THE COURT JESTER
US, 1955, 102 minutes, Colour.
Danny Kaye, Glynnis Johns, Angela Lansbury, Basil Rathbone, Cecil Parker, Robert Middleton, Mildred Natwick.
Directed by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank.
The Court Jester is a very enjoyable Danny Kaye film. It was made by the team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank who were also responsible for the successful comedy, Knock on Wood, which preceded this particular film. Danny Kaye was at the peak of his comic career at this stage in the mid-50s. He has many hilarious routines and charming songs. The whole film is also a most enjoyable re-creation of the Middle Ages and parody of all the aspects of the Middle Ages that we know best. A strong English cast gives very enjoyable support to Danny Kaye. A very funny film still.
1. How successful a comedy? How much was due to Danny Kaye and his style of comedy? The situations, characters, dialogue, parody of medieval costume dramas?
2. Why do audiences like Medieval costume dramas? What are their expectations? How were these fulfilled in this comedy and parody?
3. How much did the film depend on its colour, its songs and their humorous verses, the dance routines, the comedy routines, especially with Danny Kaye?
4. what values did it presuppose in its audience? About the nature of kings and monarchy? Loyalty, the Robin Hood type of outlaw, villains, witches, power and plots, love, the right order of things?
5. How attractive a character was Hawkins? What kind of comic figure does Danny Kaye represent? The poor innocent man? Yet the achievement? Fear, courage,, humour, improvisation, success? How attractive is this kind of comic character?
6. How attractive was Jean as a heroine? Anything special as a heroine?
7. The portrait of the king? The humour of Cecil Parker's performance? A comic bad king?
8. The comic performance of Gwendolen? As a fairy princess, hard-headed, contradicting her father, threatening the witch, falling in love with the jester? The parody of the fairy princess?
9. The humour of the witch and her desperate plots?
10. Ravenhurst as the typical villain of medieval costume dramas? Plot and plans, the sword fighting at the end? Basil Rathbone's Hollywood image?
11. Comment on the presentation of the situations, the court itself, the Jester, treaties and bargains, plots, feasts, raising to knighthood, jousts, the final siege?
12. How enjoyable were the routines; especially the fox song, Danny Kaye’s old man, the routine of the Duke and the Doge, the finger snapping, the Yea, Verily, Yea, the vessel with the poison, the magnetised armour, the dwarfs?
13. What is the overall effect of this kind of comedy on audiences? Why are such comedies good film?
