Buster Keaton

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum -- Zero Mostel repeats his stage role as Pseudolus, the cunning Roman slave who'll do anything to win his freedom. The plot hinges on three Roman houses next door to each another. One is the home of Pseudolus' masters: the philandering Senex (Michael Hordern), his domineering wife Domina (Patricia Jessel), and their handsome but empty-headed son Hero (Michael Crawford). The second house is a brothel belonging to unctuous procurer Lycus (Phil Silvers). The third house has long been empty, in that its owner, the senile Erronious (Buster Keaton), has gone on a long journey to find his children, who were kidnapped in infancy by pirates. This all-star cast scam their way through this boisterous romp amidst gorgeous girls, mistaken identities, stunning surprises, cunning disguises and great Sondheim songs.

Pajama Party -- A Martian scout sent to Earth to prepare for an invasion lands amidst a teenage swim party and tries to convince everyone that he really is who he says. Meanwhile, a plot is afoot by two neighbot con men to steal the hostess's money. The Martian falls in love with one of the girls at the party, thwarts the robbery and calls off the invasion.

It's a mad, mad, mad mad farcical return to the days of the Keystone Cop comedies, on an Ultra Panavision scale, in this star-studded extravaganza. A multitude of people have been given a clue by a dying man (Jimmy Durante) as to the location of $350,000 in stolen bank money that he has buried. They cannot come to an agreement to seek out the loot as a cooperative unit, so they set out separately in a mad race to get to it first. They do not know that the state police are on to them and are simply allowing the loot-seekers to lead them to the stolen bucks. The loot-chasers are ruthless, devious, crackpot and very often dimwitted in their frantic, hilarious race. Stanley Kramer took an intermission from socially conscious subjects to direct this riotous comedy. Photography by Ernest Laszlo.

The most quirkily offbeat and one of the best of the “Beach Party” movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” finds Frankie off in the navy, serving in the South Pacific. Worried about all of the guys that will be hitting on Dee Dee (Funicello) back at the beach, he convinces a magician (Buster Keaton) to conjure up a siren, Cassandra (Beverly Adam), whom no man can resist. Cassandra succeeds in distracting all attention away from Dee Dee. However, a mentally unbalanced advertising man (Mickey Rooney) decides to make Cassandra’s unstoppable sex appeal a national obsession, and she gets noticed by bike gang leader Erik Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), who vows to make her his. Throw in an unusual disappearing pelican and mayhem (and fun) ensues!