Ilaria Gonnelli The film is unusual, but just as perfect as it happens infrequently, where it all is OK: the choice of the two lead actors (Elaine May and Walter Matthau) and Supporting Roles, all authentic masks comedy (take for example the butler, his uncle, the lawyer, the governed and the driver), the originality of the story, the pace, the direction, scenes mothers and those of the boundary, the grand finish. In short, a film by see again and again without wanting to change anything. The credit is especially of Elaine May, exquisite clumsy on the film, but in actually the author of the delicate and grotesque screenplay, as well as director. A film unfortunately little known and appreciated, the same May has sometimes denied. A little gem to be rediscovered.

David Allen "A New Leaf" (1971) starring Walter Matthau and Elaine May is one of best screwball romantic comedies ever made.The story is based on a short story by Jack Ritchie titled "The Green Heart" and Elaine May wrote the movie script, directed and starred in the movie.By far, this is her best movie of all time.The movie presents a "poor little rich boy" meets "poor little rich girl" story, and follows the two into an unlikely marriage and a story which ends happily, even though the lovable villain, Walter Mathau playing "Henry Graham" does not have good or honest intentions, and does not intend to remain married to his new wife.(He plans to become a widower taking his new wife's fortune, but at the last moment, changes his mind and his life, and the two literally go off together into a beautiful sunset....a heartwarming ending rare and almost corny, but very welcome).The movie depends very much on the two main players, and the viewer comes to like them both very much as the story unfolds.Other supporting actors in the movie are also lovable and wonderful, and very funny.A really good movie has likable characters the viewer befriends from the very beginning of the film, and which characters remain lovable throughout.There are no true villains in good movies, and current era movies (2013) often make the mistake of foisting villains of such ugliness and brutal, violent character no onlooker could ever like them.The movie suffers when this happens, and the fact that despicable people exist in the world and have over history does not justify putting such people into the movies as characters.No movie can be edifying when such people are portrayed, no matter how skillfully.A good movie is edifying.That is true of all good art in any and all fields and categories of art."A New Leaf" (1971) is a gratifying example of an edifying movie where all portrayed, large and small roles, major and minor roles, are wonderful and memorable.It's a movie which makes the viewer feel good, and makes him/her glad for having spent time watching the movie.....and glad to return to it for many repeat screenings.Very, very few works of cinematic art are like this. That is why "A New Leaf" (1971) really is a treasure. Other classic screwball romantic comedies of note worth seeing, good for the same reasons "A New Leaf" (1971) was good, include "His Girl Friday" (1939), and "Lovers And Other Strangers" (1970).------------- Tex (David) Allen is a SAG-AFTRA accredited movie actor.See details about him on the IMDb website by searching for "Tex Allen."Email to TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com

Bob Pr. Henry (Walter Matthau), having squandered his large inheritance, his butler advises him that his only remedies are either suicide or marrying for money. The first option is less appealing to Henry so he quickly searches for a likely candidate--and finds Henrietta (Elaine May).This film is an example of what's sometimes called "comedy noir" in which undesirable acts or conditions set the stage for satire or laughs. Henry's an arrogant, completely self-centered man, profligate of his considerable inheritance, and seemingly never with any close emotional relationships. He risks taking out a very punitive short term loan to maintain his appearances as a man of considerable means with the aim of both quickly finding a wealthy woman to marry and then "doing her in." He finds his ideal candidate/victim: Henrietta --- the only child of deceased parents, extremely wealthy, a botanical scientist, AND with almost NO social sense or grace. Henry quickly courts her, proposes, and they marry. Henry researches potential poisons while Henrietta is researching ferns. But suddenly, Henry realizes Henrietta's love for him has become as gratifying as her abundant money and he begins a transformation. This film is liberally sprinkled with great (funny) one-liners and dialog; many people find it side-splitting hilarious. I chuckled some but neither Henry's extreme haughtiness nor Henrietta's "Asperger's"-like behavior was that funny to me nor such quick transformations believable.My rating of 6 was possibly influenced by my career (clinical psychologist) working with disturbed people which may have lessened my appreciation? Most friends in non-therapeutic fields think it's extremely funny.FWIW: Elaine May's (the director as well as co-star) original version of this film was 3 hours long which the studio found unacceptable so it was cut to its present length, eliminating 2 murders in the process. Elaine May was so dissatisfied with this cutting, she sought to have her name removed from the film credits. More about this can be found in IMDb's "Did You Know" Trivia for this film and/or look for this film's title on Wikipedia.

