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England, the Middle Ages: Hawkins (Danny Kaye) is a former performer
and present member of the Black Fox's (Edward Ashley) gang of rebels
opposing King Roderick (Cecil Parker) - but unfortunately he is neither a
good fighter nor too brave to be of too much use, so his services are
mainly needed when he has to smuggle the rightful heir to the throne, a
toddler with a birthmark on his bottom, from one place to the next,
something that requires only minimal fighting but much acting ... Hawkins
is in love with Jean (Glynis Johns), a fierce female fighter, and she
loves him back, but claims she cannot be with him until the toddler has
retaken the throne. Since the two of them don't want to wait too long
though, they make up a plan according to which Hawkins enters the King's
court as the King's new Jester Giacomo - they have captured the real
Giacomo (John Carradine) rather accidently - and get some keys from the
king to open a secret passage to his castle from the inside. a simple
enough plan it seems, since the Black Fox already has a spy in the castle,
but things are soon complicated when Hawkins is led to believe that Sir
Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone) is on the Fox's side when actually he is
scheming to usurp the throne himself and has hired the real Giacomo not so
much as a Jester but also as an assassin. Then there's the king's daughter
Gwendolyn (Angela Lansbury), who has been promised to Sir Griswold (Robert
Middleton), but who has fallen in love with the Jester, and there's
Gwendolyn's clairvoyant Griselda (Mildred Natwick), who hypnotizes Hawkins
into being a dashing hero, just to keep him with Gwendolyne (on which
Griselda's life depends), but allof Hawkins' courage can be wiped out by
the snap of a finger. As if that wasn't bad enough, Jean is brought to the
castle as well, to be made the king's new consort, and somehow the baby
and rightful heir to the throne changes hands multiple times. Everything
leads to a duel to the death between Hawkins and Griswold, which Hawkins
wins by mistake, but then he's tried for being the Black Fox (which he
isn't of course) and convicted even, upon which a gang of midgets from his
time with the theatre attack the court from within and manage to turn
things to Hawkins' favour, and when the Black Fox and his men finally
arrive, the fight is already half done - but in the finale, Hawkins
engages in a swordfight to the death with Ravenhurst, in and out of
Griselda's hypnotic spell ... but of course, in the end it all ends
happily ... On the surface, The Court Jester is pretty
much like its star Danny Kaye, likeable but (a bit too) harmless, which is
why it's probably the perfect vehicle for him. Beneath the pure surface
though, The Court Jester is quite fascinating for its narrative
mechanics, because other than most American comedies it does not relie on
a straight-forward story that moves from point A to point B to point C,
but is a cleverly convoluted plot that falls into many seemingly unrelated
subplots that all come to one and the same culmination in the finale and
that are not at some point abandoned for a few cheap jokes (as happens in
many comedies). Add to this a bit of well-executed slapstick, a few
funny sight-gags, some quotable dialogue and a splendid villainous
performance by Basil Rathbone, and you are left with a film that maybe
falls a few inches short of being a comic masterpiece, but it's a very
enjoyable movie nevertheless.
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