1h 39min | Comedy, Musical | 16 October 1966 | Color, ws
Director: Richard Lester
Stars: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton, Michael Crawford, Jack Gilford.
Ethel Martin ... dances by (as George and Ethel Martin)
George Martin ... dances by (as George and Ethel Martin)
7 songs in the Soundtracks, but 2 are reprises.
IMDb rating is 7.0 with 7450+ votes.
Previously rated 5 on 2014-12-25, I see no need to change it today. This is a show whose point I do not get. I don't find it funny. I'm not offended, I just don't get it. And because I get bored early on, I can't recount the plot, or rather, the sequence of events.
Slave ZM wants to buy his freedom. He earns money however he can, for instance by gambling (cheating?). The son MC of his owners is soon to be initiated to the ways of love and/or married, and is smitten by a slave courtesan in the market next door. ZM negotiates with the market owner PS, and but she is already betrothed to a soldier of high standing. ZM tricks PS into believing she has the plague, so he releases her. Not sure what/who he was planning to give to the soldier. Not sure why ZM pretends to be PS, with PS's consent.
Eventually ZM has the bright idea to substitute JG dressed as a woman, supposedly dead, to the soldier, who wants her cremated. Something prevents MC getting together with the original intended for the soldier. We get a scene in the colosseum where gladiators are training. Eventually JG and PS are revealed. Not sure how they get off the hook. BK, who's been wandering haphazardly looking for his long ago abducted children, happens on the scene, and because the soldier and his intended are both wearing rings (rings that they've had since childhood?) bearing the 7 geese, they are his children. Everybody sing again. The End.
Comedy is hard. And if I don't like the players, or acquire some reason to care about them, I don't know if I engage with the comedy. It's not that I don't like ZM; I like him fine in The Producers ('67), and his character is more despicable there. So I really don't know why I don't like this. Certainly it's sexist, with the use of women either as slave girls/courtesans or shrew wife (mother of MC). The "best" slave was the one who couldn't speak. But really, I'm not offended by those things; they're normal for this time. Maybe this is just not sufficiently absurd for me.
I had thought Gregory Hines (b. '46) was here. Silly me, that is History of the World, Part I ('81), which is his first film. Only off by a decade and a half.
I had thought Gregory Hines (b. '46) was here. Silly me, that is History of the World, Part I ('81), which is his first film. Only off by a decade and a half.
distr. UA, dir. Lester; 5
