This film looks crisp. The sets are beautiful. The matte work that allows the castle set to appear like it's sitting over Pacific Coast cliffs are nice. The film definitely cost money. And I was charmed by the clever "Outfox the Fox" number which I originally saw on YouTube. People's raves made me check it out.
But those things are all it has going for it. The characters have nothing to do, and the script is a half-effort. The comedy is extremely weak, composed of fleeting gags that are bloodlessly run through their paces without having been mined for any potential. It's like a first draft with place-holders for the jokes. "The chalice from palace" shtick isn't funny even once and just pointlessly kills time until even the characters reject it, so they can move on. I can see why you might enjoy it with your kids, but it's pretty poor for mature viewers.
My father absolutely hated Danny Kaye, and his whole generation responded with no more than tepid interest. Which meant there was no trick to missing his entire output as I was growing up. T.C.J. is not godawful. It doesn't make me wince in pain, but this is a lot of foolishness with little or no comic substance. There's a dumb finger-snapping gag. There's Kaye acting like a putz. There's 300 dumb repetitions of "Get it?" "Got it!" "Good!" This is not comedy gold, more like comedy tin. I may have laughed twice.
But those things are all it has going for it. The characters have nothing to do, and the script is a half-effort. The comedy is extremely weak, composed of fleeting gags that are bloodlessly run through their paces without having been mined for any potential. It's like a first draft with place-holders for the jokes. "The chalice from palace" shtick isn't funny even once and just pointlessly kills time until even the characters reject it, so they can move on. I can see why you might enjoy it with your kids, but it's pretty poor for mature viewers.
My father absolutely hated Danny Kaye, and his whole generation responded with no more than tepid interest. Which meant there was no trick to missing his entire output as I was growing up. T.C.J. is not godawful. It doesn't make me wince in pain, but this is a lot of foolishness with little or no comic substance. There's a dumb finger-snapping gag. There's Kaye acting like a putz. There's 300 dumb repetitions of "Get it?" "Got it!" "Good!" This is not comedy gold, more like comedy tin. I may have laughed twice.