Rent A New Leaf (1971)

Cult comedy - A New Leaf review by Alphaville

Available at last, this cult classic comedy from 1970. The talented Elaine May writes, directs and stars as the hapless millionairess courted for her wealth by hopeless down-on-his-luck millionaire Walter Matthau. A sweet, funny, perfectly-cast treat that wears its age as a badge of honour. Puts to shame modern gross-out humour. Stand-out scene: Matthau's bumbling attempts to help May sort her nightgown's head-hole from her arm-hole. Silly, funny, warm and memorable.

Matthau in Manhattan - A New Leaf review by CH

Half a decade before Annie Hall there was Henrietta Lowell. Who? She was played by Elaine May in a A New Leaf (1971), a film which she also directed and wrote its screenplay from a short story by Jack Ritchie.

If anything, here is a woman even more ditzy than Annie. As such, she falls prey to the ever-brilliant Walter Matthau, a man who had twice as many facial muscles as most of us. He is Henry Graham (is this an in-joke about Graham Greene's first names?), a man so improvident that, despite an apartment which seems to sport a Rothko, he has used up the capital and income of his trust fund. His attorney (a brilliant turn by William Redfield who died far too young after coming to wider attention a few year later in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is less forgiving than his man-servant. Here, then, is a Jeeves-and Wooster set-up. Except that Wodehouse's prose could never find a counterpart on screen. Here, though, George Rose (an English actor who should have been better known) is as adept as Matthau at facial expressions which say so much more than words as his employer's follies continue to land them in it.

Elaine May is a rich, naïve botanist whom Matthau hopes will be his salvation, especially if he can bump her off a discreet while after the wedding has taken place. An old plot, of course, but given such fresh momentum here that one so wishes she had directed more than four films.

(Of course she was clobbered by Ishtar, which is in fact very watchable.)

There is not a moment wasted in A New Leaf, its visual gags matched by the verbal ones (a fern plant deserves a credit of its own, as do Elaine May's Hockneyesque spectacles).

How to convey the spirit of this terrific film without giving too much away? Well, the opening scene finds Matthau looking anxious, close up, while a screen appears to beep at a hospital bedside. The news turns out to be good, and the camera pulls back to reveal that the patient is... his much-troubled sports car.

That sets the tone for a film which should not be missed. It bears out Edmund Wilson's journal entry about seeing her on stage in a famed cabaret turn with Mike Nichols. “She is extremely handsome, with powerful black eyes – probably passionate and strongwilled.”

As for Matthau, it is a sign of his brilliance, he would soon after appear in a very different take upon Manhattan: The Taking of Pelham 123.

Always Best to Turn Over a New Leaf and this is the best one..... - A New Leaf review by Strovey

Elaine May who directed, wrote and acted in this black comedy was clearly a talent at a time when few women got to make a film in one of these disciplines let alone all three, she is probably better known for the similar but more polished Heartbreak Kid and the much-derided Ishtar which probably did more for her lack or output than anything else and her early years when she was the comedy partner of Mike Nichols.

A New Leaf follows the format of many seventies films with related topics, the main female character is kookie, eccentric and educated to the point of ignorance and the male protagonist, here played with ease by Matthau, is strong, determined and in this story lazy and mildly evil. So far so stereotypical, which I can forgive because of the year it was made, and because May works hard to get across a different take and plays her role with a clumsy charm that leaves the audience liking her despite her failings. Equally supported by Walter Matthau effortlessly at ease with his slime-bag character, including cod British affectations, and the superb and tragic George Rose who has to be seen as the prototype gentleman’s gentlemen before Gielgud and Denholm Elliot. A strong foundation to a story that in itself could be seen as the groundwork for the superb and similarly themed Heartbreak Kid that May directed only a year later.

If you then throw into the mix William Redfield in a small but memorable role as a frustrated bank manager explaining to Matthau that the ‘money is gone’ and James Coco and his louche uncle who is pivotal in to the fix that Henry finds himself in and you have perfectly cast and funny late 60s, early 70s film.

Much like The Heartbreak Kid, Harold and Maude and similar contemporary films the comedy is mainly deadpan with underlying darkness just showing through, after all in this story Henry Graham is lazy and arrogantly privileged who is more than happy to arrange for his new wife to perish so he can keep her fortune.

Ultimately, without recounting too much more of the story, The New Leaf is a witty, funny, fun and well-acted movie with some the best actors of that time on top form. Matthau only three years off The Odd Couple seemed to be able to turn his hand and his, err, unconventional looks to any role with sublime ease. Elaine May, not so well known, and unfortunately unknown to many, proved that her decision to go into the movie-making side of things was a loss for audiences everywhere. It did have me thinking that the ease at which Hollywood blamed her for losses and poor box-office performance which prevented her from fulfilling her potential was unfair and definitely due to her gender.

Rather than just a standard kookie comedy about an unpleasant character who will do anything to keep what he undeservedly had, we end up with a story about redemption, love and how even seemingly the worst of us has value.

I would recommend watching this and then watching The Heartbreak Kid to see Elaine May’s best work. There is a rumour that the working screenplay was chopped and cut about, and the film was edited without May’s input, allegedly the story was darker, with more unpleasant undertones but it is only on the hearsay of those involved as no outtakes or even the shooting script survived. It would have been interesting to see how different May’s vision from the final cut would have been.

Nevertheless, I recommend A New Leaf to a watch unseen comic gem from the early 1970s.