Maid Jean is also at court having been waylaid shortly after parting from Hubert by another group of soldiers who were, for reasons probably best left unexamined, under orders to take beautiful women to the king’s court. Following Giacomo’s acceptance at court, Giacomo who is searching for his contact is left with the unfortunate impression that Ravenhurst, seeking to make contact with his assassin, is a fellow rebel. Baked into this encounter is a pithy tongue twister, delivered at breakneck speed and with serene confidence by Danny Kaye, involving the Duke, Duchess, Doge and their various doings. He does this through an impromptu musical performance and the promise of the latest gossip from the Italian court, after all as Hubert says what better place to court Italians. Ravenhurst is played with chilling poise by the exquisitely sinister swashbuckler veteran Basil Rathbone whose presence lends the film’s willfully farcical proceedings an air of authenticity and genuine threat.īlissfully unaware of all of this, Hubert as Giacomo arrives at court and quickly ingratiates himself with King Roderick.

He views the king’s trio of advisors as a threat to his status and plans to have them killed at the hands of this Giacomo, who is really a master assassin masquerading as a jester. With their relationship fraying and her life under immediate threat by the capriciously forceful princess, the desperate hedge witch identifies the imminently expected Giacomo as Gwendolyn’s long-expected great love.Īt the same time, it is revealed that the true villain of the film, Roderick’s righthand and the man who murdered the true royal family, is Lord Ravenhurst. The willful Gwendolyn on the other hand longs for a romance in the classical chivalric model and has cajoled and bullied the court witch Griselda, played by Mildred Natwick, into prophesying one for her. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our heroes, a tangled weave of machinations are beginning to unfold within the royal palace.Ī trio of the king’s advisors are urging him to marry his daughter, the newly elevated princess Gwendolyn, who I was startled to recognize as a young Angela Lansbury, to the ambiguously Scottish Sir Griswold of MacElwain, as a way of dealing with the Black Fox and establishing his reign. Before departing, Jean reveals the existence of a rebel spy within the royal palace, entrusting Hubert with a whistled tune through which to identify himself. Taking refuge in audacity, they manage to escape the soldiers by dint of some pithy wordplay and spotless character work, before coming across the usurper’s new court jester, Giacomo, on the road.Īfter subduing the jester, it is decided, by Jean, that Hubert should take Giacomo’s identity and infiltrate the royal palace while she locates a new safe haven for the royal baby. In classic style, he soon gets more than he bargains for when a raid by Roderick’s soldiers compels Hubert and the Black Fox’s lieutenant, the beautiful Maid Jean, played by Glynis Johns, to don disguises and smuggle out the young king. This royal baby has been whisked to safety by the Black Fox, a Robin Hood-style rebel with a cause.ĭanny Kaye stars with his usual relish and aplomb as Hubert Hawkins, the Black Fox’s bard who is at the start of the film pushing for a more active role in the band’s freedom fighting efforts.

The setting is medieval England, the year indeterminate, and we have the fictitious King Roderick usurping the throne from the rightful heir – a baby boy identifiable only by an unusually alliterative birthmark, a purple pimpernel. The true joy and genius of The Court Jester is its plotting and the manner in which misunderstandings steadily pile upon coincidences creating a frantic and heady mix for our principal players to whimsically cavort through. At its core, The Court Jester is a joyous and artfully constructed farce which whips its viewers through its numerous set pieces and shenanigans at an exhilarating pace.

Starring the inimitable Danny Kaye, it is a musical comedy set in a trackless and timeless facsimile of the Middle Ages. When The Court Jester was first released in 1955, whimsy was not necessarily a characteristic that the average cinemagoer would have associated closely with the medieval period.

The court jester black fox