A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) on Netflix
Approved19661h 39mComedyMusical
Pseudolus, a slave in Rome, longs to buy his freedom. His young master Hero loves Philia, a virgin courtesan at Marcus Lycus's house. Pseudolus offers to obtain the girl for him.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.8/1010,804 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Rome under Emperor Nero, Pseudolus is a slave in the household of Senex, a man ruled by his wife Domina. The couple is away for the day. Their son Hero, young and naive, has fallen in love with Philia, a virgin courtesan kept next door by the slave trader Marcus Lycus. Because Hero is underage and cannot buy her himself, Pseudolus proposes a bargain: he will procure the girl for the boy in exchange for his own freedom. Philia, though, has already been sold to Miles Gloriosus, a Roman soldier on his way home from Crete to marry her. With little time before he arrives, Pseudolus sets out to deceive Lycus and put Philia in Hero's hands.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Buster Keaton was suffering from terminal cancer while the film was shot, a fact of which he was not aware, and Mick Dillon stood in for his running sequences; Keaton performed the pratfall after running into a tree himself, as no one could properly imitate his pratfalls.
- Phil Silvers developed a serious eye infection while filming in Spain and, distrusting the local medical care, hid the condition; he later wrote that it left him unable to see well enough to climb down after becoming stranded on a high ledge during a shoot.
- The film's animated end-credit sequence is dotted with houseflies as a wink to a real problem on set: fruit and vegetables used to dress the market scenes were left out overnight to rot, drawing swarms of flies during the shoot.
- The stage musical had originally been written with Phil Silvers in mind, but Zero Mostel starred on Broadway as Pseudolus and Richard Lester was his choice to direct the film version; Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Mike Nichols were also considered to direct.
