The King's Jester on AllMovie

The King's Jester is a non-musical Italian film version of the tragic opera Rigoletto. While we hear no vocal renditions of "Caro Nome" and "La Donna e Mobile", those songs, along with the rest of Verdi's score, can be heard as incidental music. French character actor Michel Simon stars as the hunchbacked jester Rigoletto, whose thirst for revenge motivates the story. When Rigoletto's daughter Gilda (Maria Mecarder) is seduced by the Count, the jester plots to set up the nobleman to be killed--but it is the long-suffering Gilda who ends up the victim of Rigoletto's machinations. Exceptionally well photographed by Ubaldo Arata, The King's Jester was a success in both Italy and the US, where it was sometimes run under its original title Rigoletto.