jzappa As is occasionally the tragic case with ambitious film artists, Elaine May's intended cut of her celluloid entrance we always remain a mystery: a supposed three-hour gallows farce entailing counterfeit marriage, blackmail and murder, which heralded the well-known comedienne's directorial debut. Producer Robert Evans swiped the film from her, radically condensed it and she disowned the resultant version. I doubt it's any relief to her that, even in this existing manifestation, A New Leaf is one of cinema's top comedies, greatly tracking the blossoming love between incompatible couple Henry and Henrietta.Of course Henrietta's massive glasses, dresses with price tags still dangling and breathy expression are effortlessly exaggerated external features, but May's flair is for humanizing even the most trifling behavioral particulars. But Matthau is May's faultless, deliriously funny foil. He somehow altogether tenders a serious and riotously goofy class satire. After his banker toils to make clear enough to him that he's bankrupt, Henry walks disconsolately through some old stomping grounds, mournfully bidding farewell to his material luxury, he's a segregated rich man in the way 8-year-old boys see their action figures as human and their friends as mere visitors in the world of their bedroom, roused to an unsympathetic and pitiless reality. The callousness and pretension of his characterization are what make it not only the funniest performance by one of cinema's funniest performers but one of the funniest performances by any performer. In Henrietta, he initially sees a distant dupe. His is a masculine supremacy stretching right from high-born mercilessness.He's told by his butler that he has few options: Suicide, maybe, or marrying wealth. Just as plants inform habitat destruction and species extinction, so they do here somewhat, as Matthau's world crumbles around him and he, a dying breed, struggles to survive but only in the same way as before. He has no skill or motivation, and work obviously would be unthinkable. He's devoted his life to living it contentedly and with elegance. On a loan negotiated by a deal that will leave him broke and in serious debt to his prosperous uncle James Coco, he embarks on a quest for the right marriage prospect, with none until May drops her teacup and he supposes that she might be so inept and dumb as to marry him."Perfect!" says Walter Mattau, after Elaine May has dropped her tea cup, glasses, purse, gloves and self-control while attempting to grasp the intricacies of a mere tea party. The hostess is distraught by the harm to her rug, so Matthau intentionally pours his own drink onto it. Then he asserts that of all the sexual perversions he's ever witnessed, the neurotic relationship of the hostess to her rug is incontrovertibly the most repulsive. Is it any surprise then that the extremely affluent May falls instantaneously in love with Matthau, lacks any talent, skill or real-world concept? She is, herself, a botanist who longs for the day when a leaf, herb or formerly uncategorized fern will be named for her.Their courtship comprises investigating one another's likes and dislikes. He relishes rare French classics, for instance, and she prefers Mogen David and soda with a drop of lime juice. And so on. For their wedding night, she wears a Grecian gown, accidentally putting her head through the armhole. He struggles to readjust her, and as she strives within the gown for about two minutes, both with perfect comic timing and pitch. And ultimately May, with all heart and very little brains, helps Matthau to understand in what direction his life must go, just as plants help us understand changes in on our environment in many ways. A New Leaf is, truly, one of the funniest movies I've seen in quite a stretch. Whatever the merits of May's apparent dissatisfaction with the final cut, in its present form it's cockamamie, bittersweet and uproarious.