Product: The Court Jester [VHS] (1956)
Rating: 4.0
King of jesters
Danny Kaye: multi-talented, cute as a button with his red hair and long dimples, funny and absolutely adorable with children. Too bad Hollywood had him play similar roles through his career: kind, shy, a bit weird sometimes but always good-natured and ready to sing (in multiple pseudo-languages) and dance. Even if you sometimes find his work a bit irritating or too expectable because of this, you might like this movie.Here he is doing the same again, this time with a bit more panache. Hubert Hawkins (Kaye) lives in the woods with outlaws taking care of the real king, still a baby. Hawkins is reduced to being the nanny, but wishes to be a hero. And he finally gets his chance, when the king has to be transfered. Unfortunately the new king wants to have a ball and his men are looking for pretty wenches to attend it, so Hawkins' companion (Glynis Johns) gets taken. Also Hawkins makes a mistake when looking for his contact inside the castle and starts making plans with one of the greatest villains (and Sherlocks), Basil Rathbone. Alan Rickman -fans: if you still don't know Rathbone, check this one out, you might like him, too.The princess (Angela Lansbury) has been waiting for a prince that would take him away, and she takes a fancy to Hawkins, who arrives disguised as the new jester, straight from Italian court - the best place to court Italians. He is mixed up in several plots and gets hypnotized like that *snap* in and out all the time, without knowing what's happening. So the mess is ready - and the king, the baby with the purple pimpernel, is still in the castle, in danger of being found out...The movie is absolutely one of the best Kaye made, colourful, fast, hilarious, with wonderful word-games. Still it is a pity he never really got to try on a different kind of a role, something with some depth. But one must work and in his (or Sylvia Fine's) own words: "A jester unemployed is nobody's fool!"