Where’s Poppa? (1970)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) There are two problems with Where’s Poppa? — the first being that its transgressive humour doesn’t seem so shocking today, the second being that it probably wasn’t all that successful in 1970 either. This story of a man trying to get rid of an unbearable mother pretty much takes you where you’d expect a black comedy to go, and those places are far darker by default in 2021 than they were back then. (This being said, I don’t think many films even today would try to, let alone get, a chuckle out of a line like “You raped a cop?!”)  The film is mildly entertaining but not particularly funny. I strongly suspect that the film’s ugly cinematography, straight out of utterly unfunny 1970s Manhattan grittiness, is not conductive to a lighthearted tone. (This is not helped by the film’s sorry lack of restoration — even standard-bearer TCM broadcast a distinctly rough-looking print with cropped edges, muddy resolution and washed-out colours.)  It’s perhaps best approached as one title on director Carl Reiner’s long and often uneven filmography — they’re not all winners, but in total they do showcase a wide-ranging comic sensibility capable of the best as well as the most pandering. In that context, Where’s Poppa? is far from being the worst thing on his resumé. If praise must be given, the film does have the distinction of avoiding being irritating despite the dark subject matter — but given that it settles for humdrum mediocrity, it’s not much of a victory.