Kitty Hollywood - The Court Jester - 1956

There has never been a point in time when this film has failed to put a smile on my face. I remember watching it as a child and thinking 'WHO is this guy who gets to go crazy making faces and funny voices he is NUTS and I love him' and that was the start of my relationship with Danny Kaye.

I'm not saying he's perfect - I find 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' very dull at various points in the story, but get him a good script that allows him to incorporate his madness as necessary plots points and you have a winner. He is an extraordinary performer and the work he did for numerous charities - UNICEF being the chief one, is something to be marvelled at. As he has said - "I believe deeply that children are more powerful than oil, more beautiful than rivers, more precious than any other natural resource a country can have," "I feel that the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life is to be associated with UNICEF."

There are so many scenes in this film that I come to thinking 'oh good, it's this one now.' There's a section quite early on where Kaye is disguised as an old man and Glynis Johns is playing his granddaughter. The Evil King Roderick's guards descend on them and after a great deal of flummery they get to the point where the guard is asking about a royal babe with a mark on his bottom.

Guard Captain: Enough! Have you seen a group in the forest with a child?
Hawkins: Uh what's that? What? What?
Guard Captain: A child! A child!
Hawkins: A child. Child. Oh! (indicating Maid Jean) Lovely child, pretty little creature, isn't it? (Scolding) but you stay away from her!
Guard Captain: No, no no no, a child! (Gestures) So big! Uh with a little mark on...
Hawkins (shouted interruption): You do and I'll break every bone in your body!

You can see it coming and it doesn't matter one bit - you still laugh out loud. I know for a fact that I used to charge around the house saying 'Dire News, Sire' and Mr Kitty would look at me and sigh, but I was Having Fun, so it didn't matter. And as for 'The Pellet with the Poison' - well, interestingly, the  rumour was that the concept was generously borrowed from a Bob Hope film called 'Never Say Die' - "There's a cross on the muzzle of the pistol with the bullet and a nick on the handle of the pistol with the blank." You can compare the two here. I can certainly state which one I prefer.

Now, onto the other actors. Glynis Johns is not only famous for her Broadway performances - she is famous, especially to The Young for her performance in 'Mary Poppins' as Mrs Winifred Banks, mother and suffragette.

There is something about Johns - I don't know what exactly but I am sure her voice has a lot to do with it, that makes her absolutely compelling. One of the earliest films I ever saw her in was 'Miranda' - a 1948 British film about a mermaid (she is the mermaid) and she is just the whole package in that film - light and fluffy as it is - but so smart and cool and sexy.

Mildred Natwick and Cecil Parker are both superb in this film. Natwick plays the victim and the baddy at the same time in many scenes and her comic timing is a thing to behold.

Parker has no problem with appearing ridiculous, which is to his credit. His scene with Johns regarind Breckenridge's Scourge is a textbook exercise in characters commencing the scene with one point of view and exiting with an other. 


I believe I also indicated that I was going to tell you who John Carradine's granddaughter was. Now, I know John Carradine best from 'Stagecoach' with John Wayne, but he was in a gazillion film from the 1930's through to the 1980's. Dead Impressive. He also had five sons, and four of them became actors. Bruce, David, Keith and Robert.

Keith then went on to have some children, and one these children is....

The one, the only - Martha Plimpton. Running on Empty, The Goonies, The Mosquito Coast - she has many films to her credit that made an indelible impression on me. I can't particularly spot the resemblance, but I'm okay with that.

If you are looking at the credits and wondering who the hell 'The American Legion of Zouaves of Richard F. Smith Post No, 29 Jackson, Michigan' - they were a U.S Civil War reenactment group (ofcoursetheywere). They are the dudes who are doing all the fast marching in Kaye's Knighting Scene - I guess it was just easier (and cheaper?) to hire them to perform the scene than to train up dancers. It's a pretty extraordinary scene, and I keep wanting to pull up Danny Kaye's leggings every time I watch it. I know that that is the point, but stilll....

And finally - the gowns. Oh my goodness the gowns. Edith Head and Yvonne Wood should have opened a shop together. I am sure that this is one of those films I watched as a child where they just seemed to have utterly glamorous gowns in every colour of the rainbow and I wanted them all.  What matter does it make that they are utterly racy and obviously very well corsetted in an age when they would not have been?

I really like Angela in this blue number. It suits her beautifully.

Danny and Glynis both look pretty foxy here - he's got that whole open shirt thing going on without being sleazy.

She looks pretty fabulous in this green one as well - plus there are all the other actors in the background who are dying of jealousy about her Off The Shoulder thing.

Plus draperies. You can never have enough draperies.

Enough. You need to go watch this film. I need to go watch this film. Again.
'I live for a sigh, I die for a kiss, I lust for a laugh, ha HA!'