A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie Review

The Odder Couple.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 1, 2012

Poor Elaine May. This unbelievably smart and winning comedy writer and performer was never quite able to matriculate to the film world as well as her former partner, Mike Nichols. May’s attempts to both write and direct films will forever be associated with a movie that has come to be thought of as the sort of Heaven’s Gate of film comedies, namely the humongous and humongously unfunny Dustin Hoffman – Warren Beatty disaster Ishtar. While May as a writer has had at least some degree of success in Hollywood (two Oscar nominations for Heaven Can Wait and Primary Colors), when she’s performed the dual role of writer-director, the results haven’t been exactly stellar. Her first two films as director, A New Leaf (which she also wrote and co-starred in) and The Heartbreak Kid, are probably her best overall efforts, even if both are flawed in their own ways. A New Leaf was the subject of some controversy at the time of its filming as then new to the craft director May got into a major tussle with the studio, especially after the editing process went on for nearly a year (a year!). Some news reports at the time had May secreting the film negative under her mattress so that it couldn’t be tampered with by meddling executive hands (in this case the legendary Robert Evans). However as is so often the situation in disputes like this, the purse-string holders won out, and May saw her little pet project taken from her control and reedited to get the film down to a manageable running time (May had evidently delivered a rough cut that was hours longer than the film’s current state of affairs). May distanced herself from the film, but co-star Walter Matthau went on record at the time stating that perhaps she shouldn’t have been quite so defensive and that some objective external influences actually did the film some good. One way or the other, A New Leaf is often laugh out loud funny, and the pairing of Matthau, as a conniving (you expected anything less?) millionaire who finds himself suddenly broke, and May, as a wealthy botanist who is spectacularly ill equipped to manage her own life, is often magical.

W.C. Fields died on Christmas Day of 1946 and Walter Matthau was born on October 1, 1920, so it’s virtually certain Matthau is not Fields reincarnated, but considering the similarities in both their appearance and their general performance style, one might plausibly wonder if Mr. Fields and Mr. Matthau’s mother had a secret dalliance along the way. Both Fields and Matthau cornered the market on slightly befuddled curmudgeons, more often than not with a slightly conniving edge to them, and that certainly sums of Matthau’s character of Henry Graham in A New Leaf. Graham is a good for nothing heir who has squandered his entire inheritance seemingly without even noticing and now finds himself about to be destitute and (horror of horrors) perhaps even forced to actually earn a living. His outrageous and slightly cartoonish Uncle Harry (James Coco) initially refuses to lift a finger to help his errant nephew.

Harold is listless and actually briefly considers suicide before his butler Harold (George Rose) suggests there may be a way out of the morass. Certainly there must be some eligible single woman out there who also happens to be inordinately wealthy, and Harold could marry her. Even that plan doesn’t come to fruition, and Harold is panicked once he convinces Uncle Harry to loan him enough money to help him maintain appearances while he’s on the “dating scene”, with the understanding that if after six weeks he hasn’t landed a wealthy mate, Uncle Harry absorbs all of Harold’s assets. With Harold well into his approaching deadline, he literally stumbles into meeting Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May), an introspective botanist who is, shall we say, not exactly a glamour queen.

May’s performance is one of absolute fussiness, and as such she becomes a nice distaff counterpart to roles regularly undertaken by Charles Grodin, one of her stars in The Heartbreak Kid. May bumbles her way through virtually the whole film, seeming to evade Harold’s murderous intent purely by whimsy. The supporting cast is just simply over the top and in fact may remind some people of similarly hyperbolic performances in some of Mel Brooks’ films. Broadway stalwarts Coco and Rose bring panache to their roles. Coco is hilariously over the top as Harold’s hedonistic Uncle, and Rose is like a slightly less snarky version of the inimitable Sir John Gielgud in Arthur. Also excellent is Jack Weston as Henrietta’s lawyer, a manic personality who is both suspicious of Harold’s motives and also desirous of Henrietta (for perhaps venal reasons) himself.

The humor of Nichols and May was always exceedingly intellectual, part of that late fifties – early sixties explosion of cerebral talent that also saw comedians like Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart become so popular. A New Leaf takes that intelligence and skews it slightly through a quasi-slapstick prism where Harold’s machinations to get rid of Henrietta never quite work out as intended. The film may not be laugh out loud hilarious all of the time, and in fact a bit of the humor seems slightly labored (the running gag in the opening sequence of “carbon buildup on the valves” is a perfect example), but the film has a generally incredibly genial ambience that is highlighted by a sort of neurotically amped up undercurrent. “Poor” Elaine May may in fact have never really exploded in film as a top tier director like her former partner Mike Nichols was able to do, but A New Leaf shows what an extremely quirky and gifted talent she is, and her very distinctive voice rings out loud and clear throughout this hugely enjoyable romp.

A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A New Leaf is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Aside from some very minor age related wear and tear and what appears to be some very slightly faded elements, this is another great looking high definition presentation from Olive. The film has a decidedly "indie" feel to it, including the cinematography, but the image here is quite sharp and well detailed, especially in the copious close-ups (take a look at screencap 13 to see just how close some of the close-ups in this film actually are). While the bulk of the film doesn't quite pop with the color saturation one might expect (or at least hope), we're talking minimal degrees here and probably only the most curmudgeonly will find anything major to complain about. The damage is also quite minimal and consists mostly of some very small scratches and a couple of dirt specks along the way. As is the usual case with these Olive Films releases, no digital tweaking of the image appears to have been done and the film retains a natural look replete with a fine layer of grain.

A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A New Leaf is presented with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that faithfully recreates the small scale charms of the film's original soundtrack. Though we occasionally get some (sometimes outlandish) sound effects (listen to the just flat out goofy screeching tires—something shared by the recent Olive release of Frank Perry's Man on a Swing—as Harold drives his sports car early in the film), the bulk of the film tends to be intimate dialogue between two characters, and that is all reproduced with excellent fidelity. The fantastic Neil Hefti contributes his typically spry score, and though it doesn't quite rise to The Odd Couple or Barefoot in the Park's melodic levels, it's quite enjoyable and sounds great on this track.

A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements of any kind are included on this Blu-ray disc.

A New Leaf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some reports had May's rough cut of A New Leaf coming in at well over three hours, so there's little doubt that some sort of intervention needed to happen, but it also can't be denied that parts of the film feel rushed and poorly developed, especially the build up to the sudden ending (as if someone looked at the clock and said, "Well, we're at about 100 minutes, time to pull the plug"). But A New Leaf is so charming so much of the time that it's easy to forgive some of its stumbles. Matthau is his usual winning (if curmudgeonly) self throughout the film, and while May might drive some viewers batty with her incredibly mannered performance, the two together make for a decidedly "odd couple" who are almost always a pleasure to watch. The recent passing of Nora Ephron brought out a number laudatory epistles written by fans and collaborators who spoke lovingly about her sure comic touch, and it could be argued that at least part of Ephron's approach owes a debt of gratitude to May. If May's writing outshines her direction, that's no wonder, as she was certainly one of the comic geniuses of her generation. A New Leaf isn't a perfect film, but it's gently humorous almost every step of the way and it also has a goofily manic energy that is quite unique in American comedy films of this era. This Blu-ray looks and sounds just fine, and even without supplements, A New Leaf comes Highly recommended.