When was harold and maude filmed

I was introduced to 's cult classic Harold and Maude in my first year of university, when contemplating the point of life. After watching several staged deaths, as well as the developing relationship between a churlish year-old man and a free-spirited woman 60 years his senior, I finished the film with an answer to my question. More like this: - The sci-fi that predicted modern crises - The most outrageous film ever made?

Harold and Maude was originally conceived as a minute film, written by Colin Higgins, then a UCLA film student during the height of the Flower Power movement of the s. The script, which centres on a death-obsessed teenager who falls in love with a life-adoring septuagenarian — and consequently, with life itself — was written only a few years after Mike Nichols' The Graduate had sparked interest in romantic relationships between young men and older women, at a time when the counterculture was questioning boundaries.

Although the age gap between Higgins' titular characters was much wider than Nichols' graduate and his older mistress, Paramount pictures agreed to take on the taboo-breaking project when the script was sent their way. It soon landed in the hands of Hal Ashby, one of the more revered directors of the New Hollywood era, who'd just received an Academy Award for his editing on In the Heat of the Night a few years earlier.

Harold and Maude bombed when it was first released, but had a revival later Credit: Alamy. As a studio-made yet thoroughly countercultural film, Harold and Maude proved a challenge for Paramount, and after a dismal promotional trail, the film opened to meagre box office sales. That same week, Disney's Lady and the Tramp stormed to the top of the charts, as audiences came to favour the love story between two cartoon dogs over one between a suicidal teenager and an eccentric elderly woman.

Part of this can simply be attributed to poor timing. The anti-authoritarian, flower-power spirit that Harold and Maude espoused had generally fallen out of favour by the time of its release. The deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin the year before had signalled the end of an era. The Summer of Love slumped into dusk, and the hippie energy it carried curdled into cynicism. Audiences and critics mostly reacted to the film with revulsion. In one of the most famously scathing reviews Harold and Maude received, Variety wrote that the film was about "as funny as a burning orphanage".

It wasn't long before Harold and Maude would enjoy its cult revival, however, thanks to college campuses across the US, which screened late-night viewings of the film. When after several moments she still does not notice, he turns around and shoots himself. As the blast sends him toppling backward with a hole in his forehead, his mother snaps, "Harold!

Self-immolation: For the first blind date, Harold sets himself on fire on the diving board in view of the horrified girl, then calmly walks in behind her, with his body still apparently burning outside the window.

Hand chopping: The second blind date ends abruptly, with Harold chopping off an obviously fake hand. This is the incident that makes his mother decide to send him to the military.

Seppuku: For the final date, Harold disembowels himself with a sword. Reciting lines from Romeo and Juliet, she tests the blade with one hand to see its retraction and plunges the fake blade into her chest and acts out a death scene.

At that instant, Harold's mother enters and seeing what she presumes is a dead girl, declares indignantly, "Harold! That was your last date!

When the camera tilts from the wreckage up the cliff face, we find Harold standing at the top. He calmly begins to play the banjo Maude gave him and slowly dances away. 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, , gave the film 1 and a half out of 4 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. 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.

This poll has been going since and has become the most recognised poll of its kind in the world. Frisch commented: "An encouragement to think beyond the obvious! Mulvehill, and a booklet which includes a new film essay by film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz. Exclusive to the Blu-ray edition are a new digital restoration of the film with uncompressed monaural soundtrack and an optional remastered uncompressed stereo soundtrack.

Other exclusives are a New York Times profile of actress Ruth Gordon from , an interview from with actor Bud Cort and cinematographer John Alonzo, and an interview from with executive producer Mildred Lewis.

The list was released in In June , AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1, people from the creative community. Harold and Maude was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the romantic comedy genre. AFI's Years Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room..

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.

Those albums had been released before the film. There is some additional non-Cat Stevens music in the film. During the scene where Harold is floating face-down in the swimming pool, the opening bars of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. A marching band is also heard playing a John Philip Sousa march outside the church following a funeral. It omitted the two original songs and all instrumental and alternate 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.

Side two 1. The second soundtrack was released in December , by Vinyl Films Records, as a vinyl-only limited-edition release of 2, copies.

It contained a page oral history of the making of the film, the most extensive series of interviews yet conducted on Harold and Maude. Bonus 7" single 1. Colin Higgins later adapted the story into a stage play. Higgins expressed interest in about both a sequel and prequel to Harold and 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' film Silver Streak. Higgins wanted Gordon and Pryor to reprise their roles.

It is at a series of funerals that Harold meets Maude, on the cusp of her eightieth birthday, she who too attends funerals of strangers. Unlike Harold, Maude is obsessed with life - her own life to be more precise - she does whatever she wants to please herself, damned what others may think or how they may be affected. Since she can't take material possessions with her, she is more interested in experiences, with whatever material possessions she has - often "borrowed" without asking - only to further those experiences.

Their friendship is initially based on how the other can further their own priority. But as Maude shows Harold how to truly live, Harold falls in love with her.

Their relationship, already limited in time by the sheer math, is curtailed even more as Maude shows him only not how to live well, but die well. They will defy everything you've ever seen or heard about screen lovers! Did you know Edit. Trivia When Maude and Harold steal the police officer's motorcycle, Bud Cort accidentally hit himself in the head with the shovel, but just kept going for the sake of the shot.

Quotes Maude : A lot of people enjoy being dead. Soundtracks Where Do the Children Play? User reviews Review. Top review. A classic. This art house favorite is a timeless classic and recommended viewing for all post-Catcher In the Rye teenagers. To modern viewers, the Ruth Gordon creation of Maude probably seems trite, but her Maude was fresh, original and daring in and the pre-Sophie's Choice twist in her history that Harold discovers was likewise unanticipated by early viewers.

Unfortunately, Ruth Gordon went on to recreate this character in lesser films throughout that decade and the character of the eccentric old lady has become rather shopworn. The Cat Stevens soundtrack is probably one of the most effective use of pop music in film ever. FAQ 7. Is "Harold and Maude" based on a book?

How old are Harold and Maude supposed to be? Why was Harold continually trying to commit suicide? Details Edit.

Release date December 20, United States. United States. Harold und Maude. Mildred Lewis and Colin Higgins Productions.