Harold and Maude is an offbeat comedy/romance filmed in 1971 by director Hal Ashby.The film stars Bud Cort as Harold, a macabre young man who rejects his wealthy mother's plans for his life and stages mock-suicides in rebellious defiance of efforts to fix him up with "normal" girls.Eventually, Harold falls in love with a spunky old woman (Maude)played by Ruth Gordon, who he meets at a funeral. The audience later discovers that Maude is a concentration camp survivor who has cut right through formalities and facades and learned to appreciate life to its fullest.The film ranks 45th on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all time, and 42nd on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.A commercial failure when it was released, Harold and Maude has since become a cult favorite, skewering the institutions of marriage, the military, the church and their contradictory values as perceived by youth following the turmoil of the late 1960s. Cat Stevens provided the film's soundtrack.The screenplay was written by Colin Higgins, and published as a novel in 1971. It was also a play on Broadway. The film was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area.
