For my first entry in a blog on films that are new to me, I checked out and watched “Harold and Maude,” a film released in theaters in December 1971, or five months after my birth.
What I had known of “Harold and Maude” for years before my viewing this week was that the story focused on a young man’s growing relationship with a woman old enough to be his grandmother or even great-grandmother. When the film hit theaters, lead performers Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon were 23 and 75, respectively.
Though Harold and Maude meet because they have a mutual interest in attending other unknown families’ funerals (and I thought people only did that at my church for free food!), I could live with a simple friendship between this man and woman who are separated by at least two generations. Yet I was disturbed by one scene in which a shirtless Harold is sitting in bed with Maude lying next to him – at least she is covered to her shoulders.
Other viewers who may argue ‘love is blind’ – trust me, it isn’t that blind – likely are bothered more by Harold’s faked suicide attempts.
It is implied that he is trying to hang himself before we ever meet a second character in the story. That is his mother, who recognizes his act immediately as just another “attempt.” She tells him that she wishes he would stop spending time on such pranks, and before leaving the room she adds they are expecting company for dinner.
As we get to know more of Harold’s mother, we realize it’s a miracle that he could draw or reciprocate the deep interest of any other woman, even one more than 50 years older. Harold’s mother wears a different wig for each of the first four or five scenes in which she appears, which is quirky, but she also files a computer dating form for Harold – first with responses that she expects of Harold, though later it’s clear she is answering questions from her own perspective alone. That’s controlling, self-centered and scary.
He meets three young women through the computer program for which his mother has taken all of the pre-initiative. The first young woman is a sorority sister. (Who could blame Harold for wanting to sabotage the start of any possible relationship there? Though pretending to burn himself alive might have been too much.)
The second young woman, an office worker, is nice enough but plain. The third young woman would seem perfect for any young man who is most interested in a mate of the opposite gender within 5-10 years of his own age; she is an actress who appears to be wild for all of the right reasons, plus she actually seems to appreciate Harold’s dark sense of humor and play.
Yet his heart is for Maude, who decides it is her time to leave life on Earth – for real – when it seems she and Harold have barely shared a week together.
Maybe Harold (out of his own deep sorrow over losing a great loved one) has learned by the end of this tale that if he ever carried out a true hanging or self-inflicted gunshot wound, he would end up crushing the spirits of others who loved him, including even his mother.
Though the last we ever see of that one college actress, the “just right” computer match, is her faked death (by stabbing) on a floor of Harold’s family mansion, I can only hope that Harold looked her up again after he spent enough time grieving his friend and lover Maude.
