The Santa Cruz Boardwalk
"You sure have a way with people." "Well, they're my species!"
Nighttime at the amusement park. Harold and Maude ride a twirly ride called the Trabant. Then they watch model trains inside the arcade. While Harold uses a Metal Typer machine, Maude plays pinball and attracts a large boisterous crowd. Later, sitting across the water from the boardwalk, Harold gives Maude the token he made on the Typer machine, reading "Harold Loves Maude". She throws it into the water "so I'll always know where it is." Fireworks go off over the boardwalk, and dissolve into Harold and Maude lying in bed by the light of dawn.
These scenes were all filmed at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the 1907 amusement park that runs east-west along the northern shore of Monterey Bay. I traveled there with Mike as well as a third MIT buddy of ours, Ed. We canvassed all the buildings, and although the interiors are almost completely redone since 1971, we were able to identify the model train, Metal Typer, and pinball scenes as having taken place in the Casino Arcade, the westernmost building of the Boardwalk. The one remaining identifying characteristic were the ornate caps on the support pillars. Compare the 2013 detail below with the pillar tops visible toward the upper left of the 1971 photo:
The stairs behind Maude's pinball machine were nowhere to be seen. There were stairs leading to an upper floor, but in a completely different configuration than this one:
And the Metal Typer machines are still there. Is this the very one that Harold used? It's possible...
Of course, I used the machine to make a "HAROLD LOVES MAUDE" token:
Fun fact: The bearded man standing between Harold and Maude, in the top photo above, as they watch the model trains, is Hal Ashby, the movie's director.