Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Harold et Maude by Colin Higgins Janet Gaynor in stage debut; Comedy by Colin Higgins. Directed by Robert Lewis. Starring Janet Gaynor. Like the movie and the novel that preceded it, "Harold and Maude," at the Martin Beck Theater, seeks to make believable the unlikely relationship between a fey octogenarian countess and a suicidal 19-year-old boy. The notion succeeds as make-believe thanks to the light-hearted performance directed by Robert Lewis and to the glowing presence of former film star Janet Gaynor. Miss Gaynor makes her Broadway stage debut as the zestfully moving life force of Colin Higgins' offbeat upbeat comedy. As the family analyst soon discovers. Harold Chasen (Keith McDermott) uses suicide attempts as spectacular attention getters. These ghoulish pranks disturb the even tenor of life for widow Chasen (Ruth Ford). What is far worse, they interfere with her appointments at the hairdresser. Determined to find him a wife, Mrs. Chasen decides to entrust Harold's romantic future to a computer dating service. Harold responds by staging a fake suicide for each of the prospects. The first two flee the scene. But the third, and actress, grasps the possibilities of his trick hara kiri sword and proceeds to play the death scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Nita Novy plays it to the hilarious hilt. Meanwhile, Harold has encountered Countess Maude (Miss Gaynor) at one of the funeral services he has a habit of attending. But far from being morbidly inclined, Maude is a survivor, a life affirmer, a bold and adventurous sprit. Soon Maude has welcomed Harold to her house with its clutter of momorabilia, including a sort of magical musical Chinese gong and a full-scale traffic light that works. Harold joins her in a series of venturesome activities that include tree planting, car theft, and tree climbing to get a better perspective on life and the surrounding landscape. Harold gradually falls in love with this sweet but spunky elder, buys an engagement ring, and horrifies Mrs. Chasen by announcing he intends to marry Maude. However, the worldly wise and wisely innocent Maude has other ideas. And since "Harold and Maude" is at heart a fantasy, Mr. Higgins settles matters on his own terms. Like the Tony Straiges revolving set, which places Mrs. Chasen's chaste drawing room back-to-back with Maude's thrift shop premises, the comedy itself rotates between broad lampoon of conventional attitudes and the joyful wonderment of Maude's liberated lifestyle. Commenting on religious obsession with crucifixes, she observes, "Youd's think no one eve read the end of the story." On the other hand, her mementos include souvenirs of the concentration camp she survived. She has paid her dues for the right to affirmation. "Harold and Maude," with its tender tenuousness and whimsicality, could have suffered from rough handling. Instead, under Mr. Lewis's tactful direction, it has been treated with careful delicacy. There is nothing self-conscious about Miss Gaynor's Maude. The actress simply personifies the qualities that make the countess a beautiful, utterly captivating eccentric. Mr. McDermott is both funny and touching as the mixed-up young man who learns to say yes to life. Miss Ford gives a very amusing performance as the nonplussed Mrs. Chasen. In addition to those already mentioned, Jack Bittner, Jay Barney, Marc Jordan, Chet Doherty, Denny Dillon, and Nonnie Weaver help sustain the mood of comic fantasy. David Amram composed the affirmative incidental music and lyrics as well as they variety of sound effects. Harold and Maude Turns 50. Long before Amelie was relocating garden gnomes and Helena Bonham Carter was liberating laundry, there was the unbeatable free spirit prototype, Maude. 50 years ago this December, Harold and Maude's titular septuagenarian was stealing hearses from funerals, hijacking trees to replant in the forest, and outsmarting cops like a flower powered Bugs Bunny. Sadly and unsurprisingly, audiences in 1971 were too boring to embrace an elderly woman having a romance with a younger man, so Harold and Maude tanked at the box office.But history has since redeemed this dark comedy love story between two eccentric funeral crashers, a morose suicidal youth and life-loving old kook. It's a cult classic, it's on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all Time, and it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Not to mention, the soundtrack by Cat Stevens is banging. I only recently learned that screenwriter Colin Higgins had envisioned a prequel mash-up to Harold and Maude that I would personally kill to see called Grover and Maude where Maude learns how to steal cars from Grover Muldoon, Richard Pryor's character in Higgins' 1976 film Silver Streak . TWEET COMMENTS. Check out this re-creation of the 'Harold and Maude' Jaguar hearse. As a friend of (the now-late) "King of the Kustomizers' George Barris, automobile aficionado Ken Roberts of Arizona knew he wanted a "movie car" for himself. So, in 2013, he started building a replica of the iconic black Jaguar hearse from the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude. In an interview with Petrolicious, Roberts shares… READ THE REST. Save over 60% on this natural cotton rope hammock perfect for summer. There is literally no image or feeling that better encapsulates the spring and summer months than blissfully enjoying the weather in your own backyard, crashed out peacefully in your own hammock. 