Word: mostel
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...FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. Even though Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night, The Knack) tries hard, he cannot spoil all of the fun in this hilarious burlesque based on the plays of Plautus. The funniest things happen to Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers and Jack Gilford, playing Pseudolus, Lycus and Hysterium, three dirty old men in dirty old Rome...
...FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. Even though Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night, The Knack) tries hard, he cannot spoil all of the fun in this hilarious burlesque based on the plays of Plautus. The funniest things happen to Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers and Jack Gilford, playing Pseudolus, Lycus and Hysterium, three dirty old men in dirty old Rome...
...Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was one of the hottest burlesque shows that ever hit Broadway. It had a grossly libidinous libretto snippeted out of the plays of Plautus, and lickerish leerics that read like Pompeian graffiti. Above all, it had a huge round Zero named Mostel, who wore a fingertip tunic the size of a pup tent and went tippety-skipping about the stage like a bull walrus in drag...
What matters more is that the Lester manner conflicts with the Mostel style. Caught up in the director's web of whimsies, this most projectively physiological of comedians subsides like an elephant conquered by cobwebs. Not once is Hero Zero permitted to charge the camera, as he charged his Broadway audiences, with the massive animal aggression that is the essence of his comedy and the soul of slapstick...
...quieter moments, however, Mostel comes through beautifully. As a prospective purchaser, he examines a leggy pair of twin slaves like a prosperous matron examining a pair of table lamps, and then earnestly inquires: "I don't suppose you'd break up a set?" And as a connoisseur of wines, he inspects a jug of fine Falernian and asks sniffishly: "Was 1 a good year...