I have developed a significant personal connection with this movie and I can only watch it every so often because I can’t not weep openly every time I do. I’ve had some experience with loss and watching Harold and Maude stirs all that shit up.
I tell people it’s two movies. Upon first viewing, it’s a quirky, somewhat dated black comedy. The sexual relationship between 19-year-old Harold and 79-year-old Maude has shock value and all, as does Harold’s elaborate staging of mock suicides. It’s a solidly entertaining (if a little uneven) irreverent movie.
Upon every subsequent viewing, however, when you know what’s coming, it’s the saddest, most beautiful film I ever hope to see.
Scored entirely by Cat Stevens, directed by Hal Ashby ‒ who got a fantastic performance out of Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail (1973) ‒ co-starring Bud Cort (a promising young actor whose career suffered a tragic setback) and Ruth Gordon, released in the year of my birth, Harold and Maude is my answer to the question, “MrPikes, you’re into movies, what’s your favorite?”
Harold and Maude is my favorite. When my beautiful bride and I threw a balls-out gala to celebrate our marriage, we gifted copies to all the guests and staff. Harold and Maude is one of the ways we got together.
So, the movie I love most is actually hard for me to watch. I’ll be damned.