MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Director Richard Lester uses the Burt Shevelove/Larry Gelbart/Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical hit as a launching pad for some of his wildest slapstick gaggery. Zero Mostel repeats his stage role as Pseudolus, the cunning Roman slave who'll do anything to win his freedom. The plot hinges on three Roman houses next door to each another. One is the home of Pseudolus' masters: the philandering Senex (Michael Hordern), his domineering wife, Domina (Patricia Jessell), and their handsome but empty-headed son, Hero (Michael Crawford). The second house is a brothel belonging to unctuous procurer Lycus (Phil Silvers). The third house has long been empty, in that its owner, the senile Erronius (Buster Keaton), has gone on a long journey to find his children, who were kidnapped in infancy by pirates. Other principals include Pseudolus' fellow slave, the aptly named Hysterium (Jack Gilford); vain warrior Miles Gloriosus (Leon Greene), who marches triumphantly into Rome declaring "I am a parade!"; and the virginal Philia (Annette Andre), a resident of Lycus' "domicile" who is loved by Hero but who has been promised in marriage to Miles Gloriosus. There are also acrobats, transvestites, a phony funeral, and an outsized climactic chase. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: PCM Stereo, 5.1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: French, Spanish
• Features:
  • • Collectible booklet
    • Original theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Adapted Score - 1966 (Ken Thorne)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Picture - Musical or Comedy - 1966

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Richard Lester

• Producer:

  Melvin Frank

• Screenwriter:

  Melvin Frank

• Play Author:

  Larry Gelbart

• Screenwriter:

  Michael Pertwee

• Play Author:

  Burt Shevelove

• Cinematographer:

  Nicolas Roeg

• Composer (Music Score):

  Stephen Sondheim

• Editor:

  John Victor Smith

• Production Designer:

  Tony Walton

• Art Director:

  Syd Cain

• Costume Designer:

  Tony Walton

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Gerry Humphreys, Leslie Hammond

• Makeup:

  Trevor Crole-Rees, Jose Maria Sanchez

• Special Effects:

  Cliff John Richardson

• First Assistant Director:

  José Lopez Rodero

• Choreography:

  Ethel Martin, George Martin

• Lyricist:

  Stephen Sondheim

• Additional Music:

  Ken Thorne

REVIEW:

• Merging director Richard Lester's 1960s verve with old-fashioned Broadway and vaudeville entertainment, the movie version of the stage hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is an engagingly frenetic slapstick musical. Though the number of winning Stephen Sondheim songs is scaled back, stars Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, and Buster Keaton pile on the schtick as Mostel's labyrinthine scams lead to nonstop mugging (except from Keaton), sexual shenanigans, hilarious one-liners, an elaborate chariot chase, and (naturally) hairy men in drag. Lester packs the screen with visual jokes and historically accurate Roman trappings; any residual staginess is mitigated by cinematographer Nicolas Roeg's and editor John Victor-Smith's New Wave flair for jump cuts and variable camera speeds. Broadway veteran Mostel is in peak form, especially when he goes toe to conniving toe with courtesan merchant Silvers and gauzily woos Gilford with a rendition of "Lovely," while Keaton remains a scene-stealer in one of his last films. A crowd-pleaser if not a Sondheim purist-pleaser, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum maintained the age-old attraction of "Comedy Tonight." ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi