Where’s Poppa? **** (1970, George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Ron Leibman) – Classic Movie Review 7979

Director Carl Reiner’s wicked 1970 comedy Where’s Poppa? is a hilarious black farce, with marvellous comedy performances from the treasurable George Segal and Ruth Gordon as the Jewish attorney Gordon Hocheiser and his grotesque, crazy, interfering old mom, whom he plans to kill after he meets the woman (Trish Van Devere) of his dreams.

This is a sample of the humour. Ron Leibman plays Segal’s brother Sidney, who goes to Central Park to get mugged. There is a wonderful, on-form character actor support cast, too, including Ron Leibman, Garrett Morris, Paul Sorvino, Rae Allen, Vincent Gardenia, Barnard Hughes and Rob Reiner in his first film appearance.

Some of the bad taste was moderated in pre-release editing. Robert Klane writes the screenplay, adapted from his own novel.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7979

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