A New Leaf

A New Leaf (1971) is an American dark comedy worth watching online on iFILM. Elaine May wrote, directed and starred in the film — placing herself opposite Walter Matthau as Henry Graham, a broke playboy whose solution to financial ruin is to find a wealthy wife and quietly dispose of her.

His chosen target is Henrietta Lowell, an absentminded botanist played by May herself: clumsy, soft-spoken and completely wrong for the part of a convenient victim. Henry spends the whole film trying to execute a plan that keeps falling apart simply because Henrietta refuses to behave like someone who deserves to be murdered. Jack Weston and James Coco round out the supporting cast.

May fought with Universal over the final cut — the studio trimmed the film significantly against her wishes, and she sought to have her name removed from it. What survives is still one of the sharpest American comedies of its era: a marriage plot in which nobody involved is remotely qualified to be in one. Stream A New Leaf (1971) online on iFILM.