Court Jester, TheComedy co-producers directors writers Frank and Panama gave Kaye his funniest role since The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) before the decline set in. This rather unsubtle spoof on medieval adventures yarns such as Ivanhoe was tailored for the Woody Woodpeckerish, cacophonous comic. Kaye finds himself disguised as a jester at the English court, intending to replace the King (Parker) with the true heir to the throne (a babe in arms). Some of Kaye's songs (by his wife Fine) were quite simple, while the tongue-twister came in the best-remembered gag (not original), involving the pellet with the poison being in the vessel with the pestle, not in the chalice from the palace or the flagon with the dragon. There's also an amusing climactic sword fight between a hypnotized Kaye and evil Rathbone, playing exactly as he did opposite Flynn nearly two decades previously in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
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