Harold & Maude

[Jadin32]

Does anyone remember this twisted 1971 movie starting Ruth Gordon & Bud Cort.

It is playing this afternoon on TCM and I'm going to check It out again
I was just a wee lad when it came out but remember seeing parts on t.v. as a kid and thinking how bizarre it was.

"Laugh out loud hilarious in a dark, sick way" a reviewer said.

It's basically a story about a friendship between an 80 year old woman and a 20 year old man with some LOVE thrown in for "shock" value!

If you like your movies "dark and twisty" then this is the film for you!
I still think even today It stands alone for it's genre.

It was also nominated for a couple Golden Globes!!

I like the rating PG-13 for "sinister thematic elements, violence, drug content!"

Also I read somewhere that Cat Stevens did the soundtrack and makes a cameo!! sooooo ........"Climb on the peace train!"


Check it out, won't you!!!!

 

[Andreus]

it's one of my favorites

 

[Andreus]

 

[Jadin32]

Thanks for the preview!

 

[irish1]

Ruth Gordon was a screen write turned actress. I recall her performance in "Rosemary's Baby" as well as this classic film.

She was an astonishimg woman, and, 'though I won't see the movie today, it is definitely one that I love watching.

I believe she also won an academy award (don't know which category).

Anyone?

 

[darlocol]

One of my all time favourite movies.

 

[belamy]

Yes, I remember it from a couple of times, some twenty years ago.

 

[M4P]

I remember seeing Harold & Maude as a kid - so twisted and so funny! Thanks for the clips

 

[Txgoodoldboy]

A friend of mine forced me to watch it, many years ago. It was the first time I had seen something on a VCR, and it was on the "Beta" version VCR. I loved it. And I have seen it several times over the years. I watched it again, when it was TCM. I still love it. Thanks for the clip. I really should buy it on DVD.

 

[buzzj]

Does everyone know she was married to Garson Kanin? The movie is an all-time favorite of mine. What ever happened to Bud Cort? He was so cute in the film!

 

[Andreus]

Ruth Gordon was a screen write turned actress. I recall her performance in "Rosemary's Baby" as well as this classic film.

She was an astonishimg woman, and, 'though I won't see the movie today, it is definitely one that I love watching.

I believe she also won an academy award (don't know which category).

Anyone?

best supporting actress for Rosemary's Baby

she was also one of Noel cowards closest friends and was black listed during the McCarthy years.

She wrote several best selling memoirs as well.

 

[gsdx]

What ever happened to Bud Cort? He was so cute in the film!

I took a gander and Googled him.

 

[Croynan]

Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.
Ruth Gordon

Discussing how old you are is the temple of boredom.
Ruth Gordon

If I don't make it today, I'll come in tomorrow.
Ruth Gordon

Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, face the facts.
Ruth Gordon

Pan me, don't give me the part, publish everybody's book but this one and I will still make it!
Ruth Gordon

The very best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance.
Ruth Gordon

To be somebody you must last.
Ruth Gordon

Why? Because I believe I will. If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff thrown out for you in a blueprint, you don't face facts-what can stop you?
Ruth Gordon


Biography by Hal Erickson

The daughter of a former ship captain, Ruth Gordon knew what she wanted to do with her life after witnessing a performance by stage actress Hazel Dawn. Over the initial objections of her father, Gordon decided upon a stage career, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After the usual deprivations and barnstorming (and a few extra roles in such films as Camille [1916]), she got her first positive newspaper notice for her Broadway debut in a 1915 production of Peter Pan. "Ruth Gordon was ever so gay as Nibs," wrote influential critic Alexander Woollcott, who became a valued and powerful friend to Gordon, and did what he could to encourage her and promote her career. With such stage hits as Seventeen, Serena Blandish, and Ethan Frome, Gordon was one of Broadway's biggest stars of the 1920s and '30s; privately, however, her life was blotted by the premature death of her first husband, actor Gregory Kelly. She remarried in 1942 to the brilliant playwright Garson Kanin, some 16 years her junior -- a union that lasted more than four decades.

Combining stage work with appearances in such films as Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) and Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Gordon began to collaborate with Kanin on writing projects, with such delightful results as the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedies Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), as well as the Judy Holliday feature The Marrying Kind (1952). Long absent from movies, Gordon returned to the cameras for Inside Daisy Clover in 1966, before taking on the kinky role of an elderly witch in Rosemary's Baby (1968). Upon receiving an Oscar for her performance, the 72-year-old Gordon brought down the house by saying, "You have no idea how encouraging a thing like this can be." Although few of her subsequent film roles were as prestigious, Gordon managed to enter cult-film Valhalla with unforgettable roles in two films: Where's Poppa? (1970), in which she played the obscenely senile mother of George Segal, and Harold and Maude (1972), as the freewheeling soul mate of death-obsessed teen Bud Cort.



eM

 

[bma1983]

When I first saw this movie I wanted to throw up after watching the scene in which Harold and Maude have sex. (Thank God they didn't show it.) But when the movie was over I thought it was worth watching. Those Cat Stevens songs were very enjoyable.

 

[Andreus]

I took a gander and Googled him.

in the film Dogma he played the male version of god that was in a coma in the hospital.

in the very beginning he gets mugged by the three skater demons

 

[buzzj]

I took a gander and Googled him.

I had to ask.

 

[buzzj]

in the film Dogma he played the male version of god that was in a coma in the hospital.

in the very beginning he gets mugged by the three skater demons

I completely missed him. I'll keep an eye peeled for him next time--- that movie seems to be on the tube at least once a week!

 

[Golliwog]

Thanks, everyone, for your reseach, your evaluative comments, and for regarding so highly, most of you, the stature of a grand dame of American theater.
Ruth Gordon was "the very model of a modern major....general actress. (Yes, I admit over reaching on the last sentence!)

 

[RacerX]

In the latter 70's, I had to watch it as part of a Psychology assignment. We then had to write a Paper on whether or not it was right or acceptable in today's society. Whew!! Thanks for the "FLASH BACK".

 

[Jadin32]

Definetely a cult classic!!!!!

I think It was a movie before it's time and a starting point In a decade where the director Hal Ashby ruled.
I didn't realize he directed some 70's classic and Oscar winning pictures "The Last Detail" (73), "Shampoo"(75), "Bound For Glory" (76), "Coming Home" (78), and "Being There" (79)....QUITE IMPRESSIVE!!!

And Ashby was very versatile also, directing the Rolling Stones docu "Let's Spend the Night Together." Who knew????

Ruth Gordon was a real dynamo.
I first remember her from the Clint Eastwood movies "Every Which Way But Loose" & "Any Which Way you Can." and of course her creepy role in "Rosemary's Baby!"

Oh, I've always loved Cat Stevens music and was introduced to some real gems........... the soundtrack was great!

Harold ......"You sure get along good with people."

Maude...... "Well they're my species." CLASSIC LINE!!!!