The Court Jester Quotes
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Source: The Court Jester
Speaker: Hubert Hawkins
"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle."
The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
Context
This line is spoken by Hubert Hawkins, played by Danny Kaye, in the movie The Court Jester, directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama (1955).
You know Danny Kaye, right? He's the guy in White Christmas who's… not Bing Crosby. To audiences in the '50s, he was also the guy in a lot of popular comedies, one of the most popular being the The Court Jester. In this wacky medieval flick, Kaye plays a carnival performer named Hubert Hawkins who goes undercover as a court jester to take out an evil king.
The vessel-pestle tongue-twister is originally given to him as instructions in a plot to get the bad guy. The gag runs through the movie for a while and steadily gets more complicated, with Hawkins getting more and more confused with its tongue-twisterness. Incidentally, these kinds of verbal acrobatics were one of Kaye's trademarks.
Watch him twist here in all his glory.
Where you've heard it
Turns out Dinozzo, the class clown of NCIS, is a Jester fan because he mentions it in an episode. Lorelai of the Gilmore Girls and Chuck of… Chuck also take cracks at this tongue-twister. Oh, and if you didn't see Rango, do—and keep your ears open for a mention of a poisoned chalice.
Additional Notable References:
Movies
TV
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
The Court Jester is a little old, so some might think you're pretentious. Most, however, will just think you've watched a lot of movies with your grandma.