A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a 1966 period musical comedy film, directed by Richard Lester, with Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford reprising their stage roles.
The film was adapted for the screen by Melvin Frank and Michael Pertwee from the stage musical of the same name with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, which was inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC) – specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria – and tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door.
Pseudolus finds out that his master, Senex's dim son Hero, has fallen in love with Philia (destined to be a courtesan) from the house next door of Marcus Lycus, a slave trader.
Pseudolus blackmails his slave overseer Hysterium (whose collection of pornographic pottery would shock his prudish owner, Dominia) into masquerading in drag as the “dead” Philia.
Eventually, Miles Gloriosus collars Hero, the real Philia, Hysterium, Marcus Lycus, Pseudolus, and Gymnasia and brings them back to Rome to untangle the skein of deception and see that justice is done.
[5] Although the musical had originally been written with Phil Silvers in mind, Zero Mostel starred on Broadway as Pseudolus,[6] and Richard Lester was his choice to direct the film version.
Cinematographer Nicholas Roeg moved up to the director's chair to make films such as Performance (1970), with Mick Jagger, Walkabout (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) with David Bowie.
[12] Variety wrote, "Flip, glib and sophisticated, yet rump-slappingly bawdy and fast-paced, 'Forum' is a capricious look at the seamy underside of classical Rome through a 20th-Century hipster's shades [...] Generally assayed with satirical thrust and on-target accuracy, almost all of the performances are top-rung and thoroughly expert.
"[13] In a generally favorable review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby praised the "handsomely realistic settings" and determined that "Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics hold up well," but also found it "hard to decide whether Mr. Lester has gone too far, or not far enough, in translating into film terms the carefully calculated nonsense originally conceived for the theater.
He's done a lot of tricky things — with his penchant for quick cutting and juxtaposition of absurd images — but there are times when this style seems oddly at variance with the basic material, which is roughly 2,000 years older than the motion-picture camera.
"[14] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film moved so fast that "I simply couldn't ingest it all in one viewing," but "I was able to register enough to realize I was enjoying myself hugely.
'Forum' is a bawdy, ribald romp that rips Rome's Great Society right up the middle, an out-and-out burlesque show that may even—underneath all the frenetic foolery, the flourishing of floozies and the pratfalls—have something satirical and cynical to tell us about nations and why they fall.
All but a handful of the marvelous Sondheim songs were ditched, the few remaining musical numbers were so integrated into the action that they took a back seat to Lester's self-conscious visual gimmicks, and the riotous Zero Mostel was nearly crowded out of the plot completely.