• 10 Things I Learned: Harold and Maude

    By Curtis Tsui

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      When Harold and Maude writer Colin Higgins (pictured) was having a hot tub and deck built for his backyard, he hired a young carpenter to do it. That carpenter was Harrison Ford.

      Photo courtesy of the Colin Higgins Trust

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      Actress Suzanne Somers was originally to appear in the film, in a scene involving a commercial for underarm deodorant that was set in a cemetery, but the sequence was cut.

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      Director Hal Ashby was initially considering only grand dames of British acting like Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft for the part of Maude, but once he met Ruth Gordon, he was convinced she was right for the part.

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      A Harold “suicide” that was filmed but eventually edited from the movie involved the young man’s attempt to shock his mother with a replica of his severed head on a platter and a headless corpse dummy in a chair.

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      That dummy Harold ended up being a lifesaver, however, when the swimming pool scene was shot. After repeated takes, actor Bud Cort realized that, because the water was so frigid, the only way to pull off the shot was to use the fake.

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      In the scene featuring Harold and Maude riding off on a policeman’s motorcycle, Cort actually bashed himself on the head with the edge of the shovel, sustaining a nasty cut. But as the unbroken shot in the film attests, he was a total pro and never broke character while the camera rolled.

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      Shari Summers, who plays computer date number two, Edith Phern, in the film, found real-life true love during the movie: she married producer Charles B. Mulvehill.

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      For the hookah scene, director Hal Ashby required the pipe to be kept burning between takes so it’d be ready for the next shot. That task fell to production assistant Jeff Wexler, the son of ace cinematographer Haskell Wexler.

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      Harold and Maude was initially a much bigger hit in France than the U.S.—so much so that it was adapted for the theater in French by Higgins himself, and productions of the play have flourished there since the seventies, including one directed by Children of Paradise star Jean-Louis Barrault (pictured here with Higgins).

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      The penultimate sequence, with Maude in the hospital, was originally much longer and filled with dialogue, but in postproduction, Ashby (himself an Oscar-winning editor, for In the Heat of the Night) and editors William A. Sawyer and Edward Warschilka decided to structure it as a montage and set it to Cat Stevens’s “Trouble,” thereby creating a truly classic scene in American cinema.

      Curtis Tsui is a producer at the Criterion Collection.

    Next
    Large_hot_tub

      1 of 10  

    When Harold and Maude writer Colin Higgins (pictured) was having a hot tub and deck built for his backyard, he hired a young carpenter to do it. That carpenter was Harrison Ford.

    Photo courtesy of the Colin Higgins Trust

     
     
     

    Photo Galleries, 10 Things I Learned, On Five

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12 comments

  • By Asa-Nisi-Masa
    June 25, 2012
    03:13 PM

    awesome
    Reply

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  • By Rani
    June 25, 2012
    06:03 PM

    Absolutely adore Harold and Maude!
    Reply

  • By Kevin Nash
    June 25, 2012
    06:20 PM

    Fascinating.
    Reply

  • By Sidney
    June 25, 2012
    07:08 PM

    Thanks, Criterion! I love Harold and Maude.
    Reply

  • By Dave Clayton
    June 25, 2012
    07:49 PM

    Harold and Maude is not my favorite Ashby film--I much prefer The Last Detail and Being There. For one who was in graduate school in the 1960s, it's a bit too much saturated with the period. But when I look at what we're offered currently on the American screen, those days of Harold and Maude, Mash, Godfather I, and Taxi Driver seem like the Golden Age.
    Reply

  • By Steve Bad
    June 26, 2012
    08:30 AM

    the deleted sequences could not be found?
    Reply

  • By MARKY LENNON
    June 26, 2012
    12:32 PM

    I HAVE A RARE SOUNDTRACK ON CD & CAT STEVENS WAS AT OUR CONCERT, (I'M SINGING BACKGROUNDS ON ROGER WATERS/THE WALL TOUR) & HE SIGNED IT AFTER TAKING A PICTURE W/ME...I DIED & WENT TO HEAVEN!
    Reply

  • By Alvaro
    July 10, 2012
    06:40 PM

    Is my favorite book and movie.
    Reply

  • By Jennifer
    July 16, 2012
    11:19 PM

    I agree - why wasn't any of this included on the disc? The picture quality is excellent, but I'm disappointed with the supplements. No deleted scenes or extended sequences? No commentary from Bud Cort?
    Reply

  • By Rachael
    November 25, 2012
    09:24 AM

    Bud Cort probably wouldn't have done any commentary because he still doesn't get any residuals for DVD sales and he's a bit sour over it. At least the last I knew that's how it was for him.
    Reply

  • By Diana Trimble 66Witches
    December 28, 2012
    04:55 PM

    What a fascinating "turn of the screw"; wasn't it when Higgins was working as a part-time pool cleaner for producer Ed Lewis that he got "Harold and Maude" optioned? It would seem that the aquatic leisure maintenance professions are a good place to discover future Hollywood players. LOL!
    Reply

  • By bmwloco (air cooled only)
    February 04, 2013
    09:29 PM

    While hitch hiking across the US in 1984, I walked 6 miles in the snow in Bozeman, MT to see the midnight showing of "Harold & Maude" I was completely blown away. Since, I have seen most of Ashby's films. Netflix has a great copy of Harold & Maude. Good color seperation and it jumps.
    Reply

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