The Court Jester
(1956), 101 min. color

"The Court Jester" is one of the funniest comedies of all time. Danny Kaye is brilliant, and Rathbone has fun spoofing himself in his "villain" roles.

Basil plays an evil character named Ravenhurst, the King's right-hand man. Ravenhurst is a character similar to Sir Guy of Gisbourne (The Adventures of Robin Hood).  The King has usurped the throne by murdering the royal family. One member of the royal family, the rightful heir to the throne, survived the massacre a baby with a purple pimpernel birthmark on his bottom. An elusive, dashing outlaw, "The Black Fox," (a Robin Hood-type character) and his followers have kept the baby safe. When the King hears that the child lives, he sends his men into the forest to find the child and kill him. Hawkins (Danny Kaye) and Jean (Glynis Johns) are transporting the baby to safety when they encounter Giacomo, a court jester from Italy on his way to the palace. Jean tells Hawkins that there is a secret passageway underground into the castle, and that if a small group of the outlaws could get into the castle, they could overtake the King's forces. But someone needs to get close to the King in order to get the key to the passageway. They realize that the Jester will be close to the King. So, Jean knocks Giacomo unconscious, Hawkins takes his place as the Jester and sets off toward the castle. 

Jean heads towards the abbey with the baby safely hidden in her cart. Before she gets there, however, the King's men take her and her cart, with its precious cargo hidden inside, to the castle. Much confusion ensues trying to keep the baby hidden and trying to get the key.

The King, fearing that the followers of the Black Fox will become an army too strong for his forces, has arranged to form an alliance with Griswold, a knight from the North with a strong army. Ravenhurst opposes the alliance because it puts Griswold at the king's right hand, and Ravenhurst will lose influence and power. Therefore Ravenhurst has hired an assassin to kill those in the court who support the alliance. Unknown to Hawkins, Giacomo is in reality the assassin whose services Ravenhurst has retained.

The King has also arranged for a marriage between Griswold and the King's daughter, to seal the alliance. The featherbrained princess is so upset with the thought of marrying Griswold, she threatens to kill herself and her maid Griselda. Griselda (a witch) first assures the princess that she will not have to marry Griswold, and then hypnotizes the jester to be cavalier and woo the princess. The spell is broken by the snap of the fingers. Several characters snap their fingers, unaware of the effect it has on the jester, who falls in and out of the spell innumerable times, with very comical results.


 

Get it?

To ensure that Hawkins will win a joust with Griswold, Griselda poisons one of the drinks for the pre-joust toast. She tries to explain to the jester which drink is poisoned.

"The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle.
The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."

And after he gets that straight, she comes to him again and says,

"Listen! They broke the chalice from the palace and replaced it with the flagon with the figure of a dragon."
"Did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?"
"No, the pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon.
The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true."

Hawkins gets it hopelessly mixed up, but he manages to survive anyway.

In the end there is an interesting bout of fencing with Hawkins and Ravenhurst, with Hawkins alternating between barely managing to stay alive and out-fencing Ravenhurst. The beginning of this duel, when Hawkins slices through the candles with his sword, is a parody of the fencing scene between Rathbone and Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro. Ravenhurst is finally defeated when some little people sneak up behind him and surprise him. Then Hawkins flips him onto the catapult, which hurls Ravenhurst into the lake. 

 

The Court Jester

Danny Kaye's in top form in this lusty comic spoof of medieval England by the same team that brought Knock on Wood to the screen two years ago Dressed for a lavish time, in VistaVision and Technicolor, the Paramount release assures top values in rollicking family entertainment. It's loaded with an assortment of bright gags, wild slapstick and outrageous gimmicks (a band of fighting midgets, magic spells and magnetized armor), precisely tailored to Kaye's own fantastic brand of wit. Add to this some merry songs and the comic's double-talk tour-de-force: "the pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon not the chalice from the palace get it? got it? good!" There's a lot of plot here, concerning the efforts of a patriot band to drive out the usurping king, and restore the rightful "baby king with the purple pimpernel." Kaye plays the imposter-jester, inside man in the castle, and by slipping in and out of spells and what-not, keeps it all moving at a pleasant pace with light-hearted charm. Good support is offered by Glynis Johns as the maid-in-arms who loves him, Basil Rathbone as the sinister figure of satiric evil, Cecil Parker as the delightfully foolish king, and by Mildred Natwick—who's got the evil eye. Every once in a while, there's a pause to let the plot catch up—but twelfth century England hasn't been so much fun in years.

