Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) leads a lonely life in a palatial home with his controlling mother (Vivian Pickles), a haughty socialite whose relationship with her son favors formality over affection. In the movie's opening scene we are all shocked when she walks into the music room and finds Harold swinging by the neck at the end of a rope. She on the other hand doesn't bat an eyelid. Her response?... "I suppose you think that's very funny, Harold".

Apparently she has seen this sort of thing before. It seems that Harold, not your ordinary kid, has taken to staging elaborate fake suicides to gain his mother's attention. She takes it in unflappable stride but when next she discovers his mutilated body in a blood-drenched bathroom even she is taken aback... "This is too much... I can't stand much more of this... I can't take any more!!" These interior scenes were filmed at the Rosecourt Mansion in Hillsborough, Ca, described in more detail here.

... but later she continues to maintain her savior faire by genteely breaststroking past his floating 'corpse' with narry a glance.

Then ... Harold's obsession with Death next takes him to what then was San Carlos Auto Wreckers at 959 Sky Way Road, San Carlos, alongside Highway 101 next to San Carlos airport (map). This view looks east towards Alameda County across the south bay.

... and Now, the wreckers yard is gone, replaced by office buildings - this recent matching photo was taken from their parking lot. The Kaiser Cement Silos at the Port of Redwood City, originally built in the 1920s by the Pacific Portland Cement Company, are at top right both Then and Now.

... in 1966 ... here's a vintage aerial photo of San Carlos airport showing San Carlos Auto Wreckers alongside Highway 101, bottom left, as it still looked when the movie was filmed.