Giacomo isn’t merely “the gayest and wittiest entertainer in Europe” but secretly “the most skillful, devious, and subtle master of the art of assassination”.Įvery convenience is met with an equal and opposite inconvenience until it becomes impossible to tell them apart and pointless to analyze a plot that delights in its own dizzy merriment. Thanks to absurd convenience, Hubert inveigles his way into the castle by pretending to be Giacomo (John Carradine), the new Italian court jester hired by Ravenhurst. No sooner are these words out of her mouth than the plot of masquerades and cross-purposes kicks up several notches and begins spinning madly. My father’s influence made me everything I am,” and he answers, “He does beautiful work.” She goes on to admit that, “in fact, I think he really wanted me to be a boy.” She answers, “It’s the way I was brought up.
“Why does such a little girl have to do such a big job?” he asks, getting closer. The conversation proceeds smoothly if patronizingly to her own gender non-conformity, aside from her blazing red lipstick. “I find it hard to believe that the captain could ever be fond of a man who isn’t a fighter,” says he, and she replies, “Sometimes tenderness and kindness can also make a man, a very rare man.” She’d seen him singing a lullaby to the royal babe.
In an early scene, Hubert and Captain Jean, who’s commanding him, share a bed of hay, and Jean more or less lets her hair down. More pertinently, the “unmanly” quality is one Kaye foregrounded and exploited for his whole career. Such subversion of heroic stereotypes is a common quality of comedy heroes, such as Bob Hope’s cowardly persona (which owes much to Frank and Panama) or Jerry Lewis’ nasal man-child.
Film the court jester movie#
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, though as a child I felt disturbed by how far he seemed from a standard manly movie hero. We’ve essayed to say that in this film and many others, Kaye’s fancy prancing and flowery gestures and rubber-faced mugging and rhythmic delivery may come across, to some viewers, as gayer than Christmas. Sorry, we’re getting carried away by the screenplay’s wordplay. Actually, a literal key is a key McGuffin in the story, and that’s okay for Kaye. Here we arrive at a key element in Kaye’s persona.
Standing next to him is the bold and beautiful Captain Jean (Glynis Johns), a rebel wench with a peremptory and take-charge attitude. He feels this duty is more appropriate to a woman in other words, he feels emasculated. Meanwhile, Hubert feels embarrassed to be tasked with proving the baby’s royal lineage to new recruits by flashing “the purple pimpernel”, the royal birthmark on his royal posterior.
They promise to be available if he changes his mind, and so the comedy establishes that the story will partly be about how seemingly unlikely and non-standard heroes can save the day if given a chance. “Hmm,” says the Black Fox without conviction, and he dismisses the little people with as much condescension. This activity turns out to be a feint, for Kaye’s character is merely circus acrobat Hubert Hawkins, who longs to prove his manly mettle in a fight for justice. But hold! One rightful royal babe has been spirited away to the forest by the dashing and mysterious Black Fox (Edward Ashley).Īt first, the viewer thinks Kaye plays the Black Fox because he tells us so in a lively and elaborate scene of musical cavorting surrounded by a troupe of little people billed as Hermine’s Midgets. As a narrator explains, the throne has been usurped by King Roderick (Cecil Parker) after his right-hand conniving scoundrel, Lord Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone), caused the royal family to be massacred. Set in some never-never-England, the story spoofs Robin Hood and other swashbuckling heroes. It’s one of several films written, produced, and directed by the hardy team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, who found in Kaye an ideal performer for their tendency to mix verbal and physical humor in fiendishly complex plots. The Court Jester(1956), a just-about-perfect example of a Danny Kaye vehicle, arrives on Blu-ray for the first time in the Paramount Presents line.
0 kommentar(er)
