Slapstick farce based on a Broadway comedy/musical about some crazy complications when a slave (Zero Mostel) tries to win his freedom in ancient Rome.

The script is OK with some funny lines and sight gags, the girls are all very beautiful (and horribly objectified--but this was done in the 1960s) and the comedians (Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Guilford, Buster Keaton) are at their peak...but I didn't really enjoy this.

For one thing it's WAY too fast and frentic with director Lester spinning the camera all over the place. In most of his movies this technique works...it doesn't here. You have some very telented comedians here...they don't need camera tricks to get the joke across. Often the camera cuts away to something else in the middle of a joke...it gets very annoying and is enough to make you reach for the Dramamine. It got on my nerves a lot...more than once I wished I could reach out and force the cameraman to stay still. Also this movie relies way too much on slapstick--there's a closing chase sequence that goes on forever and has TONS of it.

Still, I'm giving it a 7 just for the cast alone (what a pleasure it is to see Keaton not doing a beach party movie and Silvers is hysterical) and some very funny parts. Also the opening song and the "maid" song are real treats. So, it's worth catching on a slow night.

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.

The movie takes place in ancient Rome around three adjacent houses. In the house of Erronius , the children have been stolen by pirates. In the house of Marcus Lycus (Phil Silvers), he is a buyer and seller of beautiful women. In the house of Senex, Roman senator Senex lives with his domineering wife Domina and their dim son Hero (Michael Crawford). When Hero falls for beautiful virgin courtesan Philia (Annette Andre) from next door, their house slave Pseudolus (Zero Mostel) makes a deal with Hero to get the girl in exchange for his freedom. Only the girl has already been sold to Captain Miles Gloriosus (Leon Greene).

It's comedic musical with a lot of old hands at the wheel. It's adapted from the Broadway musical which itself is inspired by ancient Roman farces. The comedy isn't quite funny. Zero Mostel is running around like a scheming mad man only he could. The problem is that the characters are all unlikeable. The scheming and running around get too chaotic. The music could have saved it but all of them are forgettable and unfunny. It's just a throughly weak comedy.