THE COURT JESTER

The Court Jester was filmed in 1956, starring: Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, and Basil Rathbone.  This movie takes place in medieval times; Danny Kaye plays a nave that works for the notorious outlaw, “The Black Fox,” and goes on a mission disguised as the king’s jester while trying to dethrone the king.  This film shows off most of Danny Kaye’s many talents, for example: singing, dancing, and of course: making people laugh. One of the ways he did that was talking really fast. His quick speech made it seem like he was speaking a different language. He also did it in regular English too, of course.         

A fun fact about the movie is that while shooting the film, Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone, aka the original Sherlock Holmes, would do a sword fight routine. Danny Kaye didn’t really know how to sword fight so they hired a fight choreographer to teach him the technique. They managed to do the fight scene so fast that Basil Rathbone couldn’t do it, so they let the choreographer do most of the scene while wearing a wig and costume.

This film is for all ages and is family friendly. The movie is crowded full of kings, knights, outlaws and a superstitious medieval witch. My favorite part about the movie is how Danny Kaye preformed for the king. With his fast talking, singing, and dancing it almost looked like he didn’t need to rehearse, he would just go out there and make the audience laugh.  If you enjoyed this movie, you would also appreciate Danny Kaye’s: Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a movie about a man whose addiction to daydreaming causes him to meet the girl of his dreams. Thank you for reading my summary and I hope you enjoy the movies I write about, please visit again for further analysis and suggestions for great classic movies.

Secret Life of Walter Mitty Trailer

THE BAD SEED

This horror movie is about what looks like a normal little girl, but is really not. No one knows, not even the ones closest to her, how she’ll trick and deceive and lie to everyone. She looks about nine years old and she’s very prim and proper. She prefers dresses over jeans, and in many ways she seems like a perfect, stereotypical, middle class, American girl. In reality, she’s a psychopath. She manipulates those closest to her and even kills to get whatever she wants.  I believe the movie is great because of the level of deception towards the audience, and the level of acting it requires. 

My first favorite scene is when they introduce Leroy, who is the maintenance man who lives in the basement. When I first watched the movie, it was unclear to me who was really the bad seed and Leroy seemed like the perfect suspect. His appearance is creepy from his mannerisms to his greasy, oily hair. Even his dirty smirk makes you not want to make eye contact with him. This scene is important because it makes you focus on Leroy instead of the real killer.

                Later in the movie, Rhoda kills Leroy. She had to kill him because he caught on to her trail of the murder she committed. He would taunt her and taunt her again about how the police would find out how she killed her victim and what she used to kill the victim with. Leroy lives in the basement of the boarding house where Rhoda lives. He sleeps on a bed of hay on the floor next to the furnace. What Rhoda did was she snuck a couple of matches in the apron of her dress and went down to the basement and lit Leroy’s bed of hay on fire, while he was still down there.  This scene is important because it shows how nothing will get into Rhoda’s way. I also like this part because it brings a new level of how dangerous this little girl can be.

 Rhoda doesn’t have a bad life, she is not neglected, her parents don’t beat her, and everyone loves her. Well… except for Leroy.  So here’s the question, why does Rhoda act like this? It’s actually because of her grandmother, who was one of the most wanted female killers in the country. She had two children: a girl, Rhoda’s mother, and a boy who was later killed by his mother. She finally ran off and left Rhoda’s mother behind and was later found and was adopted.  As for Rhoda’s grandmother, most say she finally died, but no one really knew because she always changed her name. This scene is also important because it shows why a sweet looking kid with a good life would act like this. I like this scene because it’s different from other psycho movies. Other movies would use drug abuse, medical conditions, or rage, but this is different because it’s genetics.

This is a great movie for those who are just getting interested with older movies. It’ll make you think there are other older movies like this. Also, it’s a movie you’ll remember and will make you want to see it again. There are other films like this, if you like this type of genre: The Devil and Daniel Webster is a movie about the devil purchasing human souls. So, return to my site for instructions on how to keep your soul out of the hands of the devil’s debt collectors. Thank you for reading my analyses on The Bad Seed and continue visiting my blog for further discussion on the filming and acting of some of my favorite classic movies.