Where's Poppa?

Scripted by Robert Klane from his own novel, this is the ultimate in Jewish Momma jokes, with a despairing Segal dressing up in a King Kong suit in hopes of scaring his obstructively senile parent to death, while she, indestructibly played by Ruth Gordon at her battiest, serenely continues turning his sex life into an everlasting coitus interruptus while herself bearing a charmed life. Meanwhile the plot is assaulted by a riot of topsy-turvy New York neuroses: a brother-in-law who insists on walking home through Central Park because he has a cosy arrangement with the muggers waiting there to attack him every night; a General who gets so carried away while being cross-examined about military codes of conduct that he launches into a Molly Bloom monologue about the orgiastic delights of killing goons; a cop who refuses to press charges after being raped while disguised as a policewoman, instead sending a bouquet of roses to his assailant. An irresistible black comedy, it's probably Reiner's best film, not least because it shows such affection for all its crazies.