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A brutally dark rom-com, Harold and Maude tells the story of a death-obsessed young boy (Bud Cort) who falls for a free-spirited 79-year-old woman (Ruth Gordon), much to the chagrin of his oblivious, blue-blooded mother (Vivian Pickles). Not only has the film found a second life at film festivals, outdoor park screenings, arthouse cinemas, and on home video, but it’s also become a must-see movie for anyone serious about filmmaking. Here are 10 things you might not know about the film that pushed the boundaries of May-December romances. 1. BUD CORT NEARLY KILLED HIMSELF WITH HIS METHOD ACTING. On the Harold and Maude set, Bud Cort was infamous for his Method acting. In an interview with The Guardian , Cort shared that among the many scenes he improvised were his breaking of the fourth wall to give a cheeky glance at the camera and raising his middle finger at Vivian Pickles during her entire monologue after she tells him he’s joining the army. As further proof of his intensity, Cort described his commitment to the opening fake suicide scene, saying, “I was so into it that I believed I was hanging myself to death.” In Being Hal Ashby , author Nick Dawson shared more instances of Cort’s devotion to the character, writing that during Harold’s fake drowning scene, “Cort lay face down in the heavily chlorinated water of the Rosecourt swimming pool for take after take until he could no longer keep his eyes open.” 2. BUD CORT REFUSED TO DO PUBLICITY IF THE STUDIO DIDN’T GIVE HAL ASHBY CREATIVE CONTROL OVER THE EDIT. During post-production, Paramount Pictures stripped Ashby of his power to edit the film. Thus, in solidarity with his director, Cort told the film’s PR team that he wouldn’t do any publicity for the film unless Ashby got his movie back. According to The Guardian , control over the footage was handed back to Ashby—save for a kissing scene between Harold and Maude that Paramount head honcho despised. 3. ACTRESS ALI MACGRAW, ROBERT EVANS’ THEN-WIFE, WANTED THE LOVE SCENE BETWEEN HAROLD AND MAUDE TO BE CUT. Of course, her Paramount boss husband tried to oblige. Ashby furiously objected, saying, “That’s sort of what the whole movie is about, a boy falling in love with an old woman; the sexual aspect doesn’t have to be distasteful.” About the less-than-explicit scene, Being Hal Ashby author Nick Dawson wrote, “Ashby wanted to show the beauty of young and old flesh together, something that he knew the younger generation, the hippies, the heads, the open-minded masses would dig, but Evans said it would repulse most audiences, so it had to go.” In the end, Ashby won by sneaking the footage into the film’s trailer. 4. VIVIAN PICKLES BROUGHT HER OWN CLOTHES FOR MRS. CHASEN’S WARDROBE. Pickles, who played Harold’s detached, socialite mother, flew in her own costumes for the character. “I had brought some of my own clothes over from England, which we had altered, and, in the week before shooting began, I shopped endlessly for the rest with the costume designer, Bill Theiss,” wrote Pickles for The Criterion Collection. “He was spot-on … He kindly raided his mother’s jewelry box to borrow antique jewelry for Mrs. Chasen.” 5. HARRISON FORD WORKED FOR SCREENWRITER COLIN HIGGINS—AS A CARPENTER. Here’s a fun fact separate from the production of the film: According to The Criterion Collection cut, Colin Higgins employed Harrison Ford, then working as a carpenter, to build a hot tub and deck for his backyard. 6. BUD CORT AND RUTH GORDON’S REAL-LIFE RELATIONSHIP ALMOST MIRRORED THAT OF THEIR CHARACTERS. In the April 2001 issue of Vanity Fair , Cort revisited the cult classic and reminisced on his chemistry with his co-star. “During the making of the film, [Ruth] was very standoffish. Then, the day my father died, the first call I got was from Ruth, saying 'Let me tell you about the day my father died,’” he told the magazine. “And suddenly we became the characters pretty much that we were in the film. We really became friends the night my father died. Oddly enough, he died waiting for me to show up on This is Your Life, Ruth Gordon . ” 7. ONE OF THE FILM’S LOST SCENES INVOLVED HAROLD SERVING UP HIS OWN HEAD. “It opened up with a shot of a large, silver-plated serving dish," Colin Higgins told Film Quarterly in 1972. "A hand comes in and removes the cover and there, on a little bed of parsley, is Harold's head. Two hands come into the frame and pick up the head, and we move back and there's Harold holding his head and looking at it. He sort of peels off the latex blood and walks over to his bedroom chair where a headless dummy sits. He puts the head on the dummy, but the head really isn't sitting right, and he goes into the closet to find something.” Of course, that scene never made it into the theatrical cut. 8. ELTON JOHN PASSED ON DOING THE SOUNDTRACK. According to The Criterion Collection version of the film, producer Charles Mulvehill initially approached Elton John to write the music for the movie, as Ashby was a fan of the pop star. John passed—but not before suggesting his friend, Cat Stevens, for the job. 9. HAROLD AND MAUDE WAS BASED ON COLIN HIGGINS’ THESIS FILM AT UCLA. At the time, Higgins was working as producer Edward Lewis’ pool boy. According to Being Hal Ashby , Lewis’ wife loved the script so much that she got her husband to give it to Stanley Jaffe at Paramount. At first, Higgins was going to direct the film, but screen tests proved to the studio that he wasn’t ready. Thus, Hal Ashby was brought on. 10. HAL ASHBY ALMOST WITHDREW FROM THE FILM A MONTH BEFORE SHOOTING BEGAN. Frustrated with several issues he was having with the studio, including not being able to hire cinematographer Gordon Willis, Ashby considered leaving the picture altogether. “My creative juices have indeed finally been tapped and it would, I’m afraid, have to take its toll on the film, and Harold and Maude deserves better,” Ashby wrote to Robert Evans. “I feel like I could make the film as funny as the Vietnam War.” ‘Harold and Maude’ Takes On Established Cult and Conceits. Many, many Web sites are devoted--and I mean devoted--to “Harold and Maude,” the 1971 cinematic May-December romance in which Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort go to funerals, smell the flowers and get it on, baby, in a discreet, GP-rated way. (Remember GP?) How fervent is the average “Harold and Maude” devotee? Free country notwithstanding, I suspect if anyone bad-mouthed the film itself, its fans would surely ignore screenwriter Colin Higgins’ dreamy, peaceful nonconformist message, band together as one, and go Billy Jack on the naysayer’s backside. It is a cult item beloved. The Higgins estate (Higgins died in 1988) rarely grants stage rights. But Botanicum artistic director Ellen Geer had a natural angle: In director Hal Ashby’s film, Geer played one of the computer-dating service prospects lined up for 20-year-old, death-obsessed Harold, the role originated by Cort. Though screenwriter Higgins himself adapted the script (after he’d already novelized it following the film’s release), the story doesn’t sit easily on a stage. It’s too bad, because Geer’s very touching as Maude. In director Heidi Helen Davis’ staging, Geer takes on the Ruth Gordon role, a concentration camp survivor and free spirit who steals cars and hangs out at funerals. A few days shy of her 80th birthday, Maude awakens young Harold, teaches him to live, live, live, and offers him love, love, love. Maude’s shadowy history, only alluded to in the film’s final cut, receives fuller explication in Higgins’ stage version. Certain characters from the film are gone, notably Harold’s one-armed military-brass uncle. In trade, Higgins brings on many others, stretching the two acts out to a pretty thin 2 1/2 hours. (The movie clocked in at 90 minutes.) In the movie, Gordon stuck to one note in the key of Pixie. I prefer Geer by a mile or two; she’s an honest and enjoyable presence. Aaron Angello’s less distinctive as Harold, though he certainly has the right look, augmented by all those turtleneck shirts and tres ’71 blazers provided by costume designer Rae Robinson. As Mrs. Chasen, Harold’s unflappable image-conscious mother, Susan Angelo proves a fountain of arch high style. Angelo’s a very sharp comic actress; as this matriarch (not blessed with an overabundance of funny lines), she swoops into her scenes, her body language guided by the swoops and dives of her vocal cadences. Even with such performance wiles, “Harold and Maude” feels protracted. After a while Maude’s little pranks on various establishment figures begin to plod, even if you buy into Higgins’ consciously adorable you-be-you-and-I’ll-be-me message. (Actually that’s CatStevens’ message; the movie’s cult status wasn’t hurt by the Stevens score, bits of which we hear as pre-show music here.) It is a guileless and non-ironic piece, and Geer and company believe it wholeheartedly. As a culture we’re so splattered by irony and assault that “Harold and Maude” acts as a dispatch from another planet. Perhaps my taste in 1971 film titles simply runs more toward the hazy melancholyof “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” with its Leonard Cohen bummer music, rather than the coy conceits of “Harold and Maude.” With or without the Cat Stevens. Harold and Maude. Harold and Maude has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage. Ruth Gordon heads the cast as an offensive eccentric who becomes a beacon in the life of a self-destructive rich boy, played by Bud Cort. Together they attend funerals and indulge in specious philosophizing. Variety Staff. Follow Us on Twitter. Latest. Harold and Maude has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage. Ruth Gordon heads the cast as an offensive eccentric who becomes a beacon in the life of a self-destructive rich boy, played by Bud Cort. Together they attend funerals and indulge in specious philosophizing. Director Hal Ashby’s second feature is marked by a few good gags, but marred by a greater preponderance of sophomoric, overdone and mocking humor. Cort does well as the spoiled neurotic whose repeated suicide attempts barely ruffle the feathers of mother Vivian Pickles, whose urbane performance is outstanding. She solicits a computer dating service to provide three potential brides: Shari Summers and Judy Engles are frightened off by Cort’s bizarre doings, but Ellen Geer is delightful as one who goes him one better. One thing that can be said about Ashby – he begins the film in a gross and macabre manner, and never once deviates from the concept. That’s style for you.