DIRECTED BY ELAINE MAY: A FERAL FILMOGRAPHY
A comedy innovator, a pioneering female director, accomplished screenwriter, trusted script doctor, and seasoned actress, Elaine May is one of the film industry’s most notorious and celebrated renegades. As the only woman directing for a major Hollywood studio in the 1970s, she is the original badass female director, having incited the wrath of Hollywood executives with her unrelenting commitment to her own process. Her ‘70s directorial works are masterpieces, and one–The Heartbreak Kid–is considered one of the most notoriously unavailable films of all time. NOT ANYMORE! To mark the occasion of The Heartbreak Kid’s long-awaited re-issue, the Revue celebrates a living legend with her four incomparable directorial works every Sunday in August!
Retrospective generously sponsored by Hollywood Suite
After its rights reverted to a pharmaceutical conglomerate, May’s greatest critical and popular success became notoriously unavailable—a situation rectified recently by the archival work of Liz Purchell! A character-based comedy of awkwardness, THE HEARTBREAK KID is an understated, acerbic masterpiece that induces laughs, as well as shudders for its relatable undercarriage of matrimonial strife. After a whirlwind romance, nebbish Lenny (Charles Gordon) marries Lila (Jeannie Berlin) in a traditional Jewish ceremony and the newlyweds set out for Miami Beach to honeymoon. Annoyed by Lila’s whiny neediness before reaching their first rest stop, Lenny realizes his mistake. With Lila laid up with a sunburn, he falls for blonde socialite and shiksa dream goddess Kelly Corcoran (Cybill Shepherd). Lenny leaves Lila, after only five days of marriage, to pursue Kelly despite her father’s hatred of him. Directing her daughter, Jeannie Berlin in a role that garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination, May contributed to Hollywood’s Jewish New Wave with a brilliant film built on astonishing performances and alarming wit. (ALICIA FLETCHER)
Digital Scan from 16mm courtesy of Elizabeth Purchell and Bristol-Myers Squibb
Generously sponsored by Hollywood Suite