Harold and Maude

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Movie
German title Harold and Maude
Original title Harold and Maude
Country of production USA
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Hal Ashby
script Colin Higgins
production Colin Higgins,
Charles Mulvehill
music Cat Stevens
camera John A. Alonzo
cut William A. Sawyer ,
Edward Warschilka
occupation
synchronization

Harold and Maude is a 1971 black comedy directed by Hal Ashby . It was based on a screenplay by Colin Higgins , who first published the story as a novel under the same title that year. When Harold and Maude was released, it was initially unsuccessful with critics and audiences, but the film was discovered in 1983 and is still considered a cult film to this day . The New Hollywood work was included in the National Film Registry , among other things .

plot

Harold, around 20 years old, lives with his wealthy mother in a villa in California. He has a distant relationship with his mother that is superficial and almost exclusively pays attention to social etiquette . He tries again and again to gain their attention and affection through realistically staged pseudo-suicides. He is fascinated by death, which is also expressed in the fictitious suicides. At first he drives a used Cadillac that has been converted into a hearse , and later he also converts his mother's present, a silver Jaguar E-Type , into a hearse.

Harold is also drawn to cemeteries and funerals. At the funerals he meets the eccentric 79-year-old Maude several times. They will be friends soon. Maude is like an antithesis to him: unconventional, energetic, impulsive and cheerful - because she has also gone through bad times. Later, in one shot, a tattooed number is shown on her arm, which identifies her as a survivor of a Nazi concentration or extermination camp ; elsewhere she shares childhood memories of the Vienna of the imperial period . Despite their different characters, the two feel drawn to each other and spend more and more time together. At the same time, Harold's mother tries to match him with young women through a marriage agency. Harold's suicide stagings ensure that the candidates flee in horror over and over again. When Harold's mother tries to send him to the Vietnam War with the help of his uncle, the fanatical General Victor Ball, Harold and Maude know how to prevent this with a trick.

In the course of his relationship with Maude, Harold learns to appreciate life and is increasingly emancipating himself from his dominant mother. Finally he announces to his mother that he loves Maude and that he wants to marry her. Harold and Maude celebrate Maude's 80th birthday together. But Maude decided to die on that day as she believes it is the right age to step down. She submits to the horrified Harold that she has already taken appropriate pills. He's taking her to the hospital, but it's too late. In the penultimate scene, Harold's jaguar falls down the cliff. The impression that he finally killed himself is weakened in the next scene: He is standing on the rock and playing the banjo that Maude gave him.

background

The young film student Colin Higgins wrote Harold and Maude for a screenwriting seminar. In it, he humorously addresses two social taboos: self-determined death and a romantic love affair with a considerable age difference. The film script got indirectly to the film producer Stanley R. Jaffe of Paramount Pictures, who bought it from Higgins. Initially, Higgins was also supposed to direct, but the studio found him too inexperienced. Eventually, director Hal Ashby , who is considered unconventional, was hired for it. However, the collaboration between Ashby and the writer Higgins on the film set was peaceful: Higgins, who acted as co-producer, took a close look at Hal Ashby's way of working - since he was a budding director - in order to learn from him. In the year the film was released, Higgins brought out the novel Harold and Maude , in which the characters of the film script are further developed.

For the role of Maude, a long list of different grandes dames of acting was considered: Peggy Ashcroft , Edith Evans , Gladys Cooper , Celia Johnson , Lotte Lenya , Luise Rainer , Pola Negri , Minta Durfee , Edwige Feuillère , Elisabeth Bergner , Mildred Natwick , Mildred Dunnock , Dorothy Stickney and even the writer Agatha Christie . The choice fell on the acclaimed actress and author Ruth Gordon , the 1969 for her role in Rosemary's Baby the Oscar won for Best Supporting Actress. Similar to her film character Maude, the then 74-year-old Gordon was considered an unconventional and energetic personality. Richard Dreyfuss , Bob Balaban , John Savage , John Rubinstein and the young Elton John had been discussed for the role of Harold before Bud Cort was chosen . Cort had a close relationship with an older person in common with his character; he lived from 1970 until his death in the house of the aged star comedian Groucho Marx , who was a close friend of his.

Director Hal Ashby initially planned a sex scene between Harold and Maude. But the producers at Paramount shockedly turned it down. Instead, Ashby only hinted at the sex in the film; Harold and Maude can be seen in a shot of them lying next to each other in bed in the morning. While Maude sleeps, Harold blows soap bubbles. The original cinema trailer also contained a love scene, which was cut out for the theatrical version.

Filming locations for the film included San Francisco Bay , the Sutro Baths in Lands End, as well as the Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma and the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno . The Rose Court Mansion in Hillsborough near San Francisco served as the filming location for the Chasen family's villa.

Director Hal Ashby has a cameo at the fair; you can see him as a bearded man in the first shot with the model train. Also Cat Stevens took a cameo appearance as a visitor a funeral. Good friends with director Ashby, Tom Skerritt took on the role of motorcycle cop after the original actor broke his leg while filming. In the credits, Skerritt is not mentioned under his actual name, but as M. Bormann - alluding to the Nazi criminal Martin Bormann . This was still missing at the time of filming and its whereabouts have been the subject of much speculation. Skerritt made a joke on the film set that Bormann probably moved to California and became a police officer there, whereupon Ashby had him named as M. Bormann in the credits .

Soundtrack

The score is by Cat Stevens and includes Don't Be Shy and If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out, two pieces specially composed for the film. The original recordings of the other songs are from the albums Mona Bone Jakon and Tea for the Tillerman . A soundtrack album was only released in December 2007, but most of the songs on the soundtrack were previously released on a CD entitled Footsteps in the Dark: Greatest Hits Vol. 2 in 1984 .

