Elaine May was in no simple terms; a comedy legend. After moving on from her revolutionary and still funny as all hell comedy duo with Mike Nichols, May went on to write and direct multiple films of her own. Each of these films were met with turbulent issues behind the scenes, however in every case the final product was a very special film that brings the improvisational experimentation of many 70’s indie film-makers into the world of human comedy. May’s quartet of directed films range from the most absurd of rom-coms, to the most nostalgic pastiches to at times the deepest human dramas – but no matter what, their humour, often based in the world of the cringe-inducing, always comes through. May was a major talent in so many fields, but today we’re going to talk about the one specific talent of hers that gave us four truly excellent films.

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A New Leaf (1971)

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There’s an unfortunate history of tumultuousness that underpins the making and release of many of May’s four films. Her first, A New Leaf, written, directed and starring May, from a short story by jack Ritchie, was regrettably no exception. However... although May more or less disowned the film, going from means to means to stop the film getting released, following a drastic cutting of the film from May’s intended 3 hours to a very tight 1hr and 40mins – the film we get is one of her best. Now I am of course viewing the film as its own product with the context of the 3 hour cut, but not actually the 3 hour cut itself to make any sort of comment. May of course could never remove such a context and perhaps will always see the film as a butchering of the true piece she wanted to release. However for those of us simply looking at the May and Walter Matthau starring feature that we got, I doubt anybody would be disappointed in the slightest. This whacky, dark and chiefly hilarious film is the simple tale of Matthau’s over-privileged Harry Graham becoming bankrupt and taking it upon himself to get back into the world of wealth by marrying a very rich woman and offing her by some means, inheriting the great wealth for himself. It’s hardly “boy meets girl”, but it does set up a very charming comedy that we only really find to be a rom-com in its final moments, up until that point we are blissfully enjoying the pomposity of Matthau and the bashful shyness and mumbling of May’s Henrietta Lowell, a botanist billionaire and a rather kooky one at that. May didn’t actually want to star in the film but ended up doing anyhow and thank God she did, for her incredible impeccable talent for comedy is never more present here in her ability to allow to slide into the background a lot of the time. It’s nessecerilly unfortunate that we never got May performing in the other three films, for no role particularly jumps to mind, other than the role she gave her daughter in her next film. But her turn in this film does as aforementioned just reinstate the incredible talent in-front of the camera of this brilliant woman. But A New Leaf more importantly introduces us to her impeccable talents behind the camera also, which will only grow film to film. That being said however I think despite the fraught nature of it’s editing, this may very well still be May’s tightest comedy. Other’s stray or have bizarre structures (that all still work), but when it comes to a pound for pound, gag after gag comedy, you really can’t beat A New Leaf. But I think we’ll find with the other three films that perhaps that sort of pound for pound, gag after gag comedy is not exactly what May is going for.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

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The poster for 1972’s The Heartbreak Kid, got to the point very quickly when it came to highlighting the amount of talent involved in it; “Elaine May directed it, Neil Simon wrote it, Bruce Jay Friedman conceived it”. The story at the heart of the film is one that is simultaneously acute, as much as it is obtuse. I say this in a way to reflect the truly bizarre nature of the film and its languid, realistic, painfully cringey pacing and timing. The film follows Charles Grodin as Lenny, a man who on his honeymoon with Jeannie Berlin’s Lila, comes across and falls head over heels in love with the absolutely perfect in every way Kelly Corcoran. And of course Kelly is perfect in every way, she’s played by Cybil Shepherd. Although Simon famously had a clause in his contract about the ability being removed for the film-makers involved with his adaptations to be able to change a single word, May did manage to pave a way in making the film that would allow for her typically improvisational methods to be utilised. In actuality May went about eventually convincing those involved to let her shoot two films, that of the exact script, and one being a combination of the script and humour developed from improv with the actors and herself on set or in rehearsal. By the time however that the ever watchful Simon stopped visiting the set, May simply began working solely on ‘her’ version of the film. My use of quote marks is in many ways wholly unwarranted, for every frame and line of this film really is pure May. There is a very easily conceivable version of this film in my mind that would fall in line with the other Simon screen adaptations of the period, all of them with the exact same bland artificiality that is often only fleetingly relieved. I can too imagine a more theatrical staging of Simon’s script, with many of the lines easily being able to be played up for the back rows. However in May’s distillation of the films concept and characters, one finds a far more human and desperate feel about the film. Grodin and Berlin’s back and forth in fact gives way to some of the most hilarious, and yet painfully cringey moments of the entire film. Berlin, May’s daughter, was one of the films two nominations at the Oscars, both for two of the films  incredible supporting performances. Berlin is brilliantly cringe, but also is chiefly human in her pain. For as much as Grodin’s Lenny is a crude and impulsive individual, we too understand his predicament. May imbues a clear empathy into the film for everybody involved, leading to many of Grodin, Berlin and Shepherd’s best moments. However the undisputed master of the film is Eddie Albert, who received the other nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. As Kelly’s overbearing father, Albert works up a storm of some of the funniest and driest deliveries lines of dialogue have ever received. With Heartbreak Kid May managed to make a very easy fold for herself, following in the Woody Allen brand of comedic drama, that frankly she could have done for years, but May never settled (not Allen did espeically) and her next film was only a further exemplification of the breadth of sheer talent the woman contained. May in her purest sense, contained multitudes. I’d continue this sort of orating, however I fear I’m beginning to sound more and more like Lenny at the Corcoran dinner table.

