A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
1966 United Artists; distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Michael Crawford, Jack Gilford, Annette Andre, Buster Keaton, Roy Kinnear
Music: Stephen Sondheim
Director: Richard Lester
Amazon listings: Single DVD. Also available on the MGM Classic Musicals set.

Richard Lester directed the film adaptation of the stage musical featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, as well as a book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford reprised their stage roles, and Phil Silvers takes the role that he declined for the Broadway production. This was also the final film role for the legendary Buster Keaton, who was 70 years old, and terminally ill with cancer, but he was still able to perform most of his own stunts. Future director Nicolas Roeg served as cinematographer for this film

The film version is different from the stage play, thanks to the efforts of producer Melvin Frank and writer Michael Pertwee, who rearranged the plot and cut most of the songs ("Comedy Tonight" did make the cut, so don't panic!). Shevelove and Gelbart were dissatisfied with the cinematic version of the play.

In Rome, during the reign of Emperor Nero, Pseudolus (Mostel) is a slave who wants his freedom more than anything else from his masters Senex (Michael Hordern) and his dominating wife Domina (Patricia Jessel). Their son, Hero (Crawford), has fallin in love with the virginal Philia (Andre), who comes from the house of a brothel owner named Marcus Lycus (Silvers). Learning this, Pseudolus strikes a deal: he'll win Philia for Hero in return for his freedom. But, Philia has been sold to the great Roman soldier, Captain Miles "I am a parade!" Gloriosus (Leon Greene), who is returning home from conquering Crete to claim her as his own.

Pseudolus blackmails his overseer Hysterium (Gilford) into posing as the corpse of Philia to fool people, but this never works the way they intended. Meanwhile, we also follow the elderly and senile Erronius (Keaton) as he searches for his long lost children, who were kidnapped many years ago.

Every so often, you need some decent camp to watch, and this film was a riot to me. Highly recommended.