I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about one of my favorite movies. The Court Jester, released in 1956, starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, and Basil Rathbone. This movie is a musical comedy, like most of Danny Kaye’s movies, and it is probably his best one (though that is difficult to say since he was always excellent). I love this movie with all my heart.

Thanks to my mother’s excellent taste, I grew up with this movie and others like it. We had an old vhs copy of this movie when I was kid and for some reason we developed a funny little routine/tradition when we watched this movie (and a couple others). If we were watching The Court Jester as a family that night, we ordered takeout Chinese (and vice versa). Similarly, when we watched Ladyhawke (another of my favorites) we always made ramen (the cheap freeze-dried kind that is famous among college students and poor people and which my little brother and I ate on the regular – and still do).

I hadn’t been able to watch this movie in quite a long time. The vhs tape had deteriorated, and I hadn’t been able to find a copy on dvd in ages (there is one available on Amazon now but I haven’t bought it). However, I discovered a few days ago that it has recently been added to the Amazon Prime streaming videos which made me very excited, and I sat down to watch it immediately. (I did not, sadly, have takeout Chinese…)

The Court Jester, as I said, is a musical comedy: it features Danny Kaye as Hawkins: a hapless bumbling performer who has joined a group of rebels led by a Robin Hood-esque hero called The Black Fox. The rebels work to dethrone a king who has usurped the throne by murdering the previous royal family. An infant child of the royal family survived, and is being protected by The Black Fox’s group until they can find a way to place him back on the throne. Hawkins and a member of the rebel group, Maid Jean (played by the ever-glorious Glynis Johns) are charged with taking the baby into hiding, when a series of increasingly ridiculous incidents lead to: a) Hawkins going to the king’s castle disguised as the newly-hired court jester and b) Jean being taken to the castle as part of a round-up of women to be picked over by the king.

At the castle, Hawkins is supposed to get into contact with an agent of the rebellion who has infiltrated the staff. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize that the court jester he is impersonating was actually hired by the King’s adviser Ravenhurst (played to scene-stealing perfection by Basil Rathbone) to secretly carry out several assassinations. On top of all of that, the king’s daughter, portrayed by a very young, heart-breakingly gorgeous Angela Lansbury (in a series of absolutely stunning gowns!), has been ordered to marry the brutish Griswold – but she doesn’t want to marry Griswold, and instead sets her sights on the new court jester. The witch who works for the princess therefore hypnotizes Hawkins to go off and woo the princess.

And folks, IT JUST GOES DOWNHILL FROM THERE.

This movie is, in my opinion, PERFECT. It cannot be improved upon. The songs are wonderful, the costumes are amazing, the script is hilarious, and the acting is pitch-perfect. Danny Kaye is at his finest in this movie – working through sharp, rapid-fire dialogue and high-energy slapstick with equal finesse. And the rest of the cast is just as great. Especially Basil Rathbone, who is always amazing. The scenarios of the movie get increasingly silly and ridiculous in the best way possible. And this movie contains some of the greatest comedic scenes ever put to film.

It features the now-famous exchange: “Get it?” “Got it.” “Good.”

And the oft-quoted “pellet with the poison” sequence.

And this scene, which I believe to be one of the funniest things ever done in the history of cinema.

And it wraps up with a fencing scene between Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone that simply cannot be beat. It features both amazing fencing skills and hilarity in equal measure. A popular story goes that during this fight scene, Danny Kaye – who had just learned to fence for this film – was so much faster than Basil Rathbone – who had been fencing in films for decades – that the sword fight choreographer had to stand-in for Rathbone for parts of the scene. It’s an urban legend kind of story – my mother told it to me, and she had heard it from someone and so forth – so I don’t know how true it is. It could be completely made-up, but it’s such a fun story and I love it. (If you know this story to be untrue, please don’t tell me. I like my fantasy.)

This movie was the most expensive comedy made at the time (for about $4 million) but bombed at the box office. Yet Danny Kaye was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance, and it has since become a beloved film. AFI ranked it #98 on its list of greatest comedies of all time (out of about 500 that were nominated). And in 2004 the National Film Registry elected to preserve The Court Jester for its cultural and historical significance.

In any case, it is one of my favorite movies of all time and I believe that everyone should see it at least once. Especially right now, with the world kind of falling apart around us, a good laugh can be very therapeutic and necessary. And since The Court Jester is finally streaming online for the first time I’ve ever noticed, it is easier than ever to do so! So get on it!