To those of you who were frantically checking my blog, wondering what had happened to me and why I wasn't writing, you can breathe deeply and relax at last. I'm returning to discuss the total flawlessness that is Danny Kaye.
I just rewatched The Court Jester for the umpteenth time. A tiny part of me was worried that finally, after all this time, I would have the experience that I sometimes do watching movies that I've loved as a kid, when my grown-up eyes see things differently and movies that seemed hilarious and charming are revealed to be cheesy or even painful (in the case of the notorious Tom and Huck and Jungle 2 Jungle).
But no! In fact, I think I enjoyed The Court Jester even more than I have in the past. It is so beautifully ridiculous! It would take me forever to list everything that is so wonderful about this movie.
But I think one of my favorite things that really hit me this time is that part of the point of the movie is that the hero is a bufoonish clown with a good heart who stumbles around trying to do the right thing while everything gets tangled up in a jumble of mistakes. But all those mistakes, which came about through sheer bad luck, get untangled by good luck, partly it seems because the hero-clown is such a good person that "the fates" want him to succeed. This man is not aggressive. He is not courageous. He is not a fighter. But as Jean tells Hawkins, "Kindness and tenderness can also make a man. A very rare man."
How wonderful that in a decades-old film there's a tiny nugget of wisdom about the complexity of masculinity. How wonderful that the man who wins the day is gangly, goofy, funny, and knows how to lull a baby to sleep. And it's obvious to any viewer that he would have completely failed if not for the cunning and courage of Jean.
In short, this film will never die and Danny Kaye's comedic genius will live on forever because it offers both truly hilarious comedy and a story we can still love with our jaded grown-up hearts.
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