Product: The Court Jester [VHS] (1956)
Rating: 5.0
Get it: it's GOOD
The AFI has a list of the 100 funniest films ever made. They check The Court Jester in at number 98, I believe. Unfortunately, the previous 97 may be comedies, so-called, but they aren't that funny. The Court Jester, on the other hand, is, without shadow of a doubt, one of the two or three funniest films in the history of movie-making. This is a killer for making you, or me, at any rate, laugh like an uncontrolled, hysterical drain. The sequence where Kaye is initiated into the solemn order of knighthood --- a process normally taking three years --- in the space of five minutes, has me screaming with hilarity, every time. It's painful. Yea, verily, yea. His virtuoso performance, under hypnosis, as the most dashing blade that ever swashed a rapier, will never be bettered. Especially when he decides to do a spot of mattress-bouncing. Ha-Ha! He laughs at danger. This is a fantastically funny film. Incidentally, Sean, it's the inimitable Cecil Parker's Royal Court, not Basil Rathbone's --- although, admittedly, Basil is the King of Dastards. Ten out of five for this one.