Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Wordiezett So much average

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

thejcowboy22 June 1971: My Maternal Grandfather"Abe"passed away at the age of 84 due to blocked arteries. This was the first death I experience in my immediate family. My Grandparents would travel from New Jersey via public transportation and spend weekends at my home on Long Island. There would be no more visits for my Grandpa from this day on as I was going to witness my first funeral and burial. One of my talents is geography and I loved to read road maps . I was; and still a master of the roads and directions in the New York City area. I would constantly drive with my Father around the boroughs,counties as he ran a service business. I basically had a knowledge of the roadways and thoroughfares in and around New York. I came home from school on a Tuesday afternoon. I knew something was wrong when I came into an untidy house and my Mom wasn't around. A few moments later My mother pulls into the driveway with her niece from New Jersey as my Mom gave a distant look as if she was looking through me telling me simply that Grandpa Died . I'm part of a large family so we needed two cars to get to the funeral on time for Wednesday's memorial service from Long Island to Paterson, New Jersey at 10 AM sharp! Moreover my Father appointed me the navigator and make two stops to pick up his Uncles. My Parents went in one car and the second car was to be driven by my sister Elaine who just received her licence. Nervous and apprehensive were an understatement as my sisters and I left from My father's office in Ozone Park heading to Manhattan to pick up my colorful and argumentative Great Uncles . With my expertise we dodged traffic as we rode through unsavory neighborhoods to Manhattan arriving to the Uncle's respective high rise apartments. Then forged onward for New Jersey Via a construction site and a pier which was mistaken for an on ramp for the West Side Highway. On the way over, the two crusty combatants argued which Walter Matthau movie was better? Plaza Suite or A New Leaf? A New leaf was written by Jack Ritchie and Elaine May. Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) Middle aged playboy complete with crash helmet has a problem with his sports car. Too much carbon on the valves. Henry has a bigger problem, notified by his accountant, (William Redfield), Henry is running out of money and is weeks away from bankruptcy. Reminded constantly by his deadpan gentlemen's gentleman Harold (George Rose) who in my opinion has all the funny lines in this off-beat comedy. Henry can't bear the thought of being poor so he contemplates suicide but instead chooses a fate much worse. MARRIAGE!! With little time and funds running low, Henry scours the upper high brow circles of the wealthy and comes across a clumsy near sighted woman who has a knack for spilling tea on expensive rugs. Enter the wealthy available botanist who strongly believes in the organic method, Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May). Henry defends Henrietta to the indignant hostess and works his phony desperate shtick on the unsuspecting millionaire as Henry sees dollar signs all over the crumb laden Henrietta. Henry discovers a network of household servants that are robbing her blind. A housekeeper Mrs. Traggert played by a much younger Doris Roberts who has no idea who she's dealing with as Henry waist no time in letting her go. Jack Weston plays the fraudulent unscrupulous attorney Andy McPherson who handles Henrietta estate plus over pays the help. Henry takes charge of her affairs but Henry isn't looking for love or companionship. The truth is Henry finds Henrietta down right detestable or as he called her feral. Well written story with great timing by the players. Elaine May's direction of James Coco as the avaricious tight wad Uncle Harry and Jack Weston's desperation and crying is comical. Elaine May's use of physical comedy is a sight to behold . Putting on a negligee is a project . So sit back with a Mogen-David extra heavy Malaga cooler as the Graham's discover more than a new leaf. Oh by the way, My Sisters, Uncles and Yours Truly made it to the funeral on time!

Jacob Rosen Elaine May's directorial debut may be a disappointment but it's a noble disappointment: there's no question that May found herself working in then-uncharted territory, trying to find a naturalistic, semi-improvisational comedic style not generally seen in films of the period. Clearly her influence can be found in the works of masters like Albert Brooks (especially in the use of long takes) and the urbane Woody Allen that would emerge with "Annie Hall". But that doesn't solve the problem of "A New Leaf", which meanders along at its own fitful pace and with May's interests kept pretty much private; she doesn't seem to want to let the audience in on her inner workings and what's important to her never really translates to the viewer. Walter Matthau plays a roué who finds himself suddenly broke and must find a wealthy wife in order to settle his debts, finding her in May's naive, clumsy spinster. May's screenplay, her first, never allows her characters to come alive: Matthau hides behind a wall of continual indignation and May, with her staring and stammering, just isn't that funny; the two are played too broadly to connect with each other, let alone the audience. As an artist, May knows what she wants but struggles to develop it and the darkness she hints at (Matthau constantly contemplates murder) doesn't become a plot point until the end and then becomes an unwanted pathos. (That darkness would later find fuller expression in "Mikey And Nicky".) While it's apparent that her approach to comedy is a new one, here she hasn't yet developed the chops that would make "A New Leaf" work.

Raoul Duke So I watched a new leaf from 1971 starring Walter Matthau. So is it a classic, well yeah, is it for everyone well no. It is very quirky, a little odd, a little dark, and has some of the best dialog I've ever heard. I am not a big sucker for a happy ending, especially when you see it coming but it fits. I won't go into it, but it is the only weak spot in this otherwise great comedy. The material doesn't seem dated and a remake could be effective, but this movie stands up over time. Just remember to take care of the carbon on your valves, inside joke if you see the movie you'll get it. if you like concise reviews of interesting films please read my other reviews at http://raouldukeatthemovies.blogspot.com/

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.