A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

Buster in a musical, people!  Not that he does much in the way of actual singing – I think he sing-talks about one line, and that’s it.  (For further reference, he also appeared in a national tour of Once Upon a Mattress in the early ‘60s, playing the mute king.)  A very so-so adaptation of this Stephen Sondheim show, and Buster’s role is pretty small, but he also gets in some good laughs.

In ancient Rome, the slave Pseudolus concocts a plan to win his freedom.  In exchange for his emancipation, Pseudolus agrees to help Hero, his young master, woo the lovely Philia, whom the lad has seen in the neighboring brothel from his window.  Naturally, this has to be as complicated as humanly possible, and the resulting scheme involves multiple instances of disguises, mistaken identities, a fake soothsayer, a made-up plague, and a ship to Crete.  Will the young lovers win out, and will Pseudolus achieve his dream of being free?  Come on, what do you think?

The comedy is amusing in a sort of quaint-naughty, cheesy way.  The silly jokes come fast and furious (“Is it contagious?!”  “Have you ever seen a plague that wasn’t?” – that kind of thing,) and the farcical plot is good for a laugh.  The cast is also entertaining; notable faces include Zero Mostel as Pseudolus and a young Michael Crawford (this even predates Hello, Dolly! by a few years) as Hero.  Also?  Third Doctor Jon Pertwee has a minor role as a ship captain.  Seeing him puts a smile on my face.

As an oddball comedy, I’d say it’s pretty decent, but as an adaptation of a Sondheim show, it doesn’t measure up, mainly because it has so few songs in it.  I’d say maybe a third of the show’s songs are present here, and a lot of the cut ones are great.  We’ve got no “Free,” no “Love, I Hear,” no “Impossible.”  To me, what’s the point of doing a Sondheim movie with hardly any music?  Tsk, tsk.

But Buster, as briefly as he’s used, is quite funny.  He plays Erronius, Hero’s long-absent neighbor (that’s neighbor on the other side – not the brothel owner) who’s recently returned from an unsuccessful quest to find his children, stolen in infancy by pirates.  The main humor is milked from Erronius’s terrible eyesight, and there’s something about Buster’s matter-of-fact delivery that makes pretty obvious jokes so entertaining.  He also gets in on a little physical comedy toward the end, and for whatever reason, his delivery of “those filthy pirates!” is an absolute hoot.

Warnings

Lots of suggestiveness (including a lot of fairly tame prostitution) and silly takes on serious topics.