I love photos of Zero Mostel. Has there ever been an actor with a more expressive face? Caricature artists love that puss. Mort Drucker and Al Hirschfeld — probably the two greatest practitioners of the art ever — both told me that Mostel was a particular favorite to draw. (I purchased the original art to a story in MAD Magazine called "Antenna on the Roof" in which Mr. Drucker elegantly captured the likeness of the gent. Looks like he had a lot of fun drawing it.)
This photo is from the movie version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a less-than-wonderful interpretation of the great play by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Mr. Gelbart once described it as, "The most painful experience…like being run over by a truck that then backed-up so it could run you over again." That it is at all viewable is largely because Mostel was always worth watching…quite an achievement in a film where three other great clowns — Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford and Buster Keaton — aren't worth watching. Keaton did a lot of dreadful low-budget "comedies" (I'm using the world loosely) in the sixties and got more laughs in any one of them than he does in this high-budget one.
Among the things that went wrong with this one…
- The film is way overproduced. On stage, it was the only major musical ever to have only one set…and not a very fancy one, at that. In the movie, they tried to show us Ancient Rome in all its cluttered glory.
- Any time you're discarding Stephen Sondheim songs, something is wrong. Very wrong.
- Phil Silvers was cast as Marcus Lycus, a comparatively small part. They then proceeded to try and build up that role, which meant tossing out several important plot complications to make room for needless plot complications.
- The director, Richard Lester, had become famous for a strange kind of cinematography and editing rhythm in which you are always conscious of the camera, and no attempt is made at seamless continuity. This style, which was so much fun in a few earlier movies like A Hard Day's Night, was already wearing out its welcome by the time Forum was filmed, and it was especially at odds with the material. In too many scenes, it is the film editor (or Lester) controlling the timing, not the comedians.
- Lester (and the producer, Melvin Frank) also wanted to "open up" the film and include a big chariot race and elements of spectacle. That meant further corruptions of the plot to find reasons for such scenes…which, of course, were unnecessary distractions.
And there are about 11 dozen other things wrong with it, which brings us to this question. TV is on a kick of remaking musicals. Matthew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth are appearing in a new version of The Music Man, which not one human being on this planet thought was poorly done the first time it was put on film. When will they start redoing some of the ones that could actually be improved in a new version? Forum would be a great place to start.
By the way: Turner Classic Movies is running the film with Zero next Sunday. If you watch, watch only for him.