Sunshine? - Harold and Maude (1971) Discussion

[–] sdckapr 10 years ago

Did Sunshine really kill herself doing the Juliet scene?

No. the knife was shown to have a fake blade. The film shows right after she say "oh happy dagger" that she takes the blade, presses it against her hand to test it. This is exactly what the script describes:

SUNSHINE
(continuing)
Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief.
Oh happy dagger!...

She takes stunned Harold's dagger, pressing the blade
back and forth in the handle to see how it operates.

And is also what is in Higgins' novelization of the film:

"Oh, happy dagger!" she cried. She took a moment out to test it, pushing the blade into the handle and seeing how it squirted out blood. Satisfied, she continued.

It also seems to me that "death scene" is "over the top" acting-wise. My sense is that Ellen Geer is a doing a good acting job, portraying Sunshine as a poor actress as she does Juliet's death scene. I do not believe it is Ellen Geer overacting in doing Sunshine's death scene.

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[–] bunnywithanaxe 10 years ago

I always thought that was a nice touch-- she's "pretty" sure he's faking the death scene, but she checks the knife just in case. A free spirit, but no fool.

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[–] bunnywithanaxe 10 years ago

And yes, Greer is totally hamming it up on purpose. She's hilarious in this scene.

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[–] greenbudgie 10 years ago

I think that budding actress Sunshine would now that it was a theatrical retracting dagger. Harold should have settled for Sunshine. She was the only girl who could play along with his fake suicides.

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[–] tmaj48 9 years ago

I like to think that maybe Harold would have looked up Sunshine in the near future as a potential girlfriend, at least--she would have appreciated his quirkiness much more than the more conventional girls his mother had picked out for him. Harold may have been over his fake suicide phase at that point, though.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

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[–] greenbudgie 9 years ago

I always think that the ending of the film teaches Harold to give up on fake suicides. But it would be nice to picture him pairing up with Sunshine at some point as you say.

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[–] yolandehow 9 years ago

I always thought she had, by accident, thought the retracting blade hadn't worked. Mind you probably wishful thinking as Sunshine a dreadful character>

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