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Harold and Maude
Paramount Home Video Product Details |
Product Description
Cort is Harold, a young man bored with wealth but interested in death, and Gordon is Maude, a wonderful old lady who can see nothing but good intentions in the world.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 1-MAR-2004
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com essential video
Black comedies don't come much blacker than this cult favorite from 1972, and they don't come much funnier, either. It seemed that director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a mother lode of eccentricity from the original script by Colin Higgins, about the unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold (Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly appealing about Harold, urging him to "reach out" and grab life by the lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Harold grows fond of the old gal--she's a lot more fun than the girls his mother desperately matches him up with--and together they make Harold & Maude one of the sweetest and most unconventional love stories ever made. Much of the earlier humor arises from Harold's outrageous suicide fantasies, played out as a kind of twisted parlor game to mortify his mother, who's grown immune to her strange son's antics. Gradually, however, the film's clever humor shifts to a brighter outlook and finally arrives at a point where Harold is truly happy to be alive. Featuring soundtrack songs by Cat Stevens, this comedy certainly won't appeal to all tastes (it was a box-office flop when first released), but if you're on its quirky wavelength, it might just strike you as one of the funniest movies you've ever seen. --Jeff Shannon
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Harold and Maude
- DVD: 0 pages (2000-06-27)
- Publisher: Paramount Home Video
- Label: Paramount Home Video
- Starring: Harvey Brumfield, Eric Christmas, Bud Cort, Cyril Cusack, Gordon Devol
- Encoding: Region 1
- Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1,
- Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
- Studio: Paramount Home Video
- DVD Release Date: 2000-06-27
- Run Time: 91
- ISBN: 6305882592
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 302 reviews
- Sales Rank in DVD: #1050
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: One of the Greatest Movies I've ever seen 2008-10-07
Comment: This movie made me laugh and laugh hard. The wit is delicious and the satire is tangy. The performances are brillant and savage. This is a movie that is an easy watch that everyone with a funny bone can enjoy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Friendship divining rod 2008-09-11
Comment: Harold and Maude is one of those movies which transcends the goals of ordinary movies which seek mostly to entertain. This film actually manages to become an indicator of human compatibility. If you like the movie, you will probably get along with me and anyone else that likes it.
To enjoy this movie you have to be able to laugh at difficult subjects like death. The conversion of a classic car into a pimped out hearse has to make you giggle a little. You can not be so judgmental that a little thing like a romantic relationship between the teenaged and the elderly shuts your mind off. You have to have a generally positive outlook on life. People with this grouping of characteristics seem to like others with these same traits.
Directed by the quirky Hal Ashby, this 1971 black comedy sets the tone perfectly in the beginning when a seemingly suicidal Harold (played by Bud Cort), hangs himself to the incongruous upbeat melody of a Cat Stevens song in full view of his mother. His mother (Vivian Pickle) reacts by casually telling him that dinner is ready.
Harold fills his days by inventing ways to try and shock his mother with fake suicide, attending funerals of people he does not know and sessions with his psychiatrist. It was while attending one of these funerals that he meets Maude (played by Ruth Gordon), a senior citizen, who lives life in a completely opposite manner than Harold. He is a young man obsessed with death and she is an old woman obsessed with life.
Maude's sense of freedom from possessions often materializes in her tendency to borrow other people's automobiles. She does not seem to even try to comprehend why anyone would mind. One of the funniest sequences in the movie occurs when she goes into the city to dig up a tree that is "sick from breathing all the smog". She puts it in the back of one of the trucks that she had unwittingly stolen and is chased by the police into the forest. She figures out a way to evade the police without even trying, which seems to be how she handles everything.
Maude's embrace of life starts to rub off on Harold even as his mother doggedly attempts to set him up on dates. Each new date is scared off by Harold's flamboyant suicide scenes. While his mother searches for the right woman for Harold, he thinks he has found her in Maude.
This absurdist take on boy meets girl may just be the most original attempt at a romantic comedy, but without Cat Stevens' soundtrack this movie might have fallen on its face. Stevens weaves scenes together with just the right mixture of irony and even a couple touching ballads.
This is not a film for everyone. If suicide is a sensitive topic for you, this film would be an hour and a half of cringes and frowns. Regardless, watching it is worth the risk. Like I said, this is not just about entertainment. This movie could forever be your friendship divining rod.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Quirky little film 2008-09-10
Comment: This came highly recommended by a friend. I can't believe I had never seen it because I've been a movie buff for 40 years. This is quite enjoyable...definitely quirky. Ruth Gordon is remarkable. The soundtrack by Cat Stevens is great too.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Quirky 2008-08-17
Comment: Quirky story of love and living a life. Makes you think about the difference between creating a picture perfect existence to please everybody else and what it means to live life on your own terms. Makes you happy to be alive. I would call it an esoteric cult classic, except I've never met a person who didn't love this movie.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Harold and Maude 2008-07-18
Comment: I purchased this movie at my daughters request, but found it to be funny and sad. Harold is a troubled young man, who looks even younger than his 20 years, living under a most repressive, overbearing, single(?) mother. He meets and is fascinated by Maude, a MUCH older woman that enjoys life to the fullest. The spring/winter love they find is touching and kind of weird, but understandable when you watch the whole movie. All in all, a good movie.
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