This film is about 30 years old. I know of no conversions to tape or DVD. It had a theatrical run of about two weeks partially due to a bad review but nobody I ever met who saw it disliked the picture. The reviewer either never actually saw the entire film or had an agenda to sink it. When I first saw it my girlfriend (who isn't Jewish) and I and the vast majority of the audience, were roaring with laughter. We returned a number of times with friends and family and everyone loved it.
13 years later I had the privilege of having Sid Ceasar in my car (I was hired to take him to his hotel) and I asked him about the film. He said that he had a lot of fun making the movie, but the studio provided very limited money to advertise and promote the product. No press, no promotion. Studio politics.
Gardenia (overbearing father) and Medford (sweet, but loopy wife and mother) are the parents of Arkin, the older son who lives outside the family home and Reiner (intimidated, milquetoast) who lives in. The family owns a failing, indebted department store. Arkin is married to Anjanette Comer, who desperately wants a child. Arkin claims he is impotent because of the tyranny of his father and the fact that he is the hated high school basketball coach whose team can't even win one game. Ceasar plays a wacky WWII patient at the the VA hospital who still believes that the war is still ongoing.
On a road trip to Florida, Gardenia secretly sets into motion a scheme to burn his Dept. store down and collect the Fire Insurance. Arkin and Reiner think that his parents' absence presents the perfect opportunity to prove their father wrong and refurbish and restock the store and make a success of it. They don't know of the plot and go to work. Ceasar as Gardenia's unwitting foil is priceless. The pace of the film accelerates and is replete with a few clever twists. This effort is worth a sincere second look and a re-release.
13 years later I had the privilege of having Sid Ceasar in my car (I was hired to take him to his hotel) and I asked him about the film. He said that he had a lot of fun making the movie, but the studio provided very limited money to advertise and promote the product. No press, no promotion. Studio politics.
Gardenia (overbearing father) and Medford (sweet, but loopy wife and mother) are the parents of Arkin, the older son who lives outside the family home and Reiner (intimidated, milquetoast) who lives in. The family owns a failing, indebted department store. Arkin is married to Anjanette Comer, who desperately wants a child. Arkin claims he is impotent because of the tyranny of his father and the fact that he is the hated high school basketball coach whose team can't even win one game. Ceasar plays a wacky WWII patient at the the VA hospital who still believes that the war is still ongoing.
On a road trip to Florida, Gardenia secretly sets into motion a scheme to burn his Dept. store down and collect the Fire Insurance. Arkin and Reiner think that his parents' absence presents the perfect opportunity to prove their father wrong and refurbish and restock the store and make a success of it. They don't know of the plot and go to work. Ceasar as Gardenia's unwitting foil is priceless. The pace of the film accelerates and is replete with a few clever twists. This effort is worth a sincere second look and a re-release.