During another of the free preview weekends a few months back, I finally had the chance to record the movie A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It's going to be on MGMHD a few days from now, although that looks to be one of their showings interrupted by commercials since it's a 99-minute movie in a 130-minute time slot. In any case,the movie is available on DVD the last time I checked.
After the rousing musical number "Comedy Tonight", a tune you've probably heard before even if you you don't know the lyrics, we learn that the action is going to take place around three houses in Rome: those of Senex (Michael Hordern), a retired senator; Erronius (Buster Keaton), whose two children were taken by pirates; and Marcus Lycus (Phil Silvers), a procurer of fine young women. Telling us this is Pseudolus (Zero Mostel), one of Senex's slaves along with Hysterium (Jack Gilford).
Meanwhile, Senex and his wife Domina (Patricia Jessel) has a son in Hero (Michael Crawford) who has fallen in love with one of the young ladies next door. Hero offers Pseudolus his freedom if Pseudolus can buy that young woman from Marcus Lycus. But when Pseudolus goes to see Marcus Lycus, he's told that the woman in question is not available, having already been promised to Miles Gloriosus (Leon Greene), a captain in the Roman Army.
Pseudolus, despite being a slave, is also quite the schemer. So he comes up with the idea of telling Marcus Lycus that the young woman in question, Philia (Annette Andre) came from an island that has the plague, so she really needs to be quarantined. Fortunately, Pseudolus has survived the plague, and Senex's house is currently unoccupied, so Philia can be kept there.
Unfortunately, that's not enough to get Philia for Hero. First, Senex shows up and when he sees Philia, he thinks Philia is for him, even though he's already got a wife. And then Miles Gloriosus shows up and is unsurprisingly absolutely pissed when he figures out that he's being swindled. Pseudolus' scheming backfires here as Miles Gloriosus threatens to burn down Marcus Lycus' house, and Pseudolus has already claimed to be Marcus Lycus.
It goes on like this, with an increasingly convoluted plot, and a bunch of musical numbers along the way, having been adapted from a popular Broadway musical (however, quite a few songs have been cut from the stage show for the film). How much you like it is going to depend on how much you like the stars and the genre. I'm not as big a fan of this sort of comedy, which I've referred to quite a lot here as the "comedy of lies", so there were points at which I found the proceedings quite grating. Others, however, are going to love it. So I think I'd call it a bit of an acquired taste that I haven't acquired. Watch and judge for yourself.
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