This comedy performance by Walter Matthou ranks with his best work, such as in The Odd Couple, Sunshine Boys etc. Unfortunately, not as many people have seen it, as this movie is a little-known gem.I saw it as a second feature and almost missed it as I had never heard or read anything about it. We stayed, and laughed so hard I looked for it for years and told people about this odd film no one knows about.
Thank God cable aired it and it became available on VHS so I could recommend it to friends. The movie is simply hilarious.
Matthau is an arrogant, cultured, vain, selfish and rich snob suddenly finding himself penniless. His only salvation is to marry a rich woman and he finds the perfect target in the introverted and socially inept heiress/botanist played by Elaine May.
Matthau, dreading this intrusion into his perfectly ordered bachelor existence, decides murder of this ditz-of-all-time is the answer to all his problems. But, that is just the beginning to a very funny and ultimately touching story.
There are some of the best written and performed comedy bits in this film that I've ever seen. Starting with William Redfield as an accountant trying to explain to a willfully uncomprehending Matthau that he's broke; James Coco as Matthau's detested uncle extorting him over breakfast; Jack Weston as May's conniving and crooked lawyer/boyfriend; Matthau proposing to May while kneeling on broken glass; the wedding with May being given away by a blubbering Weston; the Honeymoon and the toga nightgown; May's disasterous household of thieving servants; and so on.
Special mention must go to George Rose who plays Matthau's valet and all-purpose manservant. He is superb in his dry, clipped delivery while conveying the man's undelying wisdom and empathy.
Okay, the ending may seem tacked on or otherwise not perfect but you can say that about The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and quite a few other classic comedies. I won't take so much as 1/2 star off for that. This is a Classic American comedy and should be seen by everyone. Don't miss it. And please, someone, preserve it forever by putting it on DVD!
10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
WHY is this film NOT on DVD!!!???, 16 May 2005
9/10
Author: jim6263 from So.California, USA
I'll not recount the story, as others have. The lack of response and proper public recognition for this film my be due to Elaine May's very dry wit and wry sense of humor, which, I think, simply sailed over the heads of many viewers. And it's truly most unfortunate, as this is a VERY funny film (for those who are perceptive and appreciate the subtler and darker shades of humor and life)! To the dude who rated it a "1" (on IMDb): "A New Leaf" was nominated for 2 Golden Globes (Comedy -Best Picture and Best Actress) and for the WGA's (the industry's official Writer's Guild -i.e., her peers, other screenwriters) writing award for best comedy (from another medium) that year. No offense, but I value my own (and their) sensibilities a bit more than yours! And it's impeccably acted, as others have mentioned, filled with flawless comedic timing and wry, wry wit. Simply wonderful.This wonderful, laugh-out-loud comedy stars Walter Matthau as Henry, a witheringly sarcastic playboy who suddenly finds he has spent his entire fortune. In order to maintain his current lifestyle, he decides to marry someone-anyone-who is wealthy, which is a problem, as he basically hates women. Henrietta (Elaine May), his chosen target, is a very rich, but socially awkward-in-the-extreme botanist, whose life's dream is to discover a new form of fern. Henry woos and wins her, then decides to dispatch her on their honeymoon.
This largely overlooked comedy is a coup for writer/director/star Elaine May. The script is fast-paced, witty, and (most important for a comedy) truly funny and the characters, while outrageous, still ring true. Matthau's acid-tongued Henry is so pompous and snooty, you can't wait to hear what he's going to say next. May's performance as the innocent heiress is touching as well as hysterical. The twist at the end will leave you very satisfied with this gem of a movie.
Kona
Read Best Reviews of A New Leaf (1971) Here
That Elaine May has directed herself in a film only once bids fair to become one of the mythic disappointments of film history, like the hostile neglect visited upon so much of Orson Welles' work, like the fact that "Night of the Hunter" was Charles Laughton's only film as a director, like Oliver Stone having access to film-making equipment.The version here is not the film that May made. She attempted to no avail to have her name removed from it when the studio hijacked her 3-hour edit and decided that the cut we now have is the one that's good for us. Heresy though it may be to say so, if this version is butchery, the original must have been...the best movie ever made.
Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) is a suddenly penniless bon vivant who realizes he can perpetuate his extravagant lifestyle only by marrying, then killing, a rich woman. He sets his sights on Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May), a shy, painfully awkward, stupendously naive heiress and botanist who appears never to have enjoyed the romantic attentions of a man. This seeming pushover will prove to be, in a manner of speaking, an immovable object.
Henrietta Lowell is a comic character with no awareness that she is a comic character. From the moment she first appears onscreen (at which point Henry makes brilliantly cynical use of her klutziness to demonstrate what a terribly gallant fellow he is, instantly cementing poor Henrietta's devotion) until the final frames, she thinks she's living in a love story, a fairy tale, not a black comedy. Her innocence, which seems so to endanger her, will actually be her salvation. And Henry's too.
May's remarkably well-polished script builds from the ground up a world, its denizens, and the humor inherent in both. For instance: The improbably frequent, seemingly endless repetition of the phrase "Carbon on the valves" is just plain funny but also sketches, first, Henry's chronic negligence and then, when the lament is repeated by a fellow playboy, a whole subculture of "Henrys". Or: Henry's snobbish reference to Mouton Rothschild (the '55 is CLEARLY superior to the '53) prompts Henrietta to offer, ever so helpfully, that with Mogen David "every year is good". Very funny, but also nuanced; the exchange speaks volumes about each. Dodi Heinrich, the odd little flower girl at the wedding, is pure visual one-liner, but to Henry is a terrifying doppelganger of Henrietta come to torment the hysterical groom.
At the end, the viewer is just as startled as Henry to hear a contrite Henrietta say, "Henry...I know...that this isn't exactly what you planned...But would you mind doing it...very much?"
Maybe... just maybe... (writer Elaine May finally, teasingly suggests), Henrietta isn't as myopic as she seems. Having suddenly excavated this curious notion, May just as quickly buries it.
Want A New Leaf (1971) Discount?
And what would this new life be for this small plastic encased fern of comic genius A Restored Director's Cut DVD!Otherwise what else can be said that has not already been voiced by all who have reviewed this absolute "True Classic" of cinematic satirical comedy. Walter Mathau is brilliant and I agree with all who feel that it is probably his greatest comedic performance. It is unfortunate that it was and still seems to be a sleeper in the film world. The fact that it is not in the top 100 of the funniest comedies of all time confirms this oversight.
But a greater oversight would be to continue to ignore this bit of celluoid genius by not preserving it in a beautiful DVD restoration of Elaine Mays original Director's cut.
Perhaps if enough "film buffs in the know" spoke out this would happen.....if only!
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