The songs in the order in which they can be heard in the film:

  • Don't be shy
  • On the Road to Find Out
  • I wish, I wish
  • Miles from Nowhere
  • Tea for the Tillerman
  • I think I see the light
  • Where Do the Children Play?
  • If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
  • Trouble

The piece If You Want to Sing Out runs like a red thread through the film.

36 years after the film hit theaters, the film director Cameron Crowe initiated the publication of the complete compilation as a regular sound carrier. The soundtrack album was released as a colored vinyl LP, limited to 2,500 copies.

In addition to all the titles from the film, there are alternative versions and interviews, a 36-page booklet and a poster and, in another limited edition, an additional vinyl single with a previously unreleased version of the pieces Don't Be Shy and If You Want to sing out, sing out . The track list:

Page 1:

  1. Don't be shy
  2. On the Road to Find Out
  3. I wish, I wish
  4. Miles from Nowhere
  5. Tea for the Tillerman
  6. I think I see the light

Page 2:

  1. Where Do the Children Play?
  2. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
  3. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Banjo Instrumental) *
  4. Trouble
  5. Don't Be Shy (alternative version) *
  6. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Instrumental Version) *

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1974 on behalf of ARD for Berliner Synchron . Joachim Kunzendorf was responsible for the dubbing and dialogue script .

role Actress) Voice actor
Harold Chasen Bud Cort Mathias Einert
Maude Ruth Gordon Alice Treff
Mrs. Chasen Vivian Pickles Eva Katharina Schultz
Brigadier General Victor Ball Charles Tyner Friedrich W. Building School
Sunshine Doré Ellen Geer Evelyn Gressmann
Pastor Eric Christmas Klaus Miedel
psychiatrist George Wood Lothar Blumhagen
Motorcycle policeman Tom Skerritt Andreas Mannkopff

reception

Reviews

When it premiered on December 20, 1971, the film failed the criticism. For example, Variety magazine called it a "tasteless weird comedy" that had the same joke "like an orphanage on fire". Roger Ebert said that death could potentially be funny, but not like in Harold and Maude . In the meantime, however, the reception of the film has fundamentally changed. On Rotten Tomatoes 86% positive reviews were counted last. In summary, it says: "Hal Ashby's comedy can be too dark for some and sometimes a little exaggerated, but the film thrives on its warm humor and big heart."

The lexicon of international films described the film as "a gently anarchist comedy that conjures up the dreamy lust for life of the American flower children of the late 1960s and benefits from the charm of its leading actors". Reclam's film guide sees him as an "effective all-round blow". Ashby shot a “barbed comedy”, “a bizarre game that promotes individuality as well as pragmatism and shows the impotence of institutions in solving interpersonal conflicts. The 'American way of life' appears as a horror vision, the traditional forces of order such as the military and police have degenerated into caricatures, and the belief of a psychoanalyst in his science is only cause for amusement. "

Popular success

Harold and Maude were initially a flop with the audience as well, but a few years later it gradually developed into a cult film (the film only made a profit in 1983, twelve years after its premiere). For example, it has been shown every Sunday since June 6, 1975 in the "Galerie Cinema" in Essen - Rüttenscheid in the original version with German subtitles.

Awards

The film received two Golden Globe nominations: Ruth Gordon for Best Actress and Bud Cort for Best Actor in a Comedy. The film won the top prize at the Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid film festival in 1974 . Bud Cort was also honored in 1973 with the French Étoile de Cristal as best foreign actor. In 1997, Harold and Maude were inducted into the National Film Registry . The film was voted # 9 in America's Best Romantic Comedy Genre by the American Film Institute .

literature

  • Colin Higgins: Harold and Maude. Edited by Heike Elisabeth Jüngst. Foreign language texts, Reclam's Universal Library No. 9122, 2005, ISBN 978-3-15-009122-7 (the novel version of the material was published in 1971 and was written parallel to the script)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ALJEAN HARMETZ (August 8, 1983). "After 12 Years, a Profit For 'Harold and Maude'". The New York Times. p. C14.
  2. ↑ Nick Dawson on Hal Ashby, pp. 122-123.
  3. ↑ Gordon, Ruth (1986). My Side: The Autobiography of Ruth Gordon. DI Fine. P. 392, ISBN 978-0-917657-81-8 .
  4. ↑ See Internet Movie Database: Trivia for Harold and Maude
  5. ↑ Interview: Tom Skerritt. April 29, 2016, accessed September 3, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Harold And Maude on discogs.com
  7. ↑ Harold and Maude ( Memento of the original dated November 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the synchronous database @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.synchrondatenbank.de
  8. ↑ Ronald M. Hahn; Volker Jansen: Cult Films. From Metropolis to Rocky Horror Picture Show . - Original edition, 5th edition - Wilhelm Heyne, Stuttgart 1992 (Heyne-Filmbibliothek; 32/73), ISBN 3-453-86073-X , p. 157.
  9. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  10. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes Harold and Maude. Retrieved March 19, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Harold and Maude. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  12. ↑ Dieter Krusche: Reclam's film guide / collaborators: Jürgen Labenski and Josef Nagel. - 13., rework. Edition - Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-010676-1 , p. 308.
  13. ↑ Again and again on Sundays “Harold and Maude”. June 8, 2010, accessed March 19, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Complete National Film Registry Listing. Retrieved February 5, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen: Cult films. Heyne, Munich 1985, pp. 154–159, quoted from the editor's afterword of the Reclam edition.