The Heartbreak Kid is one of the best-kept film secrets of the 1970s, and so is its director, Elaine May.

When I first saw the film on video, I thought it was so good that I watched it twice in a row. When I started looking for a 35mm exhibition print, I checked all the major archives, some minor archives, and even with private collectors. But my investigation turned up zilch. Turns out all 35mm prints had lapsed into neglect, and quality prints no longer existed. So I threw in the towel.

In the 1970s May was regarded on a level with her former stand-up and writing partner Mike Nichols. A performer and writer of exceptional gifts, she first established her reputation in the movie business as a screenwriter of finely crafted satire and jet-black comedy. Like Nichols, she turned to directing, and came up with a trio of smart, character-driven comedies including A New Leaf (1971), starring Walter Matthau, and Mikey and Nickey (1976), starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. During a ten-year hiatus from directing, May was an uncredited but reportedly essential contributor to the screenplays of classics like Reds and Tootsie. When she returned to the director’s chair, it was for the wrongly maligned comedy Ishtar (1987), whose unfortunate box office failure has denied us more Elaine May-directed movies. It has been our loss.

May’s second film, The Heartbreak Kid, is about an incredibly insensitive man (the very funny Charles Grodin) who, on his honeymoon, dumps his wife (Jeannie Berlin, Elaine May’s daughter, in an Oscar®-nominated performance) for a gorgeous, blonde WASP (Cybill Shepherd). It’s the kind of story that could easily make for a trashy TV movie of the week, but in May’s hands, it’s comic gold.

I came to find I wasn’t the picture’s only fan; the Farrelly Brothers are producing a remake for release in 2007. Additionally, after giving up my quest to show The Heartbreak Kid in the Museum’s Dryden Theatre, I heard about a new print struck for a long overdue tribute to Elaine May at The Film Society of Lincoln Center earlier this year. The find was well worth the wait.

~Michael Neault, Associate Programmer and Coordinator of Theater Operations, Motion Picture Department

A new 35mm print of The Heartbreak Kid, courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, will screen on Saturday, December 16, at 8 p.m.