Henry (Walter Matthau) is a soulless playboy who races around Manhattan in a doomed Ferrari. When his trust fund dries up, his butler convinces him that there’s only one solution: marry an heiress. Enter Henrietta (Elaine May), a clumsy botany teacher who just happens to live alone in a mansion with seventeen lazy servants. (She takes the bus everywhere because the chauffeur’s always missing.) A dark comedy with slapstick moments, it’s not as grim as, say, Harold and Maude, but it’s definitely got a similar vibe. Elaine May directed the film, which is kicking off Warwick Public Library’s month-long series Out-There Movie Gems by Women Directors. Keep an eye out for an unrecognizably young Doris Roberts, the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond, as the winky housekeeper.
A New Leaf
