A PEEK AT THE COURT JESTER (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

So, Saturday afternoon, my wife was scanning the channel guide, and ultimately gave up, saying "There's nothing worthwhile on." Then I remembered this thread, grabbed the remote, said, "Yes, there is!" and jumped onto Prime and pulled up The Court Jester. It's weird, because I've had the Paramount DVD for years, and never spun it up. I'd seen the film a few times back in the day, but never watched my DVD. Even weirder was the fact that I was sure it was actually my wife who bought the DVD, not me, so I was surprised when she said that she'd never seen it before.

It was a beautiful transfer, and the movie was, of course, a delight. My wife said, at several points during the movie, "How is it that I've never seen this before?!"

And after dinner and the evening news, we watched the new UHD of The Mask of Zorro. A completely different barrel of fun.

 

[Darby67]

Hard to imagine being a Danny Kaye fan (of however many years?) while never having seen The Court Jester. Better remedy that asap this fine Sunday afternoon me thinks!

Envy you, @Darby67, getting to see it for the first time now (or very soon?)... w/ very good PQ that had not been possible for a very long time (at least for most of us mere mortals)...



_Man_

Mea culpa, ManW. I remedied the situation last night by watching in Amazon Prime and absolutely loved it!

 

[Darby67]

Oh, my God! Sean, you never saw this when you were a child? It's one of my strongest movie going memories. Afterwards, my friends and I went to a nearby woods, pretended we were the Black Fox's merry men and swung from trees. Whenever we saw a film we really liked, we would act it out. I remember after seeing "The Time Machine" we made up a game where different backyards were different time zones, and whoever got back to the present before the others was the winner. Unfortunately, there was no Yvette Mimieux to inspire us, but you can't have everything.

I fixed that problem by watching it last night on Amazon Prime and was enchanted by it!

It is amazing how films can inspire our imagination...

 

[Darby67]

Has anyone actually checked out the Amazon transfer? Please do.

Bruce, I watched it on Amazon Prime last night and thought the PQ was quite good.

 

[lark144]

I fixed that problem by watching it last night on Amazon Prime and was enchanted by it!

It is amazing how films can inspire our imagination...

Glad you liked it! I wouldn't recommend swinging from trees though.

 

[TJPC]

Now try the movie Eddie Cantor made for Goldwyn in the early 30s called “Roman Scandals”. It almost looks like the basis for the Danny Kaye film.

 

[warnerbro]

It looks so beautiful on Amazon! And for free! It's got that sharp, bright, Technicolor look that only VistaVision has. So cool for Amazon just to put it up there for free!

 

[buckmichaels]

I don't know how I've missed it all these years, but I'm looking forward to finally seeing it.

It's a great movie, you will really enjoy it, I havent watched my DVD for years, I was waiting for a blu-ray, but I will check out the digital offering.

 

[buckmichaels]

The Amazon presentation is much better than the old DVD! Judging by the color and the sharpness of the picture, I would say it was restored from the VistaVision negative, or an interpositive from the VV neg. Yes, the titles are a bit grainy, but thats to be expected with all the opticals. The rest of the movie has grain, but looks lovely! I would love a blu-ray or a 4K disc of this movie, but considering it's Paramount, they seem a bit stingy about physical disc releases of older movies.

 

[verneaux]

Don’t you mean “The flagon with the Dragon?” Or was it “The vessel with the pestle?”

Check out the end of the Bob Hope movie Never Say Die (1939) for an early version of the duel scene.

 

[GerardoHP]

I watched it on my 130" projection screen and it looks spectacular. If the color is not be as eye popping as, for instance, To Cath a Thief, it may be because this movie was not designed to look like that. I have re-watched it in bits and pieces a couple of times because I never saw it look like this, and I've been a fan of this movie since I saw a re-release in the early 60's.

 

[Matt Hough]

I started watching it tonight before I got interrupted about twenty minutes in with a phone call that lasted into the evening. Apart from the credits (which looked expectedly poor), I did think the color and sharpness were excellent. Looking forward to finishing it tomorrow.

 

[Mark-P]

I started watching it tonight before I got interrupted about twenty minutes in with a phone call that lasted into the evening. Apart from the credits (which looked expectedly poor), I did think the color and sharpness were excellent. Looking forward to finishing it tomorrow.

Matt, you are watching on Amazon Prime (subscription service), right? Because they are the only service that has this sparkling new transfer, and the credits look good too, stabilized and all cleaned up.

 

[haineshisway]

The credits DO look good considering there are multiple opticals in it.

 

[Matt Hough]

Matt, you are watching on Amazon Prime (subscription service), right? Because they are the only service that has this sparkling new transfer, and the credits look good too, stabilized and all cleaned up.

Yes, I am. Danny Kaye's image looked so soft among the titles, and I assumed it was the opticals at play making it so soft.

 

[PaulaJ]

This must be the same transfer that ran on the Criterion Channel a couple of months ago - it looked great, but nothing like seeing it in 4K in the Chinese Theatre at the TCM Festival a few years ago !

You can say that again! It was gorgeous! Sure hope for a 4K/Blu-ray release.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Was worried during the opening number/ credits as it didn’t look particularly great. But once it started-wow -what a difference! Beautiful reds- In fact all the colors- and sharpness.
Thank you Haines for thIs information!

 

[haineshisway]

The credits have always looked exactly as they do, even in the 16mm and 35mm IB prints I had. Here's a fun game - figure out how many components make up the shot and you'll have an idea how many separate elements are being composited, and then you'll understand the why of it

 

[Matt Hough]

I finished it this afternoon, and it's truly never looked so good. Makes me want to throw my DVD into the trash except I don't be without some home version of it in case Amazon takes it off its service. Really enjoyed seeing it look so glorious.

 

[Robert Harris]

Yep, never heard of Jester being shown like that.

A fellow forum member that will probably prefer to remain anonymous showed me a frame of a horizontal print of Battle of the River Plate. It was printed on Eastman and already heavily faded when I saw it.

You got to wonder where all of the prints ended up and I never heard of anybody owning one of those horizontal prints even though I know somebody who at some point could have gotten one fo the projectors but he decided not to unless he could source at least one print - he didn't manage to get one.

Junked.

One of the only films to run for years in actual Vista with 6-track mag, was Story of a Patriot. All prints struck from the OCN, which did heavy damage.