Other typical things about the jester were his constant laughter and his mock scepter, known as a bauble or maharoof. The film has an excellent supporting cast (including Glynis Johns, Cecil Parker and Angela Lansbury), and colourful costumes by famous designer Edith Head. The three points of the hat represent the asses' ears and tail worn by jesters when they first appeared. ‘The Court Jester’ is one of Danny Kaye’s most delightful comedy vehicles - although, let’s face it, he’s pretty much delightful in everything he did. Their hats, sometimes called the cap ’n bells or cockscomb, were special made of cloth, they were floppy with three points (liliripes) each of which had a jingle bell at the end. Jesters typically wore brightly colored clothing. It's been added to my own Flickchart at #1803 (51%), where it comes in as #31 of the 51 musical comedies I've seen.The Simple English Wiktionary has a definition for:Ī jester, joker, fool, or buffoon, is a type of entertainer mostly (but not always) associated with the Middle Ages. The Court Jester is Hannah's 7th favorite musical comedy out of 98, ranking at #43 (98%) out of the 2566 total movies on her Flickchart. The Court Jester was brought to my Potluck Film Fest by Hannah Keefer, who can be found on Flickchart and Letterboxd under the username purplecow17.

I may have liked it more than I care to admit. Also like The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Court Jester is colorful with some pleasingly fun swashbuckling action. However, Kaye (or, rather, my likely insane reaction to him) doesn't totally derail The Court Jester, which features clever dialog, an army of midgets, and appealing co-stars like Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury and Basil Rathbone. Even that can work, if it's dryly delivered (see Bill Murray), but there's a further eagerness and energy to Kaye that results in an uncanny valley of humor. Danny Kaye Glynis Johns Basil Rathbone Angela Lansbury Cecil Parker Mildred Natwick Robert Middleton Michael Pate Herbert Rudley Noel Drayton John Carradine Edward Ashley Alan Napier Lewis Martin Patrick Aherne Richard Kean Leo Britt. In fact, the basis of the comedy in the Court Jester never exploits a personal failing of Kaye's character he merely has to weather a flurry of mayhem, and is even oblivious to most of it, coasting through with a smirk on his face. Kaye trips the same knee-jerk negative reaction in me that punished Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood two years ago: Kaye is smug, and often comes off like the cool rich kid who beat up a scrawny comedian and stole his act, compensating for his lack of vulnerability with cute little faces and dances that practically mock entertainment itself. Hawkins infiltrates the court of the evil villain Basil Rathbone, but when a sorceress hypnotises him, royal chaos ensues. While Kaye's character in The Court Jester could fit any of those slots - he's unappreciated and lovestruck - Kaye is too confident and self-satisfied to play weakness, which makes the humor less funny and his character less charming than he thinks he is. The Court Jester (2,557) 7.8 1 h X-Ray G Danny Kaye plays kind-hearted entertainer Hawkins who disguises himself as the legendary king of jesters, Giacomo.

There's a yearning behind the comedy, a hopelessly self-sabotaging need to belong, that gives it both edge and pathos. Allen's persona, however, fits one or more of a few very common comic archetypes - misfit, neurotic, buffoon - all of which are defined by their outsider status.

it's an amiable comedy with a few nice laughs, and I appreciated it most when I could detect in Kaye's quips the influence that he undoubtedly had on Woody Allen (the plot of The Court Jester even slightly foreshadows Allen's great 1975 comedy Love and Death). There's something about Danny Kaye that I find off-putting, and that, probably unfairly, put The Court Jester at a disadvantage.

Imdb.com the court jester