articles and even song lyrics over the years have featured varying takes on the legendary Hollywood "pitch meetings," wherein a screenwriter or team of aspiring filmmakers throw their unique idea for a film at an industry/studio insider in the hope that some money will be allocated to their project. Sometimes known as an "elevator pitch" (get your idea across in the time it takes to take an elevator ride with your subject), they boil a story down to a sentence or two.

Now, imagine the following movie idea: "A suicidal teenage boy falls madly in love with an 80-year-old woman..." Um, end of meeting, thank you very much, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And yet, that's the core of the story in the film Harold and Maude, released in 1971 and a cult fave to this day. The greatness of this movie isn't due to its cast (Bud Kort and Ruth Gordon in the title roles) nor special effects, nor cinematography, nor sound, nor any one thing. The magic of Harold and Maude is the story and the message contained therein.

We first meet Harold, a young lad with an obsession with death. He fakes his own suicides (in increasingly creative ways), partially as a way to confound his overbearing mother, who is in turn obsessed with finding her son a mate. Harold also attends the funerals of strangers, which is where he ends up meeting Maude. Over the course of the film, he falls head-0ver-heels in love with the old lady, and if you haven't seen the movie and are thinking this is just plain yucky, you're probably not alone.

But it works. Not only does the viewer buy into the love story, but we also are witness to the transformation of Harold -- from freaky loner to self-aware grown-up (sort of). Maude teaches Harold many lessons, not the least of which are to dare to dream, not be afraid of love, embrace life fully, and don't deny yourself happiness.

In today's legal environment, if such a storyline played out for real, Maude would be jailed for statutory rape and Harold would be committed to a mental institution, and that would be that. But perhaps 1971 was a different time with different attitudes (the Vietnam war was still going full-bore, and Harold and Maude is unabashedly anti-war).

Much of the credit for the story goes to Colin Higgins, who wrote the script. Higgins was a gifted writer of comedy whose life ended far too soon; he died of AIDS in 1988 while still in his 40s. The director of Harold and Maude was Hal Ashby, a former film editor who turned to directing and made some of the most memorable films of the 1970s (Coming Home, Bound for Glory, Shampoo, The Last Detail, Being There). Alas, Ashby also lost his life too soon and also in 1988, to cancer, while still in his 50s.

As for the cast, the great Ruth Gordon was the standout of course. She died in 1985 but in her case you can't say she was taken away prematurely. She was pushing 90, after all. (Gordon's first role was as an uncredited extra in a 1915 silent film called The Whirl of Life!) Gordon earned five Oscar nominations during her career (including a win for her role in the classic 1968 Roman Polanski film Rosemary's Baby), but only two of them were for acting. The other three were for screenwriting, as she turned out some great scripts with her husband and writing partner Garson Kanin. Bud Cort never became a big star but has been working steadily in small roles in the ensuing decades. The British actress Vivian Pickles is wickedly wonderful as Harold's mom. And watch for a hilarious scene where Maude messes with the head of a frustrated motorcycle cop, played by a then-little-known Tom Skerritt.

And last but not least, the movie has a soundtrack of songs by the artist who was at the time known as Cat Stevens. Whether or not you like his music, you'll have to admit that here they just work beautifully.

Even if all the above doesn't persuade you to give this movie a try, there's one more thing to seal the deal: This is quite possibly the only time in your life you'll get to see a sleek Jaguar sports coupe turned into a Hearse funeral car.