Church where Harold first speaks to Maude
"I mean, 75 is too early, but at 85, well, you're just marking time..."
This is the church where Harold is attending the funeral of a stranger, and Maude is sitting a few rows behind him. She tries to get his attention, then moves over to sit right behind him, and offers Harold some licorice. Outside, after the funeral, Maude steals the priest's VW Beetle.
The church that was used for this scene is the St. Thomas Aquinas Church at 745 Waverly Street in Palo Alto. The interior is very much unchanged since 1971. You can see Mike sitting in same pew where Harold sat during the funeral:
The church's steps appear to have lost the coat of blue paint that they had in 1971, but otherwise, the exterior is also remarkably unchanged:
When we were there, it was Easter Sunday. We ran into a church official as we were taking our photos, and we mentioned what we were doing. He refered to "Harold and Maude" as "our 15 minutes of fame".
Fun fact: The marching band, that passes the church as the coffin is being carried out to the curbside hearse, is the Sunnyvale High School marching band. My friend Ron went to high school there, and knows the drum majorette leading the parade in this scene.
[Next page: The cemetery where Maude steals Harold's hearse]