The Put Down

There are some quotes that should make it into "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations," but sadly won't. I'm here to try and memorialize them as best as I can. The pictured edition is the volume my mother had, and the one I grew up with.

I've written about these bon mots before. Call it utterances you can use on your own in the future when the time is right. People will think you're using a gag writer. You may even get invited to appear on a talk show if you're good at it and get the right exposure.

Since it's now a week since my last posting, I start to wonder what is going to set me off on a writing jag? Obituaries are usually a good muse for blog postings, and this time one came through.

You never know when you're going to encounter a bon mot in an obit. It could be the kicker at the end, a quote from the deceased, or something said about them. In this case it's about a movie they appeared in, a critic's unkind comments.

The movie is "Harold and Maude", described as: "a quirky romantic comedy." No kidding.  

The woman gripping handlebars of the Harley is Ruth Gordon, and the lad on the back in Bud Cort, the subject of the obituary: "Bud Cort, 77, Dies; Star of the Classic 'Harold and Maude.'"

It's a 1971 movie that you might not be old enough to remember, even the title, much less ever having seen it. It was poorly received, but given time, it's become a cult classic and "considered one of the best films of the 1970s." You remember the '70s, right?

For some reason, when I saw the title, I thought it was an Art Carney movie about him with a cat. But that's another movie. I never saw "Harold and Maude," and based on the description of "Ruth Gordon's  79-year-old, happy-go-lucky Holocaust survivor" who lives in an abandoned railroad car who has a romantic relationship with a teenage Bud Cort, it is not likely to ever make it to a list of movies I'd like to see. I'm not sorry I missed when it was first out.

In retrospect, the movie, while initially taken to the cleaners in its reviews, has emerged as a cult classic, and one of the best films of the '70s. This is no doubt to a critical review of the movies of Hal Ashby, the director. Have enough pompous words written about you in a Sunday section, or a magazine, and eventually you're famous again, I guess. And an artistic genius. Whatever.

A good obit writer, and The New York Times's Clay Risen, having joined the obit desk fairly recently, is a good obit writer. It is the obit writer's job to set the backdrop of the era the deceased lived in. Additionally, Mr. Risen does a good job of excavating a review of the movie—in this case from Variety—that tells you all you need to know about he movie if you were considering on seeing it.

"It has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage."

With or without the children inside?

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