I’d forgotten how much I loved this film. And as before, I grinned all the way through.

My favorite lines:

Maude: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.

Harold: Maude.
Maude: Hmm?
Harold: Do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No. I communicate.
Harold: With God?
Maude: With life.

Maude: Vice, Virtue. It’s best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you’re bound to live life fully.

Maude: The earth is my body; my head is in the stars.
[pauses]
Maude: Who said that, Harold?
Harold: I don’t know.
Maude: Well, I suppose I did, then.

Did you know that Ruth Gordon Jones was 75 years old when she made Harold and Maude, Bud Cort was 23.

When the movie was released by Paramount in 1971, it was considered by industry insiders and film critics alike to be of curiosity value; a small offbeat black-comedy, with appeal mostly limited to those harbouring an unconventional taste for the tasteless.

Time–and millions of viewers–were to prove this assumption wrong, however, as the film’s popularity spread first among college students across America and then throughout the general movie-going public on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today, after several cinematic re-runs, numerous television screenings and its release on video, Harold and Maude enjoys a very substantial cult status.