In regards to The Court Jester...
By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers,
and Olympic
Champions by Richard Cohen © 2002 Random House, Inc.
"During his years in London [Basil] Rathbone had been a pupil of both Felix Grave
and Leon Bertrand. He could be generous to fellow actors. Discussing The Court Jester
(1956), in which he played opposite Danny Kaye in a deliberate spoof of medieval
melodramas, he wrote in his autobiography, 'We had to fight a duel together with
saber. I don’t care much for saber but had had instruction in this weapon during
my long association with all manner of swords. . . . After a couple weeks of instruction
Danny Kaye could completely outfight me! Even granted the difference in our ages,
Danny’s reflexes were incredibly fast, and nothing had to be shown or explained to
him a second time.' Rathbone put Kaye’s aptitude down to his being a brilliant mimic
(about the same period, the French mime Marcel Marceau was also an excellent fencer),
but his memory played him false: at the insistence of the production heads Kaye’s
fencing was doubled—partly because Rathbone was then sixty-
The Webmistresses two-
...to be honest, I'm not really sure what this
particular author is referring to when he says that "Kaye's fencing was doubled."
Being my favorite movie, I've seen The Court Jester more times than I can remember.
From all that I can see, Danny did practically all of his own fencing; it's quite
obvious that it's Danny. However, they did have someone else stand in for Basil Rathbone
most of the time because he just couldn't keep up with Danny's speed.
From an article with Glynis Johns, who played Jean in The Court Jester:
"Glynis Would Give It Another Go"
The Pittsburgh Press -
By: Erskine Johnson
(written for TV Graphic)
"Let me tell you what happened to me in a Danny Kaye movie at Paramount studio. Paramount
brought me over from England to co-
The Webmistresses two-
From an article with Glynis Johns, who played Jean in The Court Jester:
"Beautifully Helpless"
The Milwaukee Journal -
By: Sue Chambers
"I wear a different wig with every picture," said British movie star Glynis Johns when I didn't recognize her with her silver Italian topknot. We were at Paramount, where she is Danny Kaye's leading lady in "The Court Jester," a story of medieval times. "I've had my hair every color, and when my friends said, 'Why don't you go back to your own color?' I had to call my mother to ask what that was. She told me it was a beautiful shade of light chestnut brown, and only a mother would say that, instead of 'mouse.'
"The actresses in England," Glynis continued, "are having a bad time because most
movies have all-
Glynis met Kaye for the first time when she arrived here for the picture. I asked her why the British are so crazy about the American comedian. "They didn't love him on his first appearance at the Dorchester with Sally Rand before the war," she said. "He was a big flop then, but when he came to the Palladium the British loved him because they detected his great simplicity; he has the same quality that Sid Fields had, great sweetness, though at the same time being very funny. He's never dirty, never blue. Also, he has the ability to relax an audience by just chatting across the footlights."
