Buster Keaton is rightly regarded as a god in the pantheon of comedy. His best work was almost entire in the silent era ending around 1930. He definitely is not primarily remembered for 1966’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, his last film. This was 16 years after he played a shadow of his former self in Sunset Boulevard. Because of that, I was surprised he is given some action in Forum, his frantic running around Rome largely courtesy of undercranked camera.
Though I’m sure the filmmakers meant well, this picture does him no favors. It doesn’t do anybody else any, either. Richard Lester, who had helmed A Hard Day’s Night and HELP! for The Beatles, delivers a tepid sex comedy set in ancient Rome. The humor is of the wink-wink nudge-nudge variety.
Oh, it is also a musical. It opens with terrifying earworm “Comedy Tonight” as sung by Zero Mostel. In this number, he establishes the characters and the story (what there is of it). Basically, there are two houses. In one is wealthy couple Michael Holdern and Patricia Jessel and their adult son Michael Crawford. Next door is a brothel owned by Phil Silvers, and Crawford is smitten with Annette Andre, a virgin who has already been sold to Leon Greene, a fearsome naval captain who will not appear until the third act.
Mostel is a slave in Holdern’s house. He is also a one man Greek chorus as he works various schemes to try to, ideally, earn his freedom. Part of these machinations is helping Crawford run away with Andre. There is a looong sequence in the brothel where they pretend to be buying a sex slave. Consider the last two words of the sentence and remember this is a comedy.
Anywho, various women do routines that are in keeping with the bizarre “Vegas sexy” of the time. Some of the dancing reminded me of Ann-Margret and wondering if any guy as ever found such preposterous gyrations to be stimulating.
I don’t feel like going to in the details of the various mayhem which ensues under the ruse of being a plot. Instead, consider some of these lines and you can decide for yourself whether this is a movie for you: “You’ll never learn. You’ll be a eunuch all your life.” “An honest virgin—what a terrible combination.” Oh, then there’s Mostel’s reason for declining to buy the services of twin prostitutes: “I am a man of limited means and I know you’d hate to break up the set.”
If you don’t see the picture, you’ll miss such moments as a montage of short edits as Mostel imitating by himself the various couplings of figures on a piece of erotic pottery owned by fellow slave Jack Gilford. Actually, I don’t think you’d be missing much by not seeing that. Nor would your life be diminished in any way by not hearing this exchange of dialogue: “He raped Thrace?” “Thrice” “The raped Thrace thrice?”
In fact, I flat-out hated this movie. There were exactly three times I chuckled and I will share all of them here. One was Mostel commenting of a wine, “Was 1 a good year?” A bit that went by in a blink had somebody slice an egg by showing it through the strings of a lyre. The last was Jessel saying to her husband in a matter-of-fact manner, “You’ve been a bit distant these past 29 years.”
Very little funny happens on the way to the forum in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In fact, it doesn’t even go to the forum. Perhaps that is where Keaton would have eventually ended up if he kept running.
Dir: Richard Lester
Starring Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Michael Crawford, Michael Holdern
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray