I love A New Leaf. Whenever it is shown on TCM Robert Osborne talks about the studio cutting a lot of the movie that Elaine May wanted to make. Is there any possibility of an Elaine May version of A New Leaf being released on DVD? Thanks so much. I am also going to write something similar at Elaine May's Message Board.
shareI am looking to get the movie on VHS, anyone have any ideas?
I just love this movie and can't understand why it isn't out
on DVD.
[deleted]
it might have something 2 do with $
or with egos
or there might be a blood fued
but the long & the short of it is some peeps may have 2 die B4 we the great unwashed r allowed 2 c
what E-May intended
I do hope I live long enuff
2 me a great work so full
of her life
I have so so so been around these peeps or rather peeps so so like them that probably never like saw this that they so don't know how picture perfect they R @ living what she saw as like 'archtypes' if U will of the ethos that is the island or the city or the "money'd monkeys" or the inn-telly-gent-c-ya
sum times I just sit & like so giggle 2 my self
i might have 2 wade thru ish-tar & like try 2 fig-gar
or I might go c LEONARDO instead
U can get happy in the same pant U got pissed in. - Suz M.
Now that was a DUMB answer .
shareWell its 4 and a half years later since you asked, but reading the reviews here, some people sound pretty knowledgeable about the deleted scenes. They say it was 3 hours long (way too long) and it involved fake marriages, murder, among other things. Sounds like for once the studios did the right thing because I loved the movie just as is.
shareid love to see it but these things rarely happen, the legendary long Directors cuts (Nashville's original 5 hour cut....Pauline Kael even reviewed it) I guess its too much trouble to put together now for a limited (very) audience
shareDoes May have the footage? It's likely the studio destroyed the cut footage and we will never see it. perhaps May should release the shooting script so we have some idea. Even if the footage exists, might be in too poor shape to reassemble. And that the film is not a huge hit/well remembered means that the studio won't want to pay for a restoration of a film with limited appeal.
For reasons unknown....I resume....
Even if the footage exists, might be in too poor shape to reassemble. And that the film is not a huge hit/well remembered means that the studio won't want to pay for a restoration of a film with limited appeal.
From all I've read, the final version is better. The original had Henry condemned to remain married to Henrietta, as payback for having committed two murders. Walter Matthau apparently agreed with me. Also, no film I can think of from that era was 3 hours long, apart from the earlier Gone With the Wind, etc.
You can see one scene that is from the first version, where Henry is with a bald man in a hallway, after a murder has taken place.
Yes, that scene always struck me as odd. I've been arranging the Dutch subtitles for 'A New Leaf' lately (as none were previously available for this obscure film). While doing so, I got a an even closer look at my all-time favourite movie. Yet the bald man in the hallway remains a mystery. No character in the film looks like him, so his presence makes no sense.
Except indeed, if you consider the movie's full 3 hour version. I guess the bald man is a left-over from that. But why didn't he got cut-off entirely? He now comes off as a distraction, with viewers grappling for his meaning. Has the actor playing him ever come forward to describe his role? Are there any clues in the book from which the film derives?
Did Elaine May ever nod about the existence of the deleted film material?
"No film I can think of from that era was 3 hours long".
You might want to think harder; from top of my head, there were Once Upon A Time In The West, Faces, Patton, World On A Wire, Celine & Julie Go Boating, Barry Lyndon... all released between 1968 and 1975. There probably aren't more 3 hour movies now than there were back then.
But, yeah, considering that the "butchered" version we have is very much a success, one wonders what this original version may have looked like. Don't think we should by all means trust May's judgement here.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
The only one of those that I have seen was Celine and Julie. Should have seen Barry Lyndon for the divine Marisa Berenson.
shareFrom all I've read, the final version is better. The original had Henry condemned to remain married to Henrietta, as payback for having committed two murders. Walter Matthau apparently agreed with me.
--
I have read that one of the two murders is of...Henrietta. The other victim would have been Jack Weston, her crooked lawyer. But maybe it was James Coco and Jack Weston and Henrietta lived.
We will never know. The movie as we have it -- permanently -- has no murders and a very welcome happy ending.
The 70's were a time of fairly bleak and downcast movies -- unhappy endings abounded. But I keep wondering: did Paramount GREENLIGHT a movie in which Matthau would commit murders and even kill his wife (after she has been established as such a nice, innocent woman?)
Perhaps the studio approved the murder version, previewed it, got back bad cards...and cut it.
One of those "Hollywood mysteries."