Perfect cast and a good story

One of my all time favorites.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Awesome Movie

The Movie was bordering on very good, and could have been so, had the director avoided or at least toned down on certain comedy sequences, that were not very original, and even had they been original, shouldn't be prolonged beyond a limit.It is a costume comedy, as had been mentioned elsewhere.An entertainer decides to joined a Robin-hood type gang, to free the nation from the pretender King Roderick (a la Prince John) and put the real King (King Richard is unnamed infant here). The critical identifier here isn't the Richard's shield, but a Purple (not scarlet) pimpernel, a birthmark carried by each member of the royal family at a certain, not publicly displayable portion of the anatomy. The Lady Marian here, ditches the Robin Hood (Black Fox), and rather decides to align her fate with the Jester (a cross between Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett, minus the valor and skill with arms). Probably being an Amazon herself, she though one fighter in a family was more than enough. To put the Infant into the throne, he has to be brought to the castle, and the two, the Jester and the Marianne become his nanny/ guardian. Where the two become separated, one pursued by the King, and other by the Princess Regent.There is a fully qualified witch, to help them, especially the Jester, whose life has to be protected, by order of the Princess. She could by magic transform the meek jester into an Erol Flynn/ Fairbank Sr type swordsman cum gallant lover. To clarify, it was Magic, not hypnotism. The other barriers could be overcome by Hypnotism, but you can't make him the best swordsman by it. Naturally the end result is known. The movie went well till about two third length. It was sufficiently paced, so that the comedy could be enjoyed. Probably after that the Director found that there were lot of budgeted reels were left blank, and to consume them he started stretching things .Breaking trance by snap of fingers is usually a Hypnotist's work, here the magician too put it as the toggle switch to change the state., but I won't harp on that. It was the number of times that was used, that became painful. And especially when it was nothing new, even for the audiences of mid fifties. Similarly the second thing, about the identification of the chalices (with poison vs without) was not only sillier, but soon became outright boring. And this too wasn't something new, it has been 'adapted' from, at least one movie I can recollect, Never Say Die (1939), of similar circumstances, duel, only there it was the mark on the compromised revolver. Both there as well as here, it, after two or three repetitions felt downright silly, especially when the actors keep on loudly repeating the phrase for all to hear. Two third of the movie is about 8 pointer, but the end one third is about 3 to 4 stars.

Danny Kaye only made a handful of features but this was the films that best displayed his gifts. In this spoof of Errol Flynn swashbucklers, set in merry old England, he plays Hubert Hawkins, a former carnival entertainer who now works for a notorious Robin Hood-like outlaw named The Black Fox. He gets involved in court intrigue when the infant king has his birthright usurped by the imposter Roderick. Hawkins gets himself involved in a convoluted plot: The phony king finds out where The Black Fox's camp is located and so the outlaw instructed Hawkins to escort the infant monarch – who bears the royal birthmark, the purple pimpernel, on his posterior – away from the camp. He and maid Jean (Glynnis O'Conner) elude the king's men disguised as an elderly wine merchant and his granddaughter. Slipping away, they find shelter in an old farmer's shack where they are joined by Giacomo (John Carradine) who pronounces himself "King of Jesters and Jester to the King". A light bulb goes off in Hubert's head and he whomps Giacomo over the head, intending to steal his identity and slip into the palace, installing himself in the king's confidence while planning to let The Black Fox's forces in in order to overtake the throne.The plot is probably more complicated than it needs to be – what we really want to see is Danny doing his thing. We want to see his snappy performance of "You'll Never Outfox the Fox" which he performs to boost morale within the camp. We want to see his performance of "The Maladjusted Jester", a performance before the phony king that displays his gift for tongue twisters. And of course we want to see the famous bit involving two goblets, one of which is poisoned and the other is safe "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" Ah-Ha but there's a change in the plan so it becomes "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true." We want to see the verbal dance as he explains to the King the business of the duty to the Duke and the Doge and Duchess and the details therein.With his craft honed in his youth in the Catskills, Kaye is a fanciful presence, a man of merriment who knows how to kid himself. He spent years perfecting his vocal inflections, his dances, his singing voice, he is the consummate entertainer. He can change personalities on a dime as in scene in which he is under a spell cast by the witch Gremelda. When she snaps her fingers he goes into a trance in which he becomes the greatest swordsman of all. Fighting the evil Sir Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone), he unknowingly snaps his fingers and his mind switches back to the fumbling Hubert then another snap of the fingers and he is again the Hubert the expert swordsman.I love the way this heavily plotted movie takes time out to give him his moments. Example is "The Maladjusted Jester" number in which he is thrust before the King to make him laugh, but he has nothing to work with, so he just makes it up. We know that it is rehearsed and practiced but he makes his act look effortless, this dance of words and of song are flawless. That's why it always makes me a little sad that he never got the credit for his performance here. He was a pure joy to watch. He said "If you're not cooking with joy, happiness and love, you're not cooking well."

Few films so I left good impression on children as this which he stars, Danny Kaye, with so much grace and charm. His colorful setting, as effective as the best fairy tale, the elegant costumes that glow in each character, and his humorous situations, amid all the hubbub for putting on the throne to the rightful heir and bring the same to the licentious usurper fully entertained me and made me crave years later to see her again and hopefully have it in my files. And now, the liberal target, the occasion provided me nicely, I see with eyes full of nostalgia, as it preserves the visual magic and much of the charm of this pleasant film. And I have never laugh laughter with "hard" evidence for knighthood to our beloved buffoon. He also smiled at length with the fight at the Palace between the king's men and the Lilliputians of the forest. And I enjoyed the best with a delicious tangle of the pill in the cup with mortar.The film is still without objection, although, at times - now that adults play at being analytical -, we have to pretend to be a blind eye to the simplicity with which certain situations are resolved. But in a comedy, sustainable thesis is always permissive, and one does not repair, so hard, if the output of the hero is because of his wit or excessive clumsiness imposed on their rivals. "THE COURT JESTER", get get us full in his colorful scenery and much appreciated in the intricacies of impersonating a buffoon who was expected as a calculating murderer. We look forward to the barefoot Jean (an attractive Glynnis Johns) eager to help the commoner than has been in love. Again we prepare for the cold and cruel stratagems of Basil Rathbone, the adversary par excellence of so many heroes swordsmen. And Angela Lansbury, very young, very graceful looks like Princess Gwendoline, a man eager for the start of forced marriage to being prepared.Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the duo director of this film - and some others as "Above and Beyond" or "Knock on wood" - is here, for us, is perhaps his best, his work as writers discounted where harvested various successes. Her spark for irony, for the visual humor and more accommodating to the atmosphere, is very thinly settled here.

This is one of the better Kate vehicles, one that remains watchable half a century later. It features most, if not all, of the Kaye schtick; the tongue-twisters, the mugging, the balladeering - in this case a lullaby - all the stuff in fact that tends to grate when the earlier - 40s - movies surface on TV. It helps, of course, that Basil Radford is on hand as chief villain. Radford was, hands down, the finest swordsman in Hollywood ( fencer, for the pedants, though I accept that Radford's old opponent Errol Flynn was a swordsman in both senses of the word) and more could have been made of the final showdown between him and Kaye instead of aborting the duel via catapult. The plot was old when Cain was lining up Abel in his cross-hairs but no one really notices. Sammy Cahn weighed in with some fine (sorry about that, Sylvia) lyrics with Mrs Kaye, Slyvia Fine, restricted to music only with the exception of The Maladjusted Jester, John Carradine appeared all too briefly as the real Giacomo and all in all a good time was had by all.