University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

Humor With A Dash Of Morbidity

By DAVID RITCHIE

We can't in good conscience
call "Harold and Maude" a
poor film, because it's not. We
define "poor" as "equal or
inferior in quality to "The Love
Bug," and this picture never
sinks that low.

Neither, however, are you
likely to find "Harold and
Maude" in anyone's Hall of
Fame twenty years from now;
it is in essence a mediocre and
forgettable comedy, a pleasant
diversion for anyone who has a
long attention span and a taste
for contrived, mildly morbid
situation humor.

Harold is a young man who
enjoys, among other things,
staging mock suicides before
members of his wealthy family.
As he solemnly tells his
psychiatrist, one of his
pastimes is attending funerals.
At one such event, he meets
Maude, a middle-aged and
happily daft woman who offers
him some licorice to enjoy
during the service.

Thus begins their peculiar
relationship ("peculiar" was
the best word our thesaurus
could offer), marked by the
kind of crackpot rapport one
sees among Grand Hoodoos of
the Knights of St. Lacuna, and
other mental deviates.

Cort, Gordon: Peculiar Relationship

Their kinship of spirit
allows them to enjoy some
simple pleasures together
(visiting cemeteries, for
example), but in time their
camaraderie decays into just a
series of manufactured
absurdities, and you begin to
lose interest in both story and
characters.

While Bud Cort and Ruth
Gordon are excellent as Harold
and Maude, the minor
characters still provide most of
the film's truly funny
moments.

Harold's uncle, a one-armed,
chauvinistic soldier, salutes
even with an empty right
sleeve; the befuddled pastor
tries valiantly to ignore
Maude's cheerful chatter
during the funeral service; and
the psychiatrist is an amusing
parody of the "young-man-I'm-trying-to-
help-you"
kind of shrink, his calm voice
barely concealing his irritation
at Harold's obduracy.

If you're easily entertained
and like a dash of morbidity in
your humor, you'll probably
like "Harold and Maude."
Otherwise, you'll better spend
the price of admission on
dinner at a good restaurant.

(Now at the Paramount)