Overlooked Movies: Where's Poppa?

When I first saw this movie, I was still in my 20s.  Old age was so far distant that I couldn't even catch a glimpse of it, not even for my parents.  So I thought this was the funniest movie I'd ever seen.  I laughed so much that I thought I might strangle.  Now?  I don't know.  Dementia as a subject for comedy?  And that's just the start.  Nothing is sacred in Where's Poppa? It's so politically incorrect that I doubt it could even be made today.  And if it were made, it would probably be reviled.  

Okay, having considered it, I think I'd still find it funny.  George Segal is great as the fellow whose life is being destroyed because he has to care for his senile mom (a great performance by Ruth Gordon).  He's so desperate that he hires a nurse, played by Trish Van Devere, to take care of her, mainly because all of Van Devere's patients die.  And of course he falls in love with Van Devere.  This only begins to hint at the complications.  The scenes with the muggers in Central Park are great, and the gorilla suit scenes, well, I won't go into it, but forget everything you ever heard about Political Correctness and you might laugh at them as much as I did 40-something years ago.  Or not.  I'm a bad person, and you probably aren't.

Carl Reiner directed Where's Poppa?,  and he must have been totally without fear.  Check it out one of these days when you're feeling unPC and see what you think.