Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Hitchcoc Having worked on this stage musical and having seen it a few times, I have to express my disappointment in this show. To start with, you take one of the funniest guys in history, Zero Mostel, add Jack Gilford, and several other successful stars, and then you cut the heart out of the thing. Take away about half of the music. The songs in this play are hilarious. What happened to them? The plot mirrors Roman comedy. What happened to the plot? Somewhere someone in a position of authority decided that they would make it more of a straight comedy and less of a musical. What happens is most of the humor disappears. The pontificating characters, the charlatans, the courtesans, have wonderful songs, but they aren't here. I hope someone does a new version of this; perhaps a Great Performance. Or, I know! A live TV production.

bkoganbing It's ironic that just as Stephen Sondheim was establishing himself as both composer and lyricist on Broadway, musicals just stopped being made except on rare occasions. As a result most of Sondheim's work is sadly not filmed. In any event we don't have the musical stars on screen to do the roles justice.So in his first effort at writing both music and lyrics we're lucky indeed to have A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum on the big screen. A cut down version to be sure in terms of songs, but still a tribute to Sondheim in a fashion.The accent is more on comedy however and you cannot give enough praise to both Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford who were the only two from the Broadway cast to repeat their roles. In fact I can't conceive of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum being made without Mostel. He dominates the proceedings and that's not easy considering his main co-star is Phil Silvers. Phil Silvers was supposed to be on Broadway, but would not do the part on stage because he could not wear his glasses. Those were not just a comic prop, the man was terribly nearsighted. As a result his part was played by John Carradine. Who'd have ever thought those two would have been up for the same part?Another movie veteran the garrulous Raymond Walburn played the wandering Erronius and his part was played by the great stone face Buster Keaton in what turned out to be his farewell performance.Richard Lester the director comes in for a lot praise as well. The way he maximized the use of the screen you can hardly tell the stage origins of this show. Certainly that wild and crazy chariot race at the end could not have been done on stage. It's a great sequence even if the idea originated in the Eddie Cantor film, Roman Scandals.This movie was also the return of Zero Mostel to the screen after the blacklist. Mostel previously had done some really nice character parts, he stands out in those two Humphrey Bogart films, The Enforcer and Sirocco and was really good as Jack Palance's lapdog companion in Panic In The Streets. But when he could not get work in Hollywood, he returned to nightclubs and the theater where he obtained real stardom. One of the many Tony Awards A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum won was for Zero Mostel as Best Actor.On Broadway the show ran for 964 performances from 1962-1964 and also won a Tony for Best Musical. I haven't even described the plot because it's impossible. It revolves essentially around young Hiero, played by Michael Crawford to get the woman he loves who happens to work over at Phil Silvers's pleasure house and his family slave Zero Mostel to obtain his freedom. That's as far as I can go.As another movie icon expressed, fasten your seatbelts, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum is a wild and bumpy ride.

thinker1691 Zero Mostel must have waited his whole life to play the part of the sly and crafty Pseudolus as he is supremely perfect for the part. In this film, "A Funny Thing Happened To Me On the Way To The Forum " Pseudolus is a conniving Roman slave out to win his freedom at any cost. His young Roman master is called Hero (Michael Crawford) who's only concern is an innocent maid and courtesan living in a house next door. Hero promises his slave his freedom if he will help him to win the heart of Philia (Annette Andre) his intended. This film is a remake of the popular Broadway play and just as funny as the quest for the young girl takes on a comic life of it's own. Many character along the way include, Jack Gilford, great acting as Hysterium, Phil Silvers as Marcus Lycus, Michael Hordern as Senex and the great Buster Keaton as Erronius. Hilarity is everywhere as general confusion and outrageous slapstick are combined to give the audience a flavor of true historical comedy. This is one film that surely has earned it's Classic status. Excellent film. ****

nycruise-1 This is a piece written for theater. It deliberately takes classic forms from the Greek/Roman forms of drama, then turns them on their ear in the name of Vaudeville - which ends up making the point that Vaudeville and the Ancients were actually quite similar.Years - years - ago I heard Sondheim explain his score for this show: he said that during the composing of the score he really didn't have an idea of what was going on with the script (at least as much as he did in his later- composed shows). He said the two songs which ended up "working" were "Comedy Tonight" and "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" - because they were closest to the style of the show.I don't know what the movie execs were thinking in terms of bringing this to the screen (the very essence of this show is the notion that it's live theater) - but, at the very least, it does capture Zero Mostel - of which there are too few recorded performances.