Cult Movies #7

A 1971 black comedy centered around the budding romance between a 20-year-old man and 79-year-old woman may not be at the top of your must-see list, but it should be. Filmed in the San Francisco Bay Area when the turbulence of the sixties was winding down into the Me Decade, Harold and Maude embraces the idiosyncrasies of the peace-and-love generation with charmingly off-kilter performances and an anti-authoritarian bent. (It's the polar opposite of Don Siegel's Dirty Harry--starring Clint Eastwood--which was released the same year.) 

Bud Cort is perfectly cast as Harold Chasen, a gawky, blank-faced young man who lives in an enormous mansion with his uptight socialite mother (a haughtily funny Vivian Pickles). While Mrs. Chasen schemes to normalize her odd and introverted son by subscribing him to a computer-dating service, Harold attends the funerals of strangers to occupy his time. That is when he's not staging elaborate suicide tableaux to make his unflappable mother feel something other than disappointment at his aversion to adopting his family's values. 

On a rainy day at someone's funeral, Harold meets Maude, an elfin, energetic old lady who happens to share his peculiar divertissement. Having spotted Harold at a previous service, Maude's curiosity gets the better of her and she--very unsubtly--insinuates herself into a pew directly behind him. Harold, both horrified and intrigued, hurries out of the church with a persistent Maude hot on his heels. Rebuffed--for the moment--Maude assures Harold that they'll meet again before speeding away in the VW Beetle appropriated from the church minister. As it happens, Maude is remarkably adept at stealing cars. Their paths do cross again, and--gradually--Harold and Maude form a friendship that eventually blossoms into something more. 

But, before their relationship can be consummated, there are bridges to be crossed. Many bridges. Mrs. Chasen insists that Harold meet the women sent by the dating service, which is not, it turns out, a very good idea. As each potential inamorata is ushered into the Chasen's dark, staid drawing room, she is treated to one of Harold's carefully crafted death scenes which (with one exception) sends her screaming from the house. With each prospective match fizzling out, Mrs. Chasen contacts Harold's uncle, General Ball (a gung-ho Charles Tyner) to help shape Harold into a responsible and socially acceptable young man. "General Ball was "once General MacArthur's right-hand man", she explains to Harold. Persuading her son to enlist in the military seems to be the only solution to Mrs. Chasen's woes, and General Ball is just the man for the job. Or is he? 

Despite the machinations of Harold's family, he and Maude (through a series of wild misadventures concocted by Maude) get to know one another better. Shortly, he comes to admire her free spirit and fearless attitude towards life (and death). This madcap lady is completely unlike anyone he has ever known. For her part, Maude sees Harold as an aimless, troubled soul who simply needs love and understanding in order to break out of his shell. And so, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Chasen, General Ball, Harold's analyst, and his pastor, this pair incongruously falls in love. 

Ruth Gordon, as Maude, is simply wonderful. She'd won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar a couple of years earlier for her portrayal of duplicitous busybody Minnie Castevet in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Here, she builds on that performance to create a deeper, more benign eccentric whose determination to live in the moment frees Harold from his own inhibitions. Gordon, who was in her seventies when she made this movie, is spry and lovely and, despite her wrinkles, surprisingly ageless. If Cort is the troubled soul of Harold and Maude, Gordon is the movie's heart. It's no surprise that both were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances. 

Colin Higgins' screenplay is so sensitive and well-defined that material which would almost certainly come across as creepy feels sweet and, somehow, inevitable. The traditional, stiff-upper-lipped Mrs. Chasen and her establishment brethren are the comic faces of the counterculture's nemeses of the time: restrictive parents, military and clergy who weren't adapting to change very well (and, in many cases, still aren't). Cat Stevens' folksy soundtrack underscores the essential goodness of Harold and Maude, and the timelessness of love. Cinematographer John Alonzo also does a fine job capturing the characters' personalities through long shots of overcast landscapes and the gloomy Chasen mansion, which contrast beautifully with the warm vibe of Maude's pad, a renovated railway car. 

Arriving at the party just a tad too late, Hal Ashby directed Harold and Maude with a great deal of love and care: it's obvious that he cherished his intergenerational leads. Yet, regardless of intentions, Ashby's film managed to offend certain critics hidebound by their own retrograde preferences; it didn't help that the movie tanked at the box office. Ashby, who went on to direct The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home and Being There (among other films) was never as flashy as some of his Hollywood peers in the 70's but his movies speak for themselves. All were among the most successful of their time, and are, even now, immensely watchable. Since its release in 1971, Harold and Maude has cultivated a wide audience of fans, and, at the same time, garnered significant critical acclaim. It is now justifiably regarded as a cinematic masterpiece, while still retaining its power to--gently--shock the stuffy pants reactionaries seeing offense in all the wrong places.