Keiner killt so schlecht wie ich

A New Leaf (1971)

A kookie, forcibly odd movie. If at first you think it's just plain stupid, keep watching. It's really well balanced, smartly written, and acted with more restraint than usual for a madcap movie like this.

It's billed (by some) as filled with dark humor, but it didn't strike me as dark, not like the contemporary "Harold and Maude" for example. But there is an unusual tone achieved here that is just slightly different and worth getting a feel for. There is, for another example, a parallel in general plot and scenario to "How to Murder Your Wife" from 1965, complete with the willing butler and the hapless rich bachelor, but that movie is a silly 1960s farce and this one has an edge of almost poignancy to it. (I write that word and think Elaine May would cringe--only because I don't think there is an intention to be sentimental or even romantic, the last scene notwithstanding.)

The star is singularly Walter Matthau, who is almost necessarily goofy just by appearances. But maybe the first clever trick by the director, Elaine May, is putting the goofy man in even goofier situations so that he comes off as actually someone serious and believable. To have his character, Henry Graham, driving in his red Ferrari wearing a crash helmet is pure insanity, yet you don't blink an eye. The guy is self-absorbed and nuts. But also very likable, a little out of touch the way we all are, or wish we could be (if we had his money).

And of course the man's dilemma is stated immediately: the money he once had so much of is used up. And you have to see to appreciate the one long scene in the first twenty minutes with Graham meeting his financial adviser about some bounced checks. This is comedy at its absolute best--I mean that. Watch only this scene if you must (and I dare you to skip the rest of the movie once you do). The actor opposite Matthau here is William Redfield, who pulls off the most brilliant of performances.

The other leading character, eventually, is Elaine May herself as the clumsy, naive, filthy rich scientist who Graham sets his sights on for salvation. She is terrific, as well, and like Woody Allen of the same time ("Bananas" is also 1971) seems to direct her own comic zaniness with a calculated distance. The rest of the shenanigans play out with the necessary twists, and it's consistently funny.

So, see this for its freshness even four decades later. No wonder it has a (small but growing) cult following. May has suffered historically from having made the bizarrely awkward "Ishtar" and for being forever linked in the early 1960s as the comedy partner of Mike Nichols, whose movie career overshadows almost everyone's. But here, at least, she shines on her own terms, without distraction.

Plot-- Having neither money nor feelings, an aging wastrel better figure out how to get money quickly or he's in big trouble. Thanks to his quick thinking manservant, he looks to marry a rich woman. Soon he settles on a lonely, inept young woman who specializes in both botany and ruining rugs. So what will happen now.

Well, I guess the movie's a comedy thanks mainly to May's touchingly clumsy funny girl. Still, it's a hard movie to get a handle on. Matthau's coldly calculating fortune hunter hardly cracks a smile the whole time, even in social situations. Between the two, they're hardly a promising comedy mix. Yet, the mix works even as Graham (Matthau) pores over a poisoning book on his wedding night, while poor Lowell (May) can't even get her gown on straight. No, the movie may not be a knee-slapper, but it is unusually charming in its own way. In fact, May manages to make her character one of the most uniquely winning that I've had the good luck to see. Then too, casting the familiar faces of Coco and Weston conveys a hint of tongue in cheek even as they play a couple of mean guys.

The ending is appropriate as the movie's title suggests. At the same time we can't be sure what the emotionally destitute Graham will do. After all, he wants status, but without the responsibilities.

Apparently, May was the creative hand (writer and director) behind this unusual comedy-drama. Too bad she was also behind the monumental flop Ishtar which appears to have slowed her promising movie career. No, the movie may not be a knee-slapper, but it is humorously different. Thanks to May, we're left with a memorable portrayal that I'll think of every time I check the carbon on my car's cylinders.

Few people have ever even heard of "A New Leaf" and that is a shame. It is one of the funniest films in the last 30 years. Walter Matthau plays a spoiled rich man who discovers that his fortune is gone and he needs to marry in a short time to save what little he has left. His solution? Woo a rich woman, marry her, and kill her all in a week. So he picks the nerdy, klutzy, and not so attractive Elaine May (brilliant...she also wrote and directed) whose love is flowers. The film then follows Matthau as he attempts to carry out his plan. This film is full of BIG laughs and should be seen by anyone who loves a good comedy.

This film stands up as one of the most sophisticated and heartfelt comedies ever put to celluloid. Watch it alongside "Hobson's Choice", "Hail The Conquering Hero", "The Apartment", "Shop Around The Corner", "Father Goose", "Trouble In Paradise", and "Love Streams". Although not a romance, "The Ladykillers" is a black comedy with a similar tone. See if "A New Leaf" doesn't hold up to these consensus classics.

Romance always involves the conflict between selfish vanity and naive devotion or love.

Most romantic comedies simply give up the fight at the end, and collapse into gooey, deluded sentimentality (e.g. "French Kiss", "Roxanne"). Some err in the opposite way, concluding on a bittersweet ambivalent implication that love is always dulled or compromised (e.g. "Nothing In Common", "Chasing Amy", "Purple Rose Of Cairo").

The acid test of a romantic comedy screenplay is its balance, its resolution of this issue. Can the lovers truly satisfy each other, without either one abusing or sacrificing his unique character, his intellect, his humanity?

The more starkly and intelligently these forces are presented and opposed, the more difficult the problem. Imagine, then, the most selfish, vain, sarcastic and sophisticated man imaginable, meeting and marrying (for her money) an utterly naive, pure, awkward, cloistered academic woman; a botanist.

Fans of irony enjoy silly dated romances for the stereotypes, the gratuitous sloppy honeyed sentiment, the emotional denial. "A New Leaf" does not shrink from the harsh side of the world, from the dark human character, and (except for the music) it has not dated an hour since its release.

The score may be slightly dated, mixed too high in places, but the music is sweet uptown Manhattan violin-muzak, reminiscent of "Theme From A Summer Place", so why quibble?

Henry Graham marries Henrietta Lowell intending to kill her. He is too bad to be true. Yet, his venal motives are only an exaggeration of our own. He doesn't want to be married; he wants to be free! He doesn't want to share, he wants everything for himself! He has never needed people to like him. Only now, he is desperate for money.

Henrietta, Henry's opposite, is foremost a botanist. She is a pure academic, uninitiated in the ways of sophistication, deception, vanity or power, despite her wealth. Her mind is unprejudiced, but intensely isolated, focused. She lives in a rarefied climate. Her dream in life is to discover and catalog a new species of plant, a "new leaf", which would cause her name to be modestly memorialized in the scientific literature.

These two opposites must combine in everyone. It is the problem of romance, most precisely stated. We love. We trust. Yet, we have infantile desires and vanities. We must struggle in a corrupt world that doesn't give a damn about our delicate preoccupations, to wrest from it the admiration and pleasure our dark hearts desire. We are Henry, we are Henrietta. Can these characters love each other? Can we accept, integrate ourselves?

"A New Leaf" rollicks with endlessly clever, sarcastic, inventive, trenchant dialog, reels through convoluted and finely wrought complications, revels in every character, each played by a brilliant comedian. Matthau was born to play this archetype of morbid, deranged, malevolent and dissolute urbanity. Elaine May conjures an ineffable, lethal sexiness, her myopic naivete perfectly complementing her gentle intellectual clarity. The film is an immaculate, fierce, luminous, huge-hearted gem.

There is a category of films that includes several movies made by serious artists which emerged in a final form much different from that originally conceived. This group includes Erich Von Stroheim's silent masterpiece "Greed"------originally made as a movie that ran for over nine hours!; John Huston's filming of Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage"-----finally presented to us by M-G-M in a badly mutilated 69 minute fragment of its original form; Orson Welles' conception of Booth Tarkington's "Magnificent Ambersons"---taken away from him by RKO bureaucrats who then edited it down to a truncated 88 minutes; and Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon"---originally released at 130 minutes in length and then chopped down to 109 minutes in subsequent re-releases.

We will never know what these works would have ended up looking like. Even in a recent attempt to "restore" "Greed" to something approximating its original form, the missing links are supplied through available studio "still" photos. Such travesties have been going on for years. Judy Garland's much admired version of "A Star Is Born" can now be seen only in a "restored" version that follows a fate somewhat similar to that of "Greed." The same is true of "Lost Horizon." Nonetheless, we should be grateful that a portion of these films did survive, to give us the pleasure of seeing something very special---even if only in a limited sense,

This takes us to "A New Leaf." As most film goers know, Elaine May wrote a significantly different (and much darker) screenplay than the movie we now see on the screen. But to her credit, the film she made had so many elements of true greatness in it that the studio edited version now available is very enjoyable on its own terms. It is one of the most underrated comedies of the 1970's and surely one of the funniest and most inspired.

The ensemble of actors May gathered created some superb comic characters---and have never done any better work in comedy. May and Walter Matthau's chemistry in the leading roles worked exceptionally well. William Redfield (who died much too young) is wonderful in a carefully understated role. And singled out for special recognition is George Rose as Matthau's long-suffering valet---a nuanced presentation by a very gifted actor.

Matthau's romance of May is sweet, touching, at times somewhat edgy and always engaging. The growth of their relationship from an almost bloodless union of convenience to the quite tender match up at the end is but one example of the high level of May's comedic writing and the very capable acting of May and Matthau. Too bad that they never had the opportunity to appear together again.

"A New Leaf" deserves both a wider audience, and repeated viewings to appreciate just what a great film it really is. As others have noted, it also demands a good DVD presentation for that whole new generation of lovers of fine comedy who have never seen it before.

Can anyone watch Renee Taylor in her one great scene with Matthau uttering the line "Don't let them out!" possibly ever forget this movie?

Finally---a personal appeal to Elaine May. Some day (soon we hope), "A New Leaf" will be released to DVD in an edition worthy of the film so many people have come to admire. You will no doubt be asked to supply the DVD with an audio commentary on the film. It is essential----really critical----that your views on the making of this film be preserved for present and future generations. Almost 40 years have passed since its original release. Tell us your story!