Where's Poppa?

Almost a decade before comedy legend Carl Reiner directed the timelessly silly Steve Martin vehicle The Jerk, he helmed the demented dark 1970 comedy Where's Poppa?, starring the versatile George Segal as NYC lawyer Gordon Hocheiser, who lives with and attempts to care for his senile 87-year-old mother (Ruth Gordon). But Hocheiser is so fed up with his mother's bonkers behavior that he one day decides to try and scare her to death by barging into her room dressed in a gorilla costume. When this plan is foiled, his only recourse is to hire an incompetent in-home caregiver (Trish Van Devere), who turns out to be a little nuts herself. Soon, however, Hocheiser realizes that he's in love with the bumbling new helper. But when his mom's crazed behavior threatens to alienate his new squeeze, he considers the previously unthinkable: placing his mother in an old folks' home. Where's Poppa? generates enough sick humor to make Blazing Saddles blush: casual rape jokes, gags at the expense of the elderly and infirm, insensitive handling of racial stereotypes, to name but a few. Still, it has earned its status as a minor cult classic. Extras include an alternate ending. Recommended. (M. Sandlin)