Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Hitchcoc Having worked on this stage musical and having seen it a few times, I have to express my disappointment in this show. To start with, you take one of the funniest guys in history, Zero Mostel, add Jack Gilford, and several other successful stars, and then you cut the heart out of the thing. Take away about half of the music. The songs in this play are hilarious. What happened to them? The plot mirrors Roman comedy. What happened to the plot? Somewhere someone in a position of authority decided that they would make it more of a straight comedy and less of a musical. What happens is most of the humor disappears. The pontificating characters, the charlatans, the courtesans, have wonderful songs, but they aren't here. I hope someone does a new version of this; perhaps a Great Performance. Or, I know! A live TV production.

Petri Pelkonen The story is set in the ancient Rome.Pseudolys, a lazy slave wants nothing more than to be free.He gets that chance when he finds out that the young master has fell in love.The girl is Philia, a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer who sells beautiful women.If Pseudolys gets the two lovebirds together, he's free.A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a very funny musical comedy.Zero Mostel is brilliant in the lead.There's also the silent comedy legend Buster Keaton there.It's most hilarious when Senex meets the goddess Philia at the door.And they tell him she's the new maid.Or Lycus doing acrobatics.The chariot race is really something.The song heard in this movie is really catchy.Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: a comedy tonight.

dglink Boasting a priceless cast, a catchy score, and frenetic direction, Richard Lester's film adaptation of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" is solidly entertaining and should not be judged for what could have been. Granted, many of Stephen Sondheim's songs from the stage production were cut, but fans of the original can catch the complete work in frequent revivals. Utilizing the rapid-fire editing and inventive screen compositions that revolutionized teen musicals in his two Beatles' films, Lester pumped up "Forum's" adrenaline and created a work that could never be anything but a movie. Crammed with sight gags and slapstick, many drawn from silent comedies, the movie was appropriately Buster Keaton's last film, and he left us laughing. In addition to Keaton, the irreplaceable trio of Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, and Jack Gilford are hysterical, and each member of the talented supporting cast, which includes Michael Hordern, Patricia Jessel, and Michael Crawford, has their moment.The art direction by Tony Walton is a beautiful and sometimes humorous evocation of a fanciful Ancient Rome, and Richard Williams's closing title sequence is worth waiting for. "Forum" speeds along at a breakneck pace and may exhaust some viewers. However, few will be bored. Sondheim purists will not be pleased, but those who love silent comedy will revel in the homages. While certainly not a definitive adaptation of the stage musical, Lester's version has enough merit to be sparkling entertainment and a treasure trove of inspired comic performances.

MartinHafer The music in this film by Steven Sondheim is excellent and I enjoyed most of the songs despite the fact that most of the actors couldn't sing if their lives depended on it. And as for the story, it was pretty interesting, though after a while I felt pretty weary from the fast pace and the film actually got a bit tiresome--like it just ran out of steam. Now this isn't to say that I hated the film. At first, I really liked it, but after a while I just was ready for it all to end. I think Leonard Maltin hit the nail on the head when he commented that the film just tried a little TOO hard! In other words, it lacked subtlety and kept assaulting you so fast that you just wish the film had slowed down and taken a more leisurely pace. Also, sadly, this was Buster Keaton's last film and the role wasn't particularly memorable. Heck, blink twice and you might just miss him!