A New Leaf (1971)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

June 1971: My Maternal Grandfather"Abe"passed away at the age of 84 due to blocked arteries. This was the first death I experience in my immediate family. My Grandparents would travel from New Jersey via public transportation and spend weekends at my home on Long Island. There would be no more visits for my Grandpa from this day on as I was going to witness my first funeral and burial. One of my talents is geography and I loved to read road maps . I was; and still a master of the roads and directions in the New York City area. I would constantly drive with my Father around the boroughs,counties as he ran a service business. I basically had a knowledge of the roadways and thoroughfares in and around New York. I came home from school on a Tuesday afternoon. I knew something was wrong when I came into an untidy house and my Mom wasn't around. A few moments later My mother pulls into the driveway with her niece from New Jersey as my Mom gave a distant look as if she was looking through me telling me simply that Grandpa Died . I'm part of a large family so we needed two cars to get to the funeral on time for Wednesday's memorial service from Long Island to Paterson, New Jersey at 10 AM sharp! Moreover my Father appointed me the navigator and make two stops to pick up his Uncles. My Parents went in one car and the second car was to be driven by my sister Elaine who just received her licence. Nervous and apprehensive were an understatement as my sisters and I left from My father's office in Ozone Park heading to Manhattan to pick up my colorful and argumentative Great Uncles . With my expertise we dodged traffic as we rode through unsavory neighborhoods to Manhattan arriving to the Uncle's respective high rise apartments. Then forged onward for New Jersey Via a construction site and a pier which was mistaken for an on ramp for the West Side Highway. On the way over, the two crusty combatants argued which Walter Matthau movie was better? Plaza Suite or A New Leaf? A New leaf was written by Jack Ritchie and Elaine May. Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) Middle aged playboy complete with crash helmet has a problem with his sports car. Too much carbon on the valves. Henry has a bigger problem, notified by his accountant, (William Redfield), Henry is running out of money and is weeks away from bankruptcy. Reminded constantly by his deadpan gentlemen's gentleman Harold (George Rose) who in my opinion has all the funny lines in this off-beat comedy. Henry can't bear the thought of being poor so he contemplates suicide but instead chooses a fate much worse. MARRIAGE!! With little time and funds running low, Henry scours the upper high brow circles of the wealthy and comes across a clumsy near sighted woman who has a knack for spilling tea on expensive rugs. Enter the wealthy available botanist who strongly believes in the organic method, Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May). Henry defends Henrietta to the indignant hostess and works his phony desperate shtick on the unsuspecting millionaire as Henry sees dollar signs all over the crumb laden Henrietta. Henry discovers a network of household servants that are robbing her blind. A housekeeper Mrs. Traggert played by a much younger Doris Roberts who has no idea who she's dealing with as Henry waist no time in letting her go. Jack Weston plays the fraudulent unscrupulous attorney Andy McPherson who handles Henrietta estate plus over pays the help. Henry takes charge of her affairs but Henry isn't looking for love or companionship. The truth is Henry finds Henrietta down right detestable or as he called her feral. Well written story with great timing by the players. Elaine May's direction of James Coco as the avaricious tight wad Uncle Harry and Jack Weston's desperation and crying is comical. Elaine May's use of physical comedy is a sight to behold . Putting on a negligee is a project . So sit back with a Mogen-David extra heavy Malaga cooler as the Graham's discover more than a new leaf. Oh by the way, My Sisters, Uncles and Yours Truly made it to the funeral on time!

Elaine May's directorial debut may be a disappointment but it's a noble disappointment: there's no question that May found herself working in then-uncharted territory, trying to find a naturalistic, semi-improvisational comedic style not generally seen in films of the period. Clearly her influence can be found in the works of masters like Albert Brooks (especially in the use of long takes) and the urbane Woody Allen that would emerge with "Annie Hall". But that doesn't solve the problem of "A New Leaf", which meanders along at its own fitful pace and with May's interests kept pretty much private; she doesn't seem to want to let the audience in on her inner workings and what's important to her never really translates to the viewer. Walter Matthau plays a roué who finds himself suddenly broke and must find a wealthy wife in order to settle his debts, finding her in May's naive, clumsy spinster. May's screenplay, her first, never allows her characters to come alive: Matthau hides behind a wall of continual indignation and May, with her staring and stammering, just isn't that funny; the two are played too broadly to connect with each other, let alone the audience. As an artist, May knows what she wants but struggles to develop it and the darkness she hints at (Matthau constantly contemplates murder) doesn't become a plot point until the end and then becomes an unwanted pathos. (That darkness would later find fuller expression in "Mikey And Nicky".) While it's apparent that her approach to comedy is a new one, here she hasn't yet developed the chops that would make "A New Leaf" work.

Since others have recounted the wonderful plot (shades of Kind Hearts and Coronets, but with only one intended "victim"), and others have mentioned how brilliant Walter Matthau's comic performance is, I would like to add how amazing and brilliant Elaine May's zany performance is. She wrote, directed, and was the female star of the movie, in a time when only a few men ever wore so many hats.This movie is SO worth watching. It took a little time for me to settle in to the odd unusual rhythms - it's almost a half an hour before Ms. May appears at the tea party and turns the film upside down.The little girl who is "touching things" at the wedding is priceless. The loafers who are cheating Henrietta, her lawyer (Jack Weston in a comic tour-de-force), so many funny lines, situations, and laughs - the odd thing is the affection that builds between Henry and Henrietta WORKS. Not sure if the 3 hour May version would be better or even as good - perhaps we will never know, but this cut of the film is near perfect and so worth watching! I wish Elaine May had made more movies; her voice was so unique and enchanting. I am one of the few people in this world who loves "Ishtar", and of course "The Heartbreak Kid" is a total gem - I haven't seen "Mikey & Nicky" unfortunately, but would love to see it. She scored as an actress many times, esp. in Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks" (the first funny half of the movie in particular).If you get a chance to see this movie, give it a chance - it's worth the time and effort to find it!

Isn't it sad that after 40 years this film got only 45 reviews? That means one review per year...Sometimes it's very difficult to accept that the general taste of the masses disregards excellent films like this one in favor of awful productions. Why, we are tired of counting into the hundreds the countless reviews about silly (or worse) movies not even worthy of the effort that it takes to write a review.Today I saw "A New Leaf" again after many years, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it even more (is that possible?) than the first time around. It has lost nothing of its excellent humor (Black Humor) and everybody is terrific, even the smallest and briefest of all the characters (and characters they are...: The Cleanning Lady, somebody to take home with you, Henrietta (Elaine May) a classic and unclassifiable character so warm, so humane, so grandiose in her absentmindedness.On the other hand nobody will think that taking Henry (Walter Matthau)or his rich uncle home could be a good idea (Uncle Harry --James Coco-- what a sublime actor!). In Henry's case the turnabout of this character is very well portrayed and shows us that nobody is true black or white, but merely a shade of the so many gradations of gray.The direction is perfect and some of the scenes belong in an anthology of their own; a scene --among most of them, all so good-- that I found almost out of a "Monty Python" movie is the one when Harry is riding a horse in the country and a messenger comes at full gallop to deliver a message and while he delivers it, his horse slowly starts to fall down, like dying or something (an asthma attack maybe?) and ends up full length on the ground, after an exhausted final neigh while the man dismounts it and finishes his message standing while watching his horse in stupor. Superb humor.One of my most endearing films, maybe helped by the fact that Elaine May is one of my favorite personalities ever and, as Henrietta, her character in this movie, was --classic and unclassifiable-- one of a kind.