Overlooked Movie Marathon 2: Harold and Maude (1971)

If there was a movie in the second annual Overlooked Movie Marathon that I was least looking forward to, I would probably say that it was the sixth movie, Harold and Maude.  For years, I’ve been hearing positive things about the movie, but I’ve never heard overwhelmingly raving reviews about it.  I’ve seen word that people like it, but nothing about loving it.  That is, until recently.  When I asked Twitter for some great movies that I should watch throughout September, Harold and Maude came up.  It was the first time I had seen love and adoration for the movie.  It still didn’t get me interested in the movie.  It only got me interested enough to add it to the list.  Another factor in my underwhelmed feeling as I went into the movie was the poster.  The poster for Harold and Maude looked like a very bland and boring 70s movie.  If you don’t understand, the poster is at the top of the page.  Take a look at it.  It doesn’t make the movie look all that entertaining, does it?  I was unexcited for the movie going into it, and that worries me.

Before I write my thoughts about Harold and Maude, I thought that I should give a little bit of information about the movie itself.  Hal Ashby (don’t confuse him with Hal Holbrook, HAL 9000, or halitosis) directed the 1971 release.  Bud Cort starred as Harold, a troubled young man who is obsessed with death.  He befriends a 79-year old woman named Maude (Ruth Gordon) who is obsessed with life.  Together, the two friends embark on a series of adventures that teach them each a little bit about the other’s outlook on life.  It is a wacky, heartwarming tale that I wasn’t quite expecting.

I said in the opening paragraph that I didn’t have too much excitement going into Harold and Maude.  This is true.  I had heard generally positive things about the film, but it wasn’t enough to hype it up for me at all.  That ended up being the best thing that could have happened.  Now, I’m not going to say that I love the movie.  That would be a lie.  I didn’t love it.  I do like it quite a lot, though.  It left me feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside.  It also left me filled with respect.  This is a movie that I can watch, and see how it inspired so many other works that have come in later years.

Many books, movies, and television shows have been inspired by Harold and Maude.  Some have been a great deal more inspired than others.  If you look at some of your favourite works, you might be able to find different elements that feel like they were pulled from the movie.  The first thing that came to my mind was Chuck Palahniuk.  I may have only read three of his books so far, but two of them share major elements with Harold and Maude.  The first is the novel Choke.  If you’ve read Choke, you might be wondering why I think it was inspired by Harold and Maude.  I would say that the structure of the stories are quite similar.  They both share a certain way in which their story plays out.  The story cuts back between different elements in the main character’s life, and brings them all together to form one story.  It’s hard to explain what I mean without getting into details on either.  The way that the story jumps between the different sub-stories is what makes the two feel similar.  But Choke isn’t the only Palahniuk novel that I thought of while watching Harold and Maude.  The other one was Fight Club.  Why Fight Club?  The main character in Fight Club uses help meetings to feed off of people’s pain in a similar way that Harold goes to see funerals.  The main character in each meets a woman who will become a large part of their life at these functions.  Their lives begin to change because they attend them.  It’s the point in which the story begins to take shape, and it is shared by the two works in a very large way.  I always feel like I don’t explain things well enough.  It’s clear to me in my head, but it’s hard to put what I’m thinking into words.  Either way, I think that looking at these two novels and watching Harold and Maude you can see that Harold and Maude is a precursor to things like Chuck Palahniuk’s writing, only with the writer actually liking the characters.

Something that really stuck with me while watching Harold and Maude was the music.  Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) did the soundtrack and it sounds exactly like you would expect a soundtrack by him to sound.  I liked it, but I also like Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam), so it makes sense that I would like the soundtrack.  I wasn’t sure how well it would work with the movie when I first started watching Harold and Maude.  After the first few musical cues, I had figured out what the movie was, in a general sense, and I was able to better enjoy everything about it.  The music fit everything very well and made the movie more enjoyable.  I couldn’t imagine Harold and Maude without the Yusuf Islam (should I be calling him Cat Stevens because he was Cat Stevens at the time?) music.  It perfectly fits the film.

In the end, I enjoyed Harold and Maude a lot.  I can’t say that I loved the movie, but I could see myself falling in love with it as I grow older.  There is a reason that it was included in the second annual Overlooked Movie Marathon.  It is fittingly a part of the marathon.  I just don’t think I have enough experience in life to fully appreciate the movie.  It’s definitely a movie worth watching.  Thank you, whoever suggested this one for the marathon.

Next up is Young Frankenstein, I believe.  I’ll check really quickly.  Yes, Young Frankenstein.  I’ll get back to you with my thoughts on that one, but I’m excited for it.  That could be a bad thing.  I hope it isn’t.