On the one hand you have on paper one of the fastest, funniest comedies in the world, with some of the era's finest comedic actors delivering killer performances and Stephen Sondheim contributing some rousing songs. On the other hand, it looks like it was shot in someone's backyard by a peyote-dosing epileptic.
Maybe "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" is the best badly-directed film in the world, a shame because it's not only a terrific show and cast, but a fantastic director, Richard Lester, who just was given the wrong project.
"Forum" is the story of one Pseudolus, a scheming house slave in ancient Rome who offers to help his master's son hook up with the courtesan next door in exchange for his freedom. But she is promised to a Roman general, and so Pseudolus must figure out a way to break off this engagement without the vain general breaking off Pseudolus's head.
Zero Mostel is Pseudolus, and does the best work I've seen from him on film, better than "The Producers" because in that film he didn't have to fight his director to deliver laughs. However much Lester cuts from one shot to the next, which he does a lot, Mostel seems ready for it with a new mugging facial expression or the crisp delivery of a line. He was his generation's Jack Black, albeit with a little more heart and soul.
Phil Silvers as the courtesan's procurer is a personal favorite who never got enough film work, but stamps his celebrated presence on this film without the benefit of his trademark glasses. Buster Keaton shows he still has it in his last film, while Jack Gilford is terrific as a fellow slave and Pseudolus's foil.
Inga Neilsen as the mute courtesan Gymnasia does some marvelous pantomimes with Pseudolus, proving herself more than the possessor of a Jessica Simpson physique. Yes, there's a lot of pulchritude on display, but the lust of men is being mocked as much as it is stoked, and p.c.-types should take a pill and allow the rest of us to enjoy the scenery.
My favorite performance is Leon Greene's, who plays the Roman general Miles Gloriosis. His impressive baritone is used to great advantage in the song "My Bride" and also the way he sends up the vainglory of his character. He's so full of himself he can believe his bride died awestruck the moment she saw him. "What a tragedy she died before knowing me," he sobs.
But Lester's contempt for the material he is shooting is painfully evident. He has Tony-award winning actors and celebrated stage performers, people who do their best work seen from one angle for an entire performance, so he shoots them from a dozen different angles, behind and above, where we can see their bald spots but not their faces as they sing. He has Sondheim's terrific score, so he chops all but five songs and spaces one out every 20 minutes. He wastes time on a pointless chariot chase and scenes in a temple and coliseum, and leaves off a terrific Richard Williams titles sequence for the end instead of the beginning, where it would have been more effective.
Marry all that to a production design that looks like hastily thrown-together leftovers from "Sparticus," a muddy print, awful sound recording, and hasty editing, and you have a film you have to fight with in order to enjoy. Maybe the pan-and-scan version I saw does it no justice, but sequences like "My Bride" are so rough-hewn and out-of-joint one wonders if Lester was saving money by getting his coverage from the cutting-room floor.
One sees what Lester is trying to do, capture the same success he has had with the Beatle films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" and transfer it to this similarly merry-spirited work. But what works to showcase four charismatic non-actors doesn't here, where you have a very disciplined script by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart calling for long dialogue scenes with reaction shots, et al, not flipping imagery designed to show how in tune with the mod times our filmmaker is. If you have characters singing a song, show them singing, not running through trees in slow motion.
With all his camera tricks, Lester shows the one trick he hadn't yet mastered here was keeping the camera still. Thankfully, Zero and the other actors are there to pick up the pieces, and salvage our good time.
Maybe "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" is the best badly-directed film in the world, a shame because it's not only a terrific show and cast, but a fantastic director, Richard Lester, who just was given the wrong project.
"Forum" is the story of one Pseudolus, a scheming house slave in ancient Rome who offers to help his master's son hook up with the courtesan next door in exchange for his freedom. But she is promised to a Roman general, and so Pseudolus must figure out a way to break off this engagement without the vain general breaking off Pseudolus's head.
Zero Mostel is Pseudolus, and does the best work I've seen from him on film, better than "The Producers" because in that film he didn't have to fight his director to deliver laughs. However much Lester cuts from one shot to the next, which he does a lot, Mostel seems ready for it with a new mugging facial expression or the crisp delivery of a line. He was his generation's Jack Black, albeit with a little more heart and soul.
Phil Silvers as the courtesan's procurer is a personal favorite who never got enough film work, but stamps his celebrated presence on this film without the benefit of his trademark glasses. Buster Keaton shows he still has it in his last film, while Jack Gilford is terrific as a fellow slave and Pseudolus's foil.
Inga Neilsen as the mute courtesan Gymnasia does some marvelous pantomimes with Pseudolus, proving herself more than the possessor of a Jessica Simpson physique. Yes, there's a lot of pulchritude on display, but the lust of men is being mocked as much as it is stoked, and p.c.-types should take a pill and allow the rest of us to enjoy the scenery.
My favorite performance is Leon Greene's, who plays the Roman general Miles Gloriosis. His impressive baritone is used to great advantage in the song "My Bride" and also the way he sends up the vainglory of his character. He's so full of himself he can believe his bride died awestruck the moment she saw him. "What a tragedy she died before knowing me," he sobs.
But Lester's contempt for the material he is shooting is painfully evident. He has Tony-award winning actors and celebrated stage performers, people who do their best work seen from one angle for an entire performance, so he shoots them from a dozen different angles, behind and above, where we can see their bald spots but not their faces as they sing. He has Sondheim's terrific score, so he chops all but five songs and spaces one out every 20 minutes. He wastes time on a pointless chariot chase and scenes in a temple and coliseum, and leaves off a terrific Richard Williams titles sequence for the end instead of the beginning, where it would have been more effective.
Marry all that to a production design that looks like hastily thrown-together leftovers from "Sparticus," a muddy print, awful sound recording, and hasty editing, and you have a film you have to fight with in order to enjoy. Maybe the pan-and-scan version I saw does it no justice, but sequences like "My Bride" are so rough-hewn and out-of-joint one wonders if Lester was saving money by getting his coverage from the cutting-room floor.
One sees what Lester is trying to do, capture the same success he has had with the Beatle films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" and transfer it to this similarly merry-spirited work. But what works to showcase four charismatic non-actors doesn't here, where you have a very disciplined script by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart calling for long dialogue scenes with reaction shots, et al, not flipping imagery designed to show how in tune with the mod times our filmmaker is. If you have characters singing a song, show them singing, not running through trees in slow motion.
With all his camera tricks, Lester shows the one trick he hadn't yet mastered here was keeping the camera still. Thankfully, Zero and the other actors are there to pick up the pieces, and salvage our good time.