The Court Jester (1956)
1956, Warner Bros. Directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury, Cecil Parker, Mildred Natwick, Robert Middleton.
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From a National Catholic Register review
By Steven D. Greydanus
See Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood — and then see Danny Kaye in The Court Jester. As the former is the ultimate Hollywood swashbuckler classic, the latter is the ultimate swashbuckler spoof, and one of Kaye’s finest, funniest hours.
Not only does it terrifically succeed where movies like Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights miserably fail, The Court Jester also as merry, high-spirited, and wholesome as the adventures it parodies, with none of the cynical, anarchic spirit (or content issues) of the likes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It’s also a genuinely entertaining tale, with a convoluted
plot involving an evil usurper king (Cecil Parker), a scheming
knight (Basil Rathbone) who covets the false king’s throne, and a
Robin-Hood / Zorro type hero-outlaw called the Black Fox (Edward
Ashley). Kaye stars as former circus performer Hubert Hawkins,
now the meekest of the Fox’s merry men, who dreams of
Viewers always remember the classic tongue-twisting wordplay of the "vessel with the pestle" scene, but The Court Jester is full of hilarity, from Hawkins’s sparkling debut as a jester, to his rapid-fire personality changes under hypnosis, to his accelerated elevation to knighthood. It couldn’t possibly better be!
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The Court Jester (DVD)
The Court Jester (VHS)
Comic swashbuckling violence.
