New York lawyer deals with an unhinged mother, a peculiar love life and other big city troubles.

Gordon Hocheiser, a New York City lawyer whose love life is being ruined by his widowed mother, awakens one morning, puts on a gorilla costume, and leaps on her bed, hoping to scare her to death; the 87-year-old woman merely responds by hitting him in the groin with her cane. At his office, Gordon interviews for a nurse to take care of his senile and eccentric mother and hires Louise Callan, a pretty nurse with a long list of patients who died while under her care. He takes her home and immediately falls in love with her, but his attempts at seduction fail miserably. In desperation, he calls his brother Sidney and pleads with him to take their mother away. Sidney runs across Central Park, where he is such a frequent victim of a group of muggers that he willingly hands them his wallet; this time, however, they also strip him of his clothes. At Gordon's apartment, Sidney explains that his wife hates the mother as much as they do and that their father's dying wish was that she never be put in a rest home. Sidney borrows the gorilla suit for his return trip; once at home, he is called back by the half-crazed Gordon. Running through the park, Sidney is again stopped by the muggers who want him to rape a woman in his costume, but Sidney is arrested when the woman turns out to be a policeman. His brother arrives to bail him out, and Sidney discovers that the policeman not only refused to press charges, but has sent him a bouquet of flowers and a thank you note as well. Meanwhile, Louise threatens to return to her home in Waukegan unless Gordon succeeds in getting rid of his mother. He rushes home, packs all of her belongings, lures her into the car, goes to a succession of rest homes, finally dumps her in front of one with an old man standing in front, and introduces him to her as "Poppa." [In the uncut version, Gordon returns home with Louise, receives a call from his mother, and rushes back to her.]