Micky and Nicky (1976)

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Whereas her first two films were how women fit into the male experience, or rather how men view women, May in her next two films took to focussing upon male friendship and the deep rooted plutonic love that two friends can indeed share. When it comes to the manner of improvisational filmmaking that May adopted and developed in her 70s career, it would be remiss to not mention the name of John Cassavettes. Although of course Cassavettes was nowhere near the first filmmaker to play with notions of improvisational rehearsal and filming, nor was he the first to play around the with these notions in the worlds of comedy and drama, and films that blended both. Cassavettes did however bring this method to a somewhat forefront of American independent film-making. Cassavettes notably also acted in many films, including multiple of his own, so when May and Peter Falk began developing the concept that would later become her third film Mickey and Nicky, about two friends in the underworld of the mob comforting each other as one of them expects to killed by dawn – Cassavettes style and approach was the perfect fit, and Cassavettes himself was the perfect fit for the role of Nicky. Falk and Cassavettes had acted together multiple times, most famously with a very similar energy to this film in Cassavettes own film Husbands. The original cut of Husbands was famously hilarious and is also famously nowhere to be found, due to the simple fact that Cassavettes wanted to make a sobering piece, rather than a funny farce. Mickey and Nicky is nowhere near a neat, nor structurally strict film, however does feel to be similar in tone and presentation to that long lost cut of Husbands. May shot just about 1,400,000 feet of film for the production, which to put into perspective is a rather large increase from the average 11,000 feet of film usually shot for a two hour feature. Although May’s first choice for the role of Nicky was Heartbreak Kid’s Grodin, I have to say that the chemistry and unparalled level of interaction between Falk and Cassavettes will always remain the films greatest triumph. The film works in a deep and dark space of life inhabited by only the lowest scroungers and the loneliest folks of the word we wander, and yet the film is still darn funny, naturally not the hilarious heights of The Heartbreak Kid, but working successfully in a more dower register, again not unlike the funnier films of Cassavettes oeuvre. The film is undeniably effective, with an ending that still rattles penetrates its audiences to the core every time. The screaming, the banging, the pushing of furniture... the inevitable crescendo of violence.  It’s the sort of indelible filmmaking that the word genius is reserved for.

Ishtar (1987)

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Nobody nowadays can go into Ishtar without knowing to at least some extent how big a commercial and critical failure it was at the time, with the multiple factors leading it to be seen as such ranging from politics in front and behind the camera, aswell as an onslaught of issues in the world of studio politics. So one can very easily conceive that watching Ishtar nowadays one would enter the film with the absolute lowest of expectations ever put to a film, however I still went in with hope. I mean May, Hoffman, Beatty, Grodin. Aswell as the multiple times thanks to Red Letter Media that I had seen the trailer for the film (if you know, then you know), a trailer which for the most part I thought made the film look terribly funny. So with all this a modern viewer watches Ishtar. That modern viewer was of course me and when it started, I swear to God, I was laughing from the off-set. The first half hour of this film leads one to lose all hope in the Hollywood system and critics at large, with the hilarious introductions to Hoffman and Beatty’s song-writing partners Rogers and Clarke as they struggle through the New York scene, with Jack Weston as their similarly struggling manager. This is some of the best work of May’s whole career and definitely some of Hoffman and Beatty’s best comedy on screen. “What the hell was everybody thinking?” is the prevalent thought in one’s mind. Then you get to Ishtar and things don’t take a dramatic decline, but they do drop a little and one can suddenly rather quickly understand the critical opinions of the time. Now let me elaborate I still think the rest of the film is pretty great and very funny, and frankly didn’t deserve anywhere near the amount of sh*t that the film got. However, I do get it. After thirty incredibly solid minutes we’re then faced with a lot of exposition and does take one a little by surprise. Luckily Charles Grodin comes to save the day, the impossibly funny straight man returns to the world of May to give us a wonderfully enjoyable turn as a CIA agent bumbling and fumbling his way through this espionage comedy ode to the Hope and Crosby road pictures of a bygone day. Is Ishtar as bad as everybody said it was? By all accounts, no. Would an Ishtar that never went to Ishtar and stayed in New York with Rogers and Clarke perhaps have had the potentional to have been the best movie May ever made? It’s a big question, but the evidence is there to at least ask it. My answer personally would defiantly sway more to ‘yes’ than ‘no’. As bizarre a comparison as it may originally seem, Ishtar is not unlike Full Metal Jacket - it's not that what follows there drastic change of setting is bad, it's just that the case may very well be that the first half/30 minutes is some of the best work the director ever made, and hence one can't help but judge the latter as seriously lesser.

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May’s experiences behind the camera were fraught with interference, so in many cases it could be called amazing that the four films we did receive are of such a quality. Of course this all seems far less amazing, or rather far less surprising, when you remember the sheer amount of talent with this woman that we’re dealing with, when it comes to May. We got four films from her, but God do I wish I got four more.

-        -  Thomas Carruthers