In June
of 1978 I was preparing for my trip to England (see 23- Year of the Cat) to
attend a summer school in Medieval History at the University of Kent at
Canterbury for 6 weeks. One night, I happened to turn on HBO to see what movie
was on (HBO was pretty much only running movies; they had not gotten into
original programming much then).
I
looked at the screen and saw a house with beautiful woodwork. A young man in a
suit had placed an album on a turntable and I heard music that sounded like the
instrumental coda at the end of Cat Stevens’ Lilywhite (see and listen to 67), and
the singer was Cat Stevens! This was a song I had never heard before and I
thought I knew his whole catalog.
The young man prepares a note and
pins it to his suit, then lights a match with a cigarette lighter (?) and lights
several candles in front of an ornate, divided glass window, then, as the song
ends, he steps up onto a stool and pushes off from it, his legs swinging slowly
back and forth.
Holy Crap! This was Harold and
Maude from 1971. I had heard of that movie years before, but I had never seen
it. The description of a 20 year old boy’s love affair with an 80 year old
woman had never appealed to me, even though it was described as a comedy. I
remember the description in the HBO booklet that came each month with the
schedule said that the movie had played for two years in Minneapolis. (Figures…
I have a somewhat hair-brained theory about people from Minnesota, maybe it’s
the water in the 10,000 lakes, which has produced such quirky, interesting
people as the Coen Brothers, Chris Pratt, Garrison Keillor, Terry Gilliam, Mystery
Science Theater 3000, Leo Kottke, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Prince, and F. Scott
Fitzgerald).
An older woman strides into the
room and sits down at a phone, dials it, then looking over at the swinging
young man says, “I suppose you think that’s very funny, Harold.” She ignores
him as she makes a phone call canceling a hair dressing appointment with “Renee”, then, on
completing the call, ignoring a gasping, twitching Harold, she says, “Oh…Dinner
is at 8, Harold. And do try to be more vivacious.”
This is going to be pretty good, I
thought. I hadn’t known much about the plot especially the various “suicides”
Harold stages for his mother. They are elaborate and funny in a somewhat creepy
way, though why he stages them is not explained until later in an emotional
talk with Maude.
The next scene starts with Harold
attending a funeral service in a small church (is that Cat Stevens there in a
pew? It is!) where a sprightly old lady offers him a licorice candy and tries
to engage him in conversation. Harold looks stricken as he tries to avoid her. Then a marching band strikes up as the casket
is placed into the hearse outside and there’s a close up of a coffin and it says
“Elgin Permaseal”. Hey, my hometown!! In 1971, Elgin still had a little manufacturing
left, among them the coffin business. JFK was transported from Dallas to DC in
an Elgin casket.
As I continued to watch, I was
pulled in. There were 7 Cat Stevens songs from “Mona Bone Jakon” and “Tea for
the Tillerman” and another one I had never heard before, “If You Want to
Sing Out, Sing Out.”
It was funny and ultimately life
affirming and touching as Maude draws Harold out of his shell and away from his
mother. A wonderful film. And it wasn’t until I saw it on a revival theater
screen that I saw something that explained a lot about Maude. A quick shot of
the concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm.
It was the first film I rented when
I got my first VCR later that year. Rented at one of those little Fotomat kiosks
where the first tape rentals were made from.
It remains one of my favorites.
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