A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Mix a bawdy story in the style of the Roman satirist Plautus with modern New York humour and the flashy direction of Lester, and what have you got? Not surprisingly, a spasmodically successful farce taken along at breakneck pace so that half of the good gags don't have time to sink in, and half of the bad ones fortunately disappear in the mêlée. All in all, a middling affair, with the overrated Mostel playing the slave on the lookout for freedom, and many of Stephen Sondheim's songs from the original Broadway musical thrown out in the rush.