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But this is far from a morbid movie. Harold may be eccentric, but he’s got nothing on Maude, a sweet-looking little old lady he begins spotting at the funerals he attends. She sits apart from the other mourners, making no effort to hide her spectator status, and she tends to dress and act somewhat inappropriately, considering the death-related theme you find at most funerals. Sensing a kindred spirit, Maude reaches out to Harold by stealing his car and inviting him over for tea. Maude lives in a converted rail car that looks like a cross between...well...a converted railcar and a Gypsy pawn shop. Maude is a spry one, well along in years but with the spirit of a teenager.

Maude is acutely interested in everything, and approaches life with the ardent interest of a child. She has a unique (and sometimes highly dangerous) appreciation and perspective on nearly everything, the likes of which Harold has never experienced. She encourages him to revel in every aspect of life - sight, sound, taste, smell, thrills and even the mundane, quiet poetry of a field of daisies. He smiles for the first time in the movie while he’s around her, and it’s a clearly deliberate moment that changes the course of the story.

The change in Harold goes unnoticed by his mother, who continues to parade him before a steady stream of eligible bachelorettes - whom he quickly dispatches by faking suicide on the first date. In fact, when Mother attempts to replace Harold’s hearse with a Jaguar sports coupe, he simply transforms it into the world’s most Fast and Furious little hearse. This is one of many scenes you’ll want to watch twice, and I feel for the very few people who sat through this movie in theaters four decades ago. Pause, rewind and replay come in super handy several times over the course of this film. It’s not only worth multiple views, but it’s worth taking your time each time you watch it.

Harold and Maude is full of quirky, oddball characters worthy of a Monty Python sketch, and it seems to take place in a universe that looks like ours, but where the laws of action and consequence are applied selectively. The script, by Colin Higgins (9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) is wry, fast-paced and full of laughs where you least expect them. Hal Ashby (The Last Detail, Shampoo) directs with a light touch, letting emotional scenes play out with little intervention. There’s a strong emotional undercurrent to Harold and Maude; and while a romance of sorts does develop between the two leads, you shouldn’t let the strangeness of that divert you from the point of the movie.

Is it weird for an 80-year-old woman and a 20-year-old boy/man to fall for each other? Oh, definitely, but the movie doesn’t shy away from that. At one point it’s directly addressed, and the moment is played for humor, because it’s really beside the point of the story. Harold may be emotionally estranged from what remains of his family, but each “suicide” is clearly a cry for attention. Harold doesn’t want to die; he’s a boy who’s never felt loved and therefore simply has no idea how to live. Maude’s backstory is never implicitly stated, but it’s clear she’s led a stormy life that has seen her swept up in some pretty heavy things.

Her response to this has been to get the most out of every day she has left, and she encourages Harold to do the same. It’s an obvious point to make, but most of the people I know need something traumatic to happen to them before their life becomes much more than an extended period of compulsory employment and pointless existential meandering. I’m not so sure the romance here is between Harold and Maude as it is between Harold and Life. Existence without meaning is a pretty grim place to be, and learning to love life isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s a pretty solid message, delivered by a pretty solid film that’s fun to watch again and again - probably even after you’ve made the Dirty Old Man Hall of Fame.

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