New Leaf, A (1971)

Adapted from a short story, A New Leaf puts a murderous spin on the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s.

Henry Graham (Walter Matthau, in typically grumpy and deadpan form) is a lazy, boorish and entitled man who has squandered his large inheritance on high-performance sports cars, polo ponies, expensive restaurants and other luxuries.

Threatened with impending financial ruin and contemplating suicide, Henry confides in his faithful valet, Harold (George Rose), who suggests he marry a wealthy widow.

To finance his search for a wife, Henry borrows $10,000 from his Uncle Harry (James Coco), promising to pay ten times the loan amount if he does not marry within six weeks.

Henry plans to quickly marry a rich woman to write off his debt, and then get rid of her in a carefully planned murder.

After several tentative encounters with women, and just as time is about to run out, enter bespectacled Henrietta Lowell (a delightful and eccentric Elaine May).

She’s a socially awkward millionaire botanist who tends to drop things. She seems the perfect mark for his deadly plan.

Henrietta falls for Henry’s flat-toned, flimsy promises so quickly, not just because she’s naive. She’s just not used to being noticed, even in her own home.

Of course, the delicious irony is that Henrietta’s job and her exaggerated clumsiness are a potentially lethal mix.

In a brilliant scene, she hangs off a cliff while conducting fieldwork. At the same time, Henry sits with his back to her, reading A Beginner’s Guide to Toxicology. It highlights May’s gifts for both physical comedy and twisted observational humour.

Henry isn’t evil; he’s a spoiled idiot. But he comes to care for his new wife. This isn’t a redemption arc for an unkind man. It’s a case of two unlikely specimens finding some common ground.

A New Leaf marked Elaine May’s move from successful comedian to writer-director-actor in this brilliant, offbeat debut. She deserved the kind of long-running career as a filmmaker that her former comedy sketch partner, Mike Nichols, had. But it wasn’t to be.

The film was initially budgeted at $1.8M, but time and cost overruns ballooned the cost to roughly $4M. The shoot ran 40 days over schedule and required 10 months of editing (the running time before Paramount re-edited the film was 3 hours).

Elaine May sued the studio after such drastic cuts and attempted to have her name removed from the credits, but was unsuccessful.

Henry Graham
Walter Matthau
Henrietta Lowell
Elaine May
Andy McPherson
Jack Weston
Harold
George Rose
Uncle Harry
James Coco
Mrs Traggert
Doris Roberts
Sharon Hart
Renée Taylor
Beckett
William Redfield
Bo
Graham Jarvis
Frank
Jess Osuna
Mel
David Doyle
Mr von Rensaeller
Fred Stewart
John
Mark Gordon
Gloria Cunliffe
Rose Arrick

Director
Elaine May