A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

After a couple of decades of only knowing about this musical comedy, I finally got to see this just now with Mom who said she had watched this before then after it was over, said maybe she only saw a few scenes. Anyway, this was quite a pretty funny farce especially when Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, and Phil Silvers are around. Buster Keaton, in his final film appearance, is also pretty amusing in his few scenes. Richard Lester bringing his method of doing cut-in scenes seemed to serve him well here though some of his visual gags are hit-and-miss. Still, Mom and me had quite a good many laughs while watching. So we recommend A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

When I was in High School I had a role in a production of this musical. The film actually stays pretty close to the plotting of the Broadway show, but the truth is that it's story lines are tried and true ancient Roman comic lines from the plays of Plautus and Terence. As such, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM is a useful film - it is one of the few movies that are based on ancient drama. Of Greek tragedy only Sophocles OEDIPUS THE KING and Euripides THE TROJAN WOMEN made it onto the screen. None of Aristophanes' comedies did, although a "western" version of LYSISTRATA (heavily bowdlerized) called THE SECOND GREATEST SEX was produced. Menander has not popped up yet (with only THE GROUCH extant, there is little chance of that). But this Sondheim musical is the sole example of Roman Comedy - specifically the play MILES GLORIOUSUS ("THE BOASTFUL SOLDIER"). When Aristophanes created "Old Comedy" he created a phantasy comedy of kingdoms of birds or dead playwrites holding contests for supremacy. Political satire was also quite important. After the end of Athenian's Golden Age, even Aristophanes had to tone down his plays. Menander introduced a comedy of character and situation. THe Romans followed Menander's example. So A FUNNY THING HAPPENED is actually a comedy of daily regular life in Rome - it is not a realistic view of Roman society, but it is a type of distorted mirror of that society.

It is also important for another reason: Zero Mostel. There is no doubt that Mostel was one of the great Broadway performers of his generation, but his movie record on this is spotty. Mostel was best recalled for his Leopold Bloom in ULYSSES IN NIGHTTOWN, Pseudolus in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED, the lead role in RHINOCEROS (by Ionesco), and (most of all) the original Tevye the Dairy Man in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. But only two of these performances got filmed - Pseudolus in this Richard Lester movie, and (in the 1970s)RHINOCEROS (with his co-star from THE PRODUCERS, Gene Wilder). The real loss for his fans was that Tevye was played by Topol in the Norman Jewison film version of FIDDLER. Topol was very good in the film (and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance), but one wishes Jewison could have used Mostel. It would have been an interesting film record of a major Broadway performance.

Mostel's filmography is an odd one. He first crops up in the early 1950s, most notably in two of Humphrey Bogart's last films, THE ENFORCER and SIROCCO. He (like his friend, and fellow FUNNY THING performer, Jack Gilford) was blacklisted in the McCarthy period, so that Mostel turned to working in nightclubs and developed his interest in painting (his painting always showed great promise). The slow resurrection of his carreer in the late 1950s led to some movie roles of interest, such as THE HOT ROCK, GREAT CATHERINE, THE ANGEL LEVINE, but the films were mostly flops. Only twice, when he starred in THE PRODUCERS and FUNNY THING HAPPENED did a glimmer of the manic power of the actor show up on celuloid, preserving an idea of what he was at his best. For that reason alone A FUNNY THING HAPPENED is worth watching and enjoying.

The supporting cast is great too, including Buster Keaton in one of his last roles as a befuddled old man, Gilford as Hysterium (Mostel's foil in the household where they are both slaves), Phil Silvers as Lycus the procurer (one of Silver's best performances on screen), and the two Michaels (Hordern and Crawford) as Senex and Hero - father and son (and rivals for the same girl). One particular added joy is the ill-fated Roy Kinnear, here playing a gladiatorial trainer who treats the use of a mace as though it were a golf club. A few numbers of the score are cut (FREE, IMPOSSIBLE) but they keep in COMEDY TONIGHT, EVERYBODY OUGHT TO HAVE A MAID, and one of Sondheim's few good love ballads, LOVELY. All this and a look at the power of mare sweat (don't ask - you have to be there). I found this film a great joy.

Very funny film version of the smash Broadway musical, but minus most of the music. Sort of a bawdy tribute to slapstick comedy and vaudeville, the film is uniformly wonderful, the pace fast, and the jokes funny. This show was a major success on Broadway for Zero Mostel and decades later for Nathan Lane.

The plot is zany and convoluted and the style of comedy is similar to 60s slapstick used in everything from Tom Jones to Lock Up Your Daughters. Director Richard Lester uses film technique to keep the few musical numbers from stopping the pace of the film, and it works surprisingly well. And the fond look at slapstick (speeded up film, drag, pratfalls, etc.) is especially apt here considering the great Buster Keaton is in the cast.

Mostel reprises here as the wily slave who drives the manic action. He wants to be free. Mostel is just wonderful and gets to use his full bag of tricks as a comedian as well as sing "Comedy Tonight." Equally good is Phil Silvers, who sells slave girls next door to the snooty matron (Patricia Jessel) her husband (Michael Hordern), and their innocent son Hero (Michael Crawford---yes THAT Michael Crawford).

The great Buster Keaton (in his final film) plays Erronius, an old man seeking his long-lost children. Jack Gilford plays a fellow slave, Leon Greene plays the pompous Roman general looking for his bride. Then there are all those slave girls — Annette Andre as the virgin; Inga Neilsen as the mute. Michael Hordern is a surprise as the old lecher and gets to sing, "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid." Jessel is a scream as the hag wife. Lots of scantily clad girls and horny old men.

Hilarious jokes (Mostel as the soothsayer) and sight gags abound. Mostel, Silvers, and Gilford are masters of this sort of broad comedy, and Silvers and Gilford make truly ugly women. Crawford (decades later The Phantom of the Opera) is really funny as the dopey Hero and does most of his own stunts. Greene is also very funny as the overblown general.

Lots of other good performances in small parts: Beatrix Lehman as the 104- year-old with no working organs, Peter Butterworth as the Roman soldier, Frank Thornton (Are You Being Served?) as a Roman citizen, the grunting Janet Webb as Fertilla, Roy Kinnear as the trainer, Alfie Bass as the sentry, Ronnie Brody as the short soldier.

There's so much action here you have to watch this several times to catch all the background jokes. The final madcap chariot race is hilarious. Great fun. And flies everywhere!

I saw this film when I was a young girl (seven or so) and I adored it. When I was about fourteen, I finally got to see the stage production. When I saw the film again, I realized there were some bad choices made. I think the film has many excellent points and some bad points:

Good:

-For starters, you couldn't have asked for a better cast. I don't just mean Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford (though both are incredible) but casting Buster Keaton was inspired.

-Very accurate portrayal of ancient Rome (up to a point, of course). The only reason I bring it up is because when I took Latin in high school, we studied ancient Rome and I like the research that went into that for the film.

-The chase scene at the end. That's what I remember laughing at the most as a child.

Bad:

-Cutting so many songs, specifically "Free" and Hysterium's number (I must say, Jack Gilford was highly underused in this film).

-The direction of most remaining musical numbers and some scenes.

-Changing the character of Dominia. I don't mind it too much (she does get some good lines in there) but I liked having another strong female character aside from Philia.

Now I have nothing against Richard Lester. In fact, I enjoyed his work in A Hard Day's Night and Help! and I think when it comes to those types of films, he does well. I'm just not completely sure if he was right for this film. He treated the songs like music videos, kind of forgetting that in this case, the songs are being used to tell a story, not just for entertainment. We recently watched parts of the film in my Musical Theater History class, and that was one of the point brought up. He tended toward the fast pace/quick edit direction, which I think worked for "Comedy Tonight", but not much else (especially not "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid"). While I disliked some of his direction on "Lovely", I did like that he repeated (more or less) the same direction in the reprise of the song.

I will say, though, when he's good in the film, he's really good. I can't deny there are parts in the film that are incredibly funny, most notably the chariot chase. I am a bit torn about the film. In the long run, I will probably always love the film and watch it when I get the chance, despite its shortcomings. Still, I wouldn't mind a remake of it. And I think we can safely say this isn't the worst film version of a Sondheim show (A Little Night Music anyone?).

"Forum" is one film adaptation of a Broadway musical that is a half-glass of water. On the half-full side we get to see Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford reprising their Broadway roles, and they're joined by a fine supporting cast including Phil Silvers as Lycus (ironically, he would star as Pseudolus in the 1972 Broadway revival) and Buster Keaton in his last film. But even though the film delivers the laughs and opens itself up well from its stage origins (let's face it. That climactic chase in the Broadway version is wonderful but it just wouldn't work on film at all). But what I can't forgive is how nearly three-quarters of Sondheim's outstanding score (his best I think) has been jettisoned to give us a too short running time of barely an hour and a half. And on top of that, why do *both* of Milos Gloriosus's numbers get kept, while Mostel's two best numbers from Broadway, "Pretty Little Picture" and "Free" (which is supposed to be the heart of the show) are gone (along with Gilford's "I'm Calm")? That, I do not understand at all. It's gotten to a point where I purposefully stop the film after Psuedolus falls out of the tree so I can then play Mostel's version of "Free" from the Broadway cast CD (which is where it would have belonged in the film). And it's too bad this wasn't a roadshow movie with an intermission because Mostel's funny Act One closer would have worked great there as well.

All in all it's worth having, but be prepared for your mood to shift from seeing the film as a half-full glass or a half-empty one.