Kaye poses as the court jester to win access to the castle's secret passage so that his chief, the Black Fox, can attack and depose false king Parker. An alliance is in the making between the king and Griswold of the North (Middleton) which is bad news for the patriots and is opposed by evil Rathbone (who wants no intruders snatching his influence over the king) and by princess Angela Lansbury (who would have to marry the grisly Griswold). Rathbone also believes the jester is his paid assassin, and the princess believes he is her true love. Miss Johns is also circulating, since she has caught the favor of the king. As the baby, also in the castle, is passed back and forth, and things get thicker and funnier, the jester accidentally wins a duel-to-the-death with Griswold as the band of midgets enter to save England—and all bow to the baby king.

The Independent Film Journal, February 4, 1956

 

Even at sixty-four, Rathbone appears to duel as expertly and easily as he did when he was younger. Fencing coach Ralph Faulkner, who has coached many film greats in the art of dueling, doubled for Rathbone in some of the fencing scenes because the choreography was too fast for Rathbone to keep up.

Danny Kaye learned to fence for the film and picked up the sport so readily that he amazed his instructor, Ralph Faulkner. In his autobiography, Basil Rathbone raves about Danny Kaye, writing that his "exceptional talents have always made a deep impression on me." Rathbone adds that Kaye did not rely on his God-given talents for success, but worked very hard, "with an aptitude for assimilating and perfecting anything he decides to accomplish. ... In 'The Court Jester' we had to fight a duel together with saber. I don't care much for saber but had had instruction in this weapon during my long association with all manner of swords. Our instructor was Ralph Faulkner, a very well-known swordsman on the Coast who had specialized in saber. After a couple of weeks of instruction Danny Kaye could completely outfight me! Even granting the difference in our ages, Danny's reflexes were incredibly fast, and nothing had to be shown or explained to him a second time." (In and Out of Character, pp. 152, 153)

Although Rathbone wrote that a couple of weeks of fencing instruction enabled Danny Kaye to outfight him, Kaye was in fact doubled. In his book, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions, Richard Cohen revealed, "At the insistence of the production heads Kaye's fencing was doubled—partly because Rathbone was then sixty-four, partly for the timing of the comedy effects, and partly for Kaye's own safety, as he had to parry a number of cuts to head and legs with his eyes closed. Later, after his success in The Court Jester, Rathbone was at his Hollywood club taking a foil lesson watched by two old fencing hands. Each time he neared them they would intone, recalling the famous exchange that runs through the film, 'Get it? Got it. Good.' Finally Rathbone could stand it no longer. Flinging off his mask he turned and seethed, 'Please stop it.'" 

Angela Lansbury, who played Princess Gwendolyn, is the daughter of Moyna Macgill, a British stage actress who appeared on the West End stage with Basil Rathbone.  Macgill played Desdemona opposite Rathbone in Othello in 1921. Macgill also appeared in the 1944 film Frenchman's Creek (as Lady Godolfin). She was married to Reginald Denham from 1919 to 1924 (they had one child), and then she married Edgar Lansbury and had Angela. The Court Jester is the only film in which Angela and Basil appeared together.

Glynis Johns (Maid Jean) is a British actress, who, like Basil, was born in South Africa. The Court Jester was her first American film, and the only film she made with Basil Rathbone.

Cecil Parker, the English actor who played King Roderick, appeared in more than 90 films, but The Court Jester was the only film in which he shared the screen with Basil Rathbone. They did, however, work together in the play Tonight or Never that ran at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, in November 1932.

The little people were members of an ensemble called Hermine's Midgets.


Ravenhurst believes the jester poisoned
Brockhurst, Finsdale and Pertwee, and praises him.

Ravenhurst and Sir Locksley
enjoy the jester's performance.

The film was written, directed and produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the talented duo who also wrote several of the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Road" films. The Court Jester wouldn't have been nearly so funny without the witty script penned by Frank and Panama.

With a budget of $3,700,000 production began in January of 1955. The Court Jester was reported to be the most expensive comedy produced as of 1955.  The castle interior and its courtyard were built on two separate Paramount sound stages at the cost of over $200,000.

Filming was completed by March 18, 1955.  Post production (editing, scoring, visual effects, etc.) took about nine months. The Court Jester was released in the United States on January 27, 1956 (February 1 in New York City).

It had a successful opening week, but ended up earning only about $2 million at the box office, half of the $4,000,000 that was invested in it. Years later, The Court Jester came to be considered a comedy classic.

 

The Court Jester

Spoof of medieval romance, a la Danny Kaye, is a good romp. Witty script, great production values, fine cast, add up to topflight entertainment. Big B.O. where Kaye clicks.

This latest Danny Kaye starrer is sumptuously produced, with great eye-appeal, and diverting in its comedy. A spoof of the conventional medieval romance, it is, in addition, filled with the kind of hilarious patter songs and routines that Kaye is justly famous for. The half dozen Fine-Sammy Cahn tunes are witty and engaging. Norman Panama and Melvin Frank—who wrote, produced, and directed this one—have come up with a script that, despite occasional lapses, is well stocked with laughs. In the hand of a master like Kaye, and an unusually capable supporting cast, including Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Cecil Parker and Mildred Natwick, it fairly sparkles. One sequence, in which Natwick, attempting to poison Kaye's enemy, warns Kaye that the poison is in the "vessel with the pestle, not the flagon with the dragon" is a show-stopper. And a scene featuring the American Legion Zouaves drill team in double time will also get howls. The Panama-Frank production is a real eye-filler, resplendent in Technicolor, and in Edith Head-Yvonne Wood costumes. Mixed-up lot concerns the attempt of a group, which includes Kaye and Glynis Johns, to restore the rightful king to the English throne (12th century), and depose pretender Cecil Parker. Kaye enters the court disguised as a jester and the hilarity begins. He unintentionally wins princess Angela Lansbury's love and falls in with traitor Basil Rathbone. After untold complications, the true king is recognized (he's an infant), Kaye and Johns plan to marry.

Film Bulletin, February 6, 1956

 

The Court Jester premiered in London February 9, 1956. Danny Kaye flew to London for the premiere, which was at the Plaza Theatre. The proceeds of the premiere showing went to the West Indies Hurricane Relief Fund. Danny Kaye was not the only celebrity to attend the premiere; H. R. H. Princess Margaret also attended. Her personal interest in the film was due to the fact that it stars Danny Kaye, of whom she was a fervent admirer. She had met him on a number of occasions and had several of his records among her collection. Attending the premiere of the film must have been much more of a personal pleasure than an official duty. The photo to the right shows Princess Margaret greeting Danny Kaye and Glynis Johns in the foyer of the Plaza Theatre, London.

A crowd of two or three hundred people stood outside the theatre despite the intense cold to cheer the Princess when she arrived. Upon her arrival at the cinema, Princess Margaret was received by Lord Lloyd, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and Sir Hubert Rance, the former Governor of Trinidad who was chairman of the West Indies Hurricane Relief Fund. Delegates attending the Caribbean federation conference were presented to the Princess. She had spent a month touring the Caribbean the previous year and visited the offices of the relief fund in London in November 1955.

At the end of the film Danny Kaye came on to the stage and sang some of his most popular songs and entertained the audience for about 40 minutes. Princess Margaret joined in the singing of some of the songs during Kaye's show after the film.

The London premiere of The Court Jester raised around £4000 for the West Indies Hurricane Relief Fund.


The King is surprised to learn that the child (the true king) lives.

Sir Locksley and Ravenhurst

The songs, written by Sammy Cahn and Sylvia Fine (wife of Danny Kaye), include:

  • "The Maladjusted Jester"
  • "Life Could Not Better Be"
  • "My Heart Knows A Lovely Song"
  • "They'll Never Outfox the Fox"
  • "Baby, Let Me Take You Dreaming"
  • "Where Walks My True Love"

The Court Jester is an enjoyable movie and Basil is a superb villain, as always.

Turner Classic Movies has a few "Court Jester" video clips on its website. Here's one that features Basil:

See more pics and reviews on Page Two.

Visit Page Three for pictures of Posters, Lobby Cards and Promo Photos.

.

Cast  
Basil Rathbone ... Ravenhurst
Danny Kaye ... Hawkins
Glynis Johns ... Maid Jean
Angela Lansbury ... Princess Gwendolyn
Cecil Parker ... King Roderick
Mildred Natwick ... Griselda
Robert Middleton ... Sir Griswold
Michael Pate ... Sir Locksley
Herbert Rudley ... Captain of the Guard
Noel Drayton ... Fergus
Edward Ashley ... Black Fox
John Carradine ... Giacomo
Alan Napier ... Sir Brockhurst
Lewis Martin ... Sir Finsdale
Patrick Aherne ... Sir Pertwee
Richard Kean ... Archbishop
Larry Pennell ... Novice Knight
Lloyd Nelson ... Knight
Claud Wuhrman ... Knight
Ray Spiker ... Knight
Tip McClure ... Knight
George Bruggeman ... Knight
Joe Garcio ... Knight
Roger Lee McKee ... Knight Recruit
Frank Meservey ... Knight Recruit
Ronald R. Rice ... Knight Recruit
Leo Britt ... Sir Bertram
Lee Miller ... Frank
Gary and Larry Stalley ... Infant
Russell Gaige Chamberlain
Eric Alden ... King's Man
Bill Cartledge ... Pageboy
Roy G. Gunther ... Pageboy
Norman Papson ... Pageboy
Lee Belser ... Court Lady
Tudor Owen ... Friar
Ethan Laidlaw ... King's Soldier
Charles Irwin ... Griswold Aide
Ray Kellogg ... Court Official
John Irving ... Gate House Guard
Tommy Cottonaro ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Billy Curtis ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Frank Delfino ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Floyd Hugh Dixon ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Irving Douglas ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Irving Fulton ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Edward Peter Gibbons ... One of Hermine's Midgets
James B. Jordan ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Harry Monty ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Nels P. Nelson ... One of Hermine's Midgets
A. J. Buster Resmondo ... One of Hermine's Midgets
"Little Billy" Rhodes ... One of Hermine's Midgets
George Spotts ... One of Hermine's Midgets
Henry Lewis Stone ... One of Hermine's Midgets
   
 
Credits  
Production Company ... Paramount
Producers ... Norman Panama, Melvin Frank
Directors ... Norman Panama, Melvin Frank
Writers ... Norman Panama, Melvin Frank
Cinematographers ... Ray June , Ray Rennahan
Film Editing ... Tom McAdoo
Music ... Vic Schoen, Walter Scharf
Songs ... Sylvia Fine and Sammy Cahn
Choreography ... James Starbuck, Robert Alton
Fight Choreographer ... Ralph Faulkner
Art Directors ... Roland Anderson, Hal Pereira
Set Decorators ... Sam Comer, Arthur Krams
Make up supervisor ... Wally Westmore
Make up artist ... Willard Collee
Costume Design ... Edith Head, Yvonne Wood
Wardrobe ... Bud Clark (Men), Hazel Hegarty (Women)
Hair stylist ... Gertrude Reade
Props ... Carl Coleman, Joe Keller, Lew Vasquez
Sound recordists ... John Cope, Harry Lindgren
Sound mixer ... A. H. Barnett
Sound editor ... Bill Wistrom
Technical Advisor ... D. R. O. Hatswell
Assistant Director ... John Coonan
Second Unit Director ... William Watson
Production Manager ... Hugh Brown
Assistant Production Manager ... Frank Caffey
Unit Production Manager ... Charles Woolstenhulme
Special Photographic Effects ... John P. Fulton, Irmin Roberts
Process Photography ... Farciot Edouart
Technicolor Color Consultant ... Richard Mueller
Stunt double for Basil Rathbone ... Eric Alden
Stunt double for Glynis Johns ... Lila Finn
Stunt double for Danny Kaye ... Allen Pinson, Clint Sharp, Tim Taylor
Stunts ... George Dockstader, Richard Elmore, Bob Herron
Fencing double ... Ralph Faulkner
Dance Instructors ... Wilda Bieber, George Chakins
   

..

The Court Jester is available
on DVD and

Order from Amazon.com
on Blu-ray

Order from Amazon.com
 

.

Images on this page and pages two and three are from The Court Jester, copyright Paramount Pictures.

 

 

click to go to top of page
Top of
Page

Site Map

All original content is © Marcia Jessen, 2022