THE COURT JESTER (1955) *** The days of knights and damsels in distress was probably never quite like this, Danny Kaye singing stream of consciousness lyrics to the accompaniment of an invisible orchestra for example, but I'd like to believe that there was at least an element of this in it. Everything the genre could imagine-witches, brave knights, fair maidens, idiotic tyrants, proto-Marxist revolutionaries in the forest, midgets, plotters, catapults and a jousting tournament. I've never seen Kaye more entertaining, except for that tv interview where he was somehow still standing after about 75 drinks, and Angela Lansbury is beautiful in demonstrating how a headstrong and self-indulgent princess can be a good thing (that is, when opposing her father). All of them, however, are supporting cast, no matter that they have more lines: Glynis Johns makes it all work, an angel of cohesion and the finest sense of romance dancing from scene to scene bringing out what's best in all around her. She's like having Keith Richards in your band-she knows what everyone else can do and how to make them do it, she knows how to play every imaginable worthwhile style, she leaves room for none when she solos and hers is an attraction that dwarfs mere magnetism. She is also, it must be said, much better looking than Keith. And so Glynis and cast leave us with an imaginary tale, with a happy ending that somehow reflects on the warm feeling accompanying us back to reality...maybe Julie Andrews wasn't all of the magic in Mary Poppins.
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