A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

Richard Lester’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, depicts the a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to become a free man. Pseudolus has been trying to buy his freedom for quite awhile, until he sees the perfect opportunity to get his freedom by helping his master Hero, obtain the girl of his dreams. Hero promises Pseudolus his freedom if he can help Hero marry a woman named Philia, who lives next door in the house of Lycus, which is a house of courtesans. Pseudolus is able to improvise a plan to help young Hero, as his parents are out of town and cannot control the actions of either Hero or Pseudolus for the time being. The pair discover a roadblock in their plan, when Lycus informs the pair that Philia has just been sold to a heroic Roman captain who is coming to retrieve his new wife in a matter of hours. The pair decide to lie to Lycus and declare that a plague took over her country of Crete and that she the plague. They say they can look after her until the captain arrives and Lycus agrees. At first, Philia is reluctant to marry Hero and wants to honor her contract, but then the two fall in love, and Pseudolus and Hero hatch a plan to flee with Philia and to marry in secret. When soldiers of the captain visit Lycus, they declare the bride must be ready in an hour and if she is not, then his house will be ransacked and the rest of his women will be taken. Pseudolus decides to trade places with Lycus, to try and better his and Hero’s chances of fleeing with Philia. Once the captain of arrives, Pseudolus does his best to stall until Hero can return with mare sweat to create a sleeping potion for Philia. Eventually, Pseudolus uses another slave, Hysteria, as a decoy of a dead Philia to try and trick the captain that his bride has died. The captain is at first fooled, but Hysteria “rises from the dead” after the captain declares he will cut the bride’s heart out in honor of her. Pseudolus, Hero, Philia, Hysterium, Lycus, and another women Gymnasia all try to flee Rome and lead the captain and his soldiers on a chase through the countryside.

Eventually they are all caught and brought back to Rome, but it is revealed that both the captain and Philia are the long-lost children of Hero’s next door neighbor, Erronius. Erronius had been a long journey to find where his children went, but once he returns home, he is able to see that the captain and Philia are his children. In the end, everyone is happy, as Hero gets his bride, Pseudolus is now a free man, and even the captain gets 2 new brides. The movie is played out as a comedy and musical and was very enjoyable to watch.