A New Leaf

Elaine May made her directorial debut with this seminal two-hander, loosely based on a short story by Jack Ritchie. Walter Matthau gives a signature performance as Henry Graham, the playboy failson scion of a prominent New York family who learns that he’s blown through his own inheritance and is effectively broke. He gets the idea to marry into money and subsequently give his bride the Bluebeard treatment, and he sets his sights on the supremely awkward, wealthy odd-bird botany professor Henrietta Lowell (May). One of cinema’s great debut features, A New Leaf is a dark-ish love story, tender and cynical in equal measure, whose wry, madcap pleasures make it an enduringly influential high-water mark for screen comedy. 4K restoration by Vinegar Syndrome and Cinématographe.