Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray Movie Review

Take my courtesan. . .please.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 3, 2014

1966 was an interesting transitional year for the American film musical. The two previous years had seen the Academy Award for Best Picture go to The Sound of Music in 1965 and My Fair Lady in 1964, so one might think that 1966 would have been awash in big screen treatments of former Broadway blockbusters. And yet 1966 proved to be one of the most spectacularly bare years for film musicals and perhaps presciently offered a warning (ignored though it might have been) that the genre was about to experience (to borrow the title of a long ago musical) stormy weather. In fact the only Broadway musical hit to make it to the screen that year was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a goofy quasi-vaudeville show wrapped up in both a farcical ambience as well as a not exactly historically accurate toga which had taken the Great White Way by storm in 1962 and proven to cynics that Stephen Sondheim could effectively write both music and lyrics. Sondheim at that point was most famous for having served as lyricist for two of the greatest musicals of the fifties, West Side Story and Gypsy. (Despite the fact that “Comedy Tonight”, the song which opens A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, became a well known tune if not an outright standard, critics were soon complaining that Sondheim was incapable of writing anything “hummable”, as if that were a totally debilitating situation for a Broadway composer. Sondheim was famously passed over for even a Tony nomination that year, while long forgotten scores for shows like Bravo, Giovanni! rated a nod.) Sondheim, book writers Larry Gelbart (later of television’s M*A*S*H fame) and Burt Shevelove (who directed the acclaimed revival of Funny Thing in 1972), as well as various other creatives attached to the original production have been rather vocal through the years about their disappointment with Richard Lester’s film version of the venerable property, and there’s no denying that the film version strays rather radically from the stage version, including excising quite a few of Sondheim’s songs. Still, there’s an enjoyably manic atmosphere to the film that provides a number of belly laughs, even if Lester’s directorial tics tend to intrude into the flow of the piece.

Shevelove and Gelbart went back to the origins of farce for their inspiration, utilizing ancient texts by Roman playwright Plautus to fashion their hysterical (in both senses of the word) tale of slave Pseudolus (Zero Mostel, repeating his Tony winning role) whose dreams of buying his freedom are dangled tantalizingly within reach when his young master Hero (Michael Crawford, pre-Phantom of the Opera) asks for his help in meeting the “girl next door”. That lass is Philia (Annette Andre), a winsome (and supposedly virginal) courtesan, and Hero is so smitten he offers to set his slave free if Pseudolus can arrange things romantically. Unfortunately, Pseudolus and Hero soon find out from Marcus Lycus (Phil Silvers, intended to be the original star of the stage version), the owner and salesman of the courtesans, that Philia has just been sold to incoming military commander Miles Gloriosus (Leon Greene). That sets a madcap chain of events into motion that involves not just these characters, but also Hysterium (Jack Gilford, also from the original Broadway cast), the head slave in Pseudolus’ household, as well as a befuddled elder named Erronius (Buster Keaton, in his last film appearance) who has been treading the marshes for decades searching for his two children who were abducted by pirates in the distant past. Pseudolus' increasingly desperate schemes to arrange things between Hero and Philia lead to all sorts of escapades, with a number of characters assuming false identities in time honored farcical tradition.

Richard Lester was just coming off of two of the biggest successes of his early career, A Hard Day's Night and Help! , two quasi-musicals which combined the innate ebullience and insouciance of The Beatles with Lester’s own penchant for visual non sequiturs, odd framings and a hyperkinetic style that at that point in time was quite revolutionary. Lester attempts to invest A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with that same frenetic energy, and while the source material would seem to be a near perfect fit for the director’s hyperbolic tendencies, things sometimes work at cross purposes, creating busy-ness (and in theatrical parlance, business) instead of well crafted comedy. Lester seems intent on capturing almost Fellini-esque shots of various Romans hanging out in the village square, and is also enamored of then trendy effects like quick zooms, something that gives the film a somewhat vertiginous aspect at times.

And it’s in fact Lester’s nonstop attempts to energize the material that most seriously hamper it. The book (libretto) is a nonstop assemblage of throwaway one liners, some of them gut bustingly funny, but the two central characters, Pseudolus and Marcus Lycus, are so completely over the top that adding Lester’s frenzied approach on top of them sometimes acts as a detriment to the film’s overall comedic sensibility. With so much going on—Funny Thing is the ancient Roman equivalent of a door slamming, mistaken identity French farce—a more reserved directorial approach might have been better. But you can see Lester at least attempting to update the film musical, albeit from perhaps a too overwrought angle. When he isn’t indulging in crazy quilt tactics like he employs in “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid”, he offers some nice staging of musical numbers, as in his daffy but enjoyable montage built around “Lovely”.

Where Lester’s manic techniques do work are in sequences like the fantastic set piece that caps the film, a near constant onslaught of great sight gags that play out like an old Mack Sennett comedy, albeit perhaps with an even more furibund technique. While about half of Sondheim’s score is jettisoned here, the remaining songs are enjoyable enough, aided by Ken Thorne’s Oscar winning music adaptation and orchestrations. Listen for example to how winningly Thorne combines elements of several songs into the chaotic underscore that accompanies the final big set piece. (In full disclosure mode, I should mention the wonderful Mr. Thorne, who worked with Lester on The Beatles’ films, provided one of the keyboards I used for a production of The Producers I conducted a few years ago.) Tony Walton’s production design is also quite evocative, in a gritty kind of way, and Lester uses some good location footage in and around Rome, though the sight of Roman ruins in scenes supposedly taking place at the height of the Empire’s power and glory is a bit anachronistic. The film was lensed by Nicolas Roeg who would of course go on to be a noted director himself, one who occasionally succumbed to the same florid artistry that Lester himself did.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber Studio Classics with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Funny Thing has never looked great on home video and that tendency continues here, though there is a decent upgrade in color saturation and even fine detail in close-ups. However, the elements here have faded noticeably, giving things like flesh tones a ruddy pink hue. I would hazard a guess that this may be an older master, as evidenced by such anomalies as ringing and a general lack of detail that might have been mitigated by a newer transfer. Grain is still very much in evidence, so there does not appear to have been any overly aggressive denoising done. Some of the outdoor location photography offers substantial depth of field.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which more than capably supports both the singing and the rapid fire dialogue of the piece. The film was evidently originally released in stereo, but I'm not hearing much if any real separation here, which does not materially affect the actual fidelity of the track. There may be some who will be concerned that this release also has some audio sync issues which we've discussed in some previous Kino Lorber Studio Classics releases, but rest assured when the lips don't match the speaking (or more likely, singing) here, it's due to sequences having been pre-recorded and then lip synched to on set, as was (and continues to be) the custom in most musical films. For example, the entire opening segment, including Pseudolus' brief interstitial monologues, was pre-recorded, and thus when Zero Mostel's lips don't quite jibe with the soundtrack in this opening gambit, it's because Mostel wasn't quite keeping up with the playback. You'll also notice his monologues are more boxy sounding in the opening than the bulk of the film, again due to the pre-record. The original mix here is pretty busy and crowded sounding at times (as seemed to be Lester's preference), but there are no problematic issues to discuss.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:24). Am I missing something, or does this trailer not include the title of the film? Seems like an odd way to market something.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you've never seen A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, there's a perfectly easy and even reasonably accurate way to gauge whether or not you'll enjoy it. Simply take a gander at any of the screenshots featuring Zero Mostel. If you are unmoved by his variety of facial muggings, chances are you won't be particularly amused by the film. If at least one or two cause a smile if not an outright laugh, you're more likely to enjoy this incessantly frenetic romp. While Lester could have benefited from a serious prescription of chill pills here, there's a lot to enjoy in this film, and for those with a slightly skewed sense of humor, there are some fantastically funny bits on display. Technical merits are somewhat problematic (especially the video), but on the whole, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum comes Recommended.