Funny movie quotes from The Court Jester (1956) , starring Danny Kaye, Glynnis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury
Funny movie quotes from ‘The Court Jester‘, one of Danny Kaye’s best known, and funniest, movies
King: You spent some time in the Italian court?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Why, yes. What better place to court Italians?
Fergus: I’m Fergus the Ostler.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Whogus the Whatsler?
Griselda: I’m Griselda.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Gri-who-lda?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): A jester unemployed is nobody’s fool!
Griselda: Right. But there’s been a change: they broke the chalice from the palace!
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): They broke the chalice from the palace?
Griselda: And replaced it with a flagon.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): A flagon…?
Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Flagon with a dragon.
Griselda: Right.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): But did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?
Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.
Griselda: Just remember that.
King Roderick: The Duke. What did the Duke do?
Hubert Hawkings(Danny Kaye): Eh’¦ the Duke do?
King Roderick: Yes. And what about the Doge?
Hubert Hawkings(Danny Kaye): Oh, the Doge!
King Roderick: Eh. Well, what did the Doge do?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): The Doge do?
King Roderick: Yes, the Doge do.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Well, uh, the Doge did what the Doge does. Eh, uh, when the Doge does his duty to the Duke, that is.
King Roderick: What? What’s that?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Oh, it’s very simple, sire. When the Doge did his duty and the Duke didn’t, that’s when the Duchess did the dirt to the Duke with the Doge.
King Roderick: Who did what to what?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Oh, they all did, sire. There they were in the dark; the Duke with his dagger, the Doge with his dart, Duchess with her dirk.
King Roderick: Duchess with her dirk?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Yes! The Duchess dove at the Duke just when the Duke dove at the Doge. Now the Duke ducked, the Doge dodged, and the Duchess didn’t. So the Duke got the Duchess, the Duchess got the Doge, and the Doge got the Duke!
King Roderick: Curious. I … I … hm? What? What’s that? All I heard was that the Duchess had a siege of rheumatism. She’s 83, you know.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): I am Giacomo, a lover of beauty and a beauty of a lover.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): What manner of man is Giacomo? Ha ha! I shall tell you what manner of man is he. He lives for a sigh, he dies for a kiss, he lusts for the laugh, ha! He never walks when he can leap! He never flees when he can fight (thud) oop! He swoons at the beauty of a rose. And I offer myself to you, all of me. My heart. My lips. My legs. My calves. Do what you will – my love endures. Beat me. Kick me. (kiss, kiss) I am yours.
King Roderick I: What are you loo-loo-looing about?
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Oh, I’m not loo-loo-looing, Sire, I’m willow-willow-wailing.
King Roderick I: All right, all right. Willow away, willow away.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): I’d like to get in, get on with it, get it over with, and get out. Get it?
Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone): Got it.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Good.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): After months of pleading for just this kind of action, what makes you think that anybody – anybody could make me reveal the identity of my confederate?
Jean (Glynnis Johns): Because they’d put you on the rack, crack your every bone, scald you with hot oil, and remove the nails off your fingers with flaming hot pincers.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): I’d … like to withdraw the question.
King: Would you grant the king a little kiss?
Jean (Glynnis Johns): Oh, certainly, sire, and don’t worry. They say it isn’t catching.
King: Oh, you are a little … catching?
Jean (Glynnis Johns): Just because it runs in the family doesn’t mean that everyone has it. Kiss me, sire!
King: Has it? Has what?
Jean (Glynnis Johns): Don’t I please you, sire?
King: Oh, yes, yes, but, eh, these brothers and cousins and uncles …
Jean (Glynnis Johns): And aunts. But let us not talk about their swollen, twisted, pain-ridden bodies. Hold me, take me in your arms, tell me I am yours!
King: But this, this uh writhing on the floor’¦
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): Hawkins-Good stock. Good battle. Good-bye.
King Roderick: Rules of Chivalry be hanged! Ravenhurst, take that nincompoop, and knight that nincompoop by noon tomorrow!
Captain of the Guard: [Hawkins is being tested for Knighthood] He must scale a wall in full armor.
[Hawkins is tossed over the wall]
Captain of the Guard: Candidate passes!
[later]
Captain of the Guard: He must bring down a hawk in full flight.
[a hawk with an arrow is tossed on the ground]
Captain of the Guard: Candidate passes.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): But I didn’t even shoo …
Captain of the Guard: [shouts] Candidate passes!
[later]
Captain of the Guard: He must capture a wild boar with his bare hands.
[a piglet comes out of a chute followed by sound effects of splashing in the mud]
Captain of the Guard: He passes!
Hubert Hawkings(Danny Kaye): Why be gloomy, cut off thy nose to spite thy face? Listen to me. A nose is hard to replace.
[picking his weapon for the joust against Griswold]
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): I’ll take one of those, one of those, ooh, a couple of those.
[he pauses and glances over at Griswold]
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): I’d better take them all.
Hubert Hawkings (Danny Kaye): [on training to become a jester] I’m proud to recall that at no time at all and with no other recourses but my own resources, with firm application and determination … I made a fool of myself!