#25 The Court Jester (1956)

Seriously, it looks like he lost a bet.

The Court Jester is a star-studded film that is only a musical by definition because Danny Kaye occasionally sings. It is the most fast-paced, disorienting, silly movie I have ever watched, and I enjoyed every absurd minute of it.

The movie begins with Danny prancing around during the title sequence to hype up the fairy tale they’ll be reenacting over the next hour and thirty minutes while also assuring the audience actually read the credit sequence. Which, y’know, whatever you gotta do.

Once Upon a Time, King Roderick the Tyrant, a jolly, smiley old man who massacred an entire family to take the throne, is heading home with a bunch of his homicidal friends. One of his knights is unceremoniously murdered by an arrow with a note tied to it, because I’m guessing a pigeon wasn’t available. The Black Fox (think Robin Hood, but way less charismatic), the King’s nemesis, sends a (literal) message to warn King Roderick his days are numbered – There is a rightful heir to the throne, and he’s an infant that has a distinctive flower on his butt!

This has King Roderick shaking in his perfectly aligned tight seams and the group books it back to the safety of the castle leaving the poor unmoving knight on the side of the road. His advisor, Sir Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone), assures the king this news is nonsense, but the rest of his council (Brockhurst, Finsdale, and Pertwee) suggest the King should form an alliance with Sir Griswold – an alpha male from a neighboring kingdom that is so big and strong he’d send The Black Fox packing. Sir Ravenhurst disagrees, which sends these petty and dramatic queens into a slapping fight which is only quelled when someone suggests they marry off Princess Gwendolyn (my love Angela Lansbury) to Griswold cause she’s got nothing currently on her calendar. Gwendolyn reacts to this news by threatening to jump off the building since she is also a petty and dramatic queen. Her behavior is blamed on her handmaiden Griselda, cause there’s absolutely no other reason why Gwendolyn would want to marry for love.

Meanwhile, the band of The Black Fox are out in the forest having a grand ‘ol time with their in-house entertainment!

They’ve really gotta work on rebranding cause at first glance I thought they were wearing Nazi armbands.

Hubert Hawkins (Danny Kaye), while a jester by trade, wants to contribute more than singing and dancing to the cause. He’s even recruited an entire troupe of little people from the local carnival to free up some of his time to swashbuckle with the rest of them. The Black Fox instead puts him on babysitting duty with a Tarzan swinging Mrs. Banks, which apparently includes flashing the kid’s bottom to anybody who wants to pledge loyalty to a royal.

After discovering there’s a snitch in the castle, the stunningly beautiful Captain Jean (Glynis Johns) and Hubert, in order to keep the baby with the purple pimpernel buttmark concealed, dress in disguise to traffic the child in a wine barrel to an Abbey. Hawkins’ old man shenanigans frustrate the King’s knights enough that they don’t suspect the pair are involved with The Black Fox and let them continue on their journey.

They take shelter in a dilapidated shack for the night and The Captain’s ovaries explode watching Hubert sing the child to sleep with his buttery voice.

And, oh no! There’s only one pile of hay they have to share! Maid Jean keeps her cool by telling Hawkins beta males can attract even strong men like her, and Hawkins replies her she’d make a pretty good girl before planting a kiss on her. Jean tries to steer the conversation back to their mission, but Hawkins, seeing now he has a chance, can’t take his lips off of her.

“I wonder if she’s thinking about other guys…”
“There’s a secret tunnel under the castle that leads to the King’s chambers!”

But wouldn’t you know, at that very moment, the King’s future court jester Giacomo wanders into the shack looking for shelter. He just happens to be the type of person who would have access to the King and be able to grab the key to the secret tunnel. Instead of recruiting him into the cause, Jean brains Giacomo and asks Hawkins to take his place since he has all that convenient carnival experience.

Back at the castle The King is still struggling because Gwennie doesn’t want to marry the Grim, Grizzly, Gruesome Grossy McGrosserson Griswold! Even though he has an unwilling bride-to-be, the King figures if he can distract Griswold with bitches there’s a greater chance he’ll comply, sending his knights out to grab a cartful of them. Ravenhurst also suggests their new jester might be able to provide some levity, which the king agrees to without knowing that Ravenhurst, in addition to being petty and dramatic, is also a scheming queen and The Original Giacomo was hired because he was a secret skilled assassin!

Unfortunately for Jean, the King’s quest for hoes intercepts her baby-concealing wine cart on the way to the abbey and she is dragged to the castle ahead of a bumbling Hawkins. She rendezvous with The Black Fox’s inside guy Fergus and asks him to take the surprisingly mute baby to the Jester’s quarters in anticipation for Hawkins’ arrival. She then steals the key from the King’s quarters herself since she has to do fucking everything.

Hawkins/Giacomo arrives a few moments later to the delight of Ravenhurst and Griselda – the former because he wants Giacomo to go on a murderous rampage, and the latter because she convinced Gwendolyn the dude with the pointy shoes is her One True Love in order to weasel her way out of a Gwendolyn’s pre-wedding murder-suicide pact.

The King asks “Giacomo” to choose the best wench for him since he assumes this man wearing the biggest feather I’ve ever seen in a hat is a massive slut who would be able to tell which bitch was quality. He’s quickly intercepted by Griselda who, in a quest to save her own skin, hypnotizes him into wanting to fuck Gwendolyn. Fergus witnesses this and is rightfully disgusted.

Jean, barefoot and key laden, stumbles upon Hawkins on his way to get his dick wet and since he has a singular focus, Hawkins pimps Jean out to the King. Excited to be dining with such a beautiful woman, the King ignores the fact it’s usually not a good sign if the guards have to physically restrain your date.

Arriving at the Princess’s chambers, “Giacomo” lays on the charm hard, telling her they’ll run away together. The Princess takes the key to the secret tunnel under the assumption they will meet and flee in the dead of night. The King uses this exact moment to check in on his daughter, immediately uncovers her plan to leave and steals the key back making the last 10 minutes useless. After a brief side-quest where “Giacomo” agrees to murder the council for Ravenhurst, Griselda removes the love spell and erases Hawkins’ memory for funsies and to further complicate the plot.

After getting all dolled up, Jean is escorted to the King on the way to dinner only to find out that left unsupervised, Hawkins got himself in a shitload of trouble and also returned the key to the King. He is, however, able to perform well enough to distract the King from the baby in a basket.

Things are further derailed after Griselda poisons the King’s entire council during a toast and somehow nobody cares about this except Ravenhurst who thinks that “Giacomo” did it. This doesn’t prevent the wedding of her lady to Griswold, however, since Gwendolyn outs her love for “Giacomo” the second Griswold walks through the door. Griswold decides to win Gwen’s hand through TRIAL BY COMBAT, which means “Giacomo” needs to be declared a knight to participate.

Ravenhurst, pleased with how his plan is progressing, praises the man who hired Giacomo, who instead blindsides him with, “My guy, this development is cool and all, but I’ve never seen that dude in my life.” They assume Hawkins is The Black Fox for whatever reason, and instead of ratting him out to the king, they advocate for expediting the jester’s knighthood so he will be forced to kill Griswold. The knights go out of their way to rig the tests so THE CANDIDATE PASSES, damning Hawkins to most certainly die by Griswold’s blade.

Tasked with keeping the mission afloat, Captain Jean attempts to seduce the king to once again steal the key. She succeeds in both turning him on, and then turning him off by regaling the plague that unfortunately killed her family, and like, imagine being scared of catching a contagious virus. Just take some horse dewormer, King, you’ll be fine. Jean gets the key and hands it off to Fergus to be sent by bird to the legitimate Black Fox, proving you don’t need to send messages by murder.

Hawkins’ fears are inching closer and closer to reality as he is incredibly enthusiastically knighted by ceremony. Griswold immediately challenges him to TRIAL BY COMBAT and Hawkins accepts under the assumption The Black Fox will come soon and take his place in battle.

Steering back from that tangent, the morning of the big fight arrives and The Black Fox is nowhere to be seen as the secret passage is partially collapsed only leaving room for someone the size of a small child and if only The Black Fox knew of several small child-sized men who could navigate their way through the tunnel and start a diversion… The Black Fox, instead of saving Hawkins’ life, decides to change the plan by recruiting Hawkins’ acrobat friends (which he could have done at the beginning of this movie) and use them as a distraction to gain access to the castle.

Hung out to dry, Hawkins once again finds an ally in Griselda, whose neck is once again on the line as Gwendolyn declares if Giacomo is killed Griselda will be next. Griselda only knows of one way to kill a man, however, and poisons one of the cups that will be used for the pregame toast, as if pregame toasts were a thing. Problem is, Hawkins is having issues trying to remember which chalice’s contents won’t make him foam at the mouth and limply fall over.

RED LEATHER YELLOW LEATHER RED LEATHER YELLOW LEATHER UNIQUE NEW YORK UNIQUE NEW YORK

But right before the joust Hawkin’s armor is struck by lightning which magnetizes it and oh my god I think whoever wrote this movie was on cocaine what is even happening. Danny Kaye changes out of his disco tunic and belt-I-swore-they-sold-at-Hot-Topic-in-2003 combo and dons his electrified armor to face his destiny. After the toast goes absolutely nowhere since Griswold gets word of the poison, they begin to battle and Griswold immediately knocks Hawkins’ block off.

BUT THROUGH THE POWER OF A LITERAL ACT OF GOD Griswold’s mace gets stuck to Hawkins’ shield and he falls off his horse in defeat. Hawkins spares Griswold’s life and is promised Gwendolyn’s hand in marriage after The King’s mealy mouthed apology about trying to get him killed and shit. This is a short lived victory as Hawkins is quickly outed by Ravenhurst as The Black Fox and Captain Jean as his accomplice. Poor Fergus was caught and tortured to reveal the heir apparent is hiding in the castle somewhere and Ravenhurst isn’t about to take his chances at The Black Fox snatching the title of son-in-law.

Captain Jean and Hawkins are summoned before the court with Hubert sporting a surprising amount of chest hair for a prisoner. It’s at that moment dozens of acrobats descend on the knights, launching their hilariously mannequin-esque bodies via catapult into the sea.

While The Black Fox and his men overthrow the castle, Hawkins confronts Ravenhurst mono e mono to mixed results. It isn’t until Griselda Space-Jam-waters him into having confidence that Hawkins is able to corner Ravenhurst for a small moment to show off his wonderful dissection skills.

THE END.

This movie is a plot-heavy non-stop frantic fever dream that is also incredibly charming and funny. While I’m not completely sold on Danny Kaye and Glynis Johns’ romantic connection, they play off each other incredibly well.

The whole cast sells the story in all its grand, melodramatic farce. Angela Lansbury, who is disorienting to see with long hair, cracked me up every time she threated to hurl herself off of a turret or murder a maid in order to get her way. Glynis really is our true hero, constantly running around keeping the motley crew on track, even if they didn’t let her wear shoes the entire movie. Danny Kaye’s facial expressions alone would have been worth more than the price of admission. I’ve watched this 4 times now and I find something new to giggle at during each repeat.

If you’re looking for an evening full of brainless slapstick, The Court Jester more than fits the bill. Let the man in the ostentatious outfit entertain you – it’s his job.