Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
File:Monty python and the holy grail 2001 release movie poster.jpg Promotional poster for 2001 re-release
Directed by	Terry Gilliam Terry Jones
Written by	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Produced by	Mark Forstater Michael White
Starring	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Cinematography	Terry Bedford
Edited by	John Hackney
Distributed by	20th Century Fox (UK, video) Cinema 5 (USA) EMI (UK, 1975)
Release dates	United Kingdom: April 31975 United States May 101975
Running time	91 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£229,000

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin), and directed by Gilliam and Jones. It was initially conceived during a gap between the third and fourth seasons of their popular BBC television series Monty Python's Flying Circus.

In contrast to the group's first film, And Now for Something Completely Different, which was a compilation of sketches from the television series, Holy Grail was their first film composed of wholly original material. It generally spoofs the legends of King Arthur's quest to find the Holy Grail. The film was a success on its initial run and retains a large-scale cult following today. The film was the inspiration for the 2005 Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot, written by Eric Idle.

Background

The group (including Cleese) reformed in 1974 to write and star in their first feature film of new material. The film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was based around Arthurian Legend and directed by Jones and Gilliam, the latter also drawing the film's linking animations. Along with the rest of the Pythons, Jones and Gilliam performed several roles in the film, but it was Chapman who took the lead as King Arthur. Holy Grail was filmed on a budget of nearly £150,000; this money was raised in part with investments from rock groups such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and UK music industry entrepreneur Tony Stratton-Smith (founder/owner of the Charisma Records label for which the Pythons recorded).

The filming was apparently unpleasant. The weather was poor and the chain mail (actually woollen garments painted silver) soaked up rain; the budget only allowed for low-quality hotels which could not provide sufficient hot water for the team to bathe every evening; Gilliam and Jones argued with each other and with the other Pythons; and the extent of Chapman's alcoholism became apparent when he began to suffer from delirium tremens during the filming. Terry Gilliam later said in an interview that "everything that could go wrong did go wrong". The Pythons recall that the filming of Holy Grail is the only time any of them can remember the usually amiable Palin losing his temper. This occurred when Jones and Gilliam insisted on repeatedly re-shooting a scene in which Palin played a character called "the mud eater". The scene was ultimately cut from the film.

The film proved a success and in 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Monty Python and the Holy Grail the 5th greatest comedy film of all time.

Plot

King Arthur is recruiting his Knights of the Round Table throughout England. He is frustrated at every turn by anarcho-syndicalist peasants, a Black Knight that refuses to give up despite losing both his arms and legs, and guards that are more concerned with the flight patterns of swallows than their lord and master. Finally he meets up with Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure (also called "the Chaste"), Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, and "the aptly named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film", who appears to be Palin's son (a baby those days) suited up in chain mail, and declares them the Knights of the Round Table. When 'riding' to Camelot, they are given a quest by God to find the Holy Grail.

They encounter a castle with a French Taunter who says random names like 'Daffy English knnnnnnigghits'. Arthur decides that he and his knights should search for the Grail individually. After they split up, Sir Robin travels through a forest with his favourite minstrels, and encounters a Three-Headed Giant, Galahad follows a Grail-shaped light to the perils of Castle Anthrax (the girls of which are very interested in having sex with him), Sir Lancelot massacres a wedding at Swamp Castle, and Arthur and Bedevere encounter the dreaded Knights who say Ni, who want a shrubbery (they beat the knights by saying "it" though they never figure that is the knights who say ni's one weakness). They each overcome their individual perils and reunite to face a bleak and terrible winter. Surviving the winter by eating Sