The Court Jester (1955)

The Court Jester is a 1955 musical-comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury and Cecil Parker. The movie was co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. The film was released by Paramount Pictures in Technicolor and in the VistaVision widescreen format.

Danny Kaye received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor - Comedy/Musical.

Made for a cost of $4 million in the fall of 1955, it was the most expensive comedy film produced at the time. The motion picture bombed at the box-office on its release, bringing in only $2.2 million in receipts the following winter and spring of 1956. Since then, it has become a television matinee favorite. The film contains the famous exchange: "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" (mainly between Kaye and Mildred Natwick as Griselda).

In 2000, The Court Jester was listed at #98 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Years... 100 Laughs. In 2004, The Court Jester was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Synopsis

Set in medieval England, the plot concerns the struggle to restore to the throne the rightful heir, a baby with a distinguishing birthmark, the purple pimpernel on his posterior. Danny Kaye plays Hubert Hawkins, an ex-carnival entertainer who becomes minstrel to the Black Fox, a Robin Hood-type character who leads a band of rebels in the forest in support of the true infant-king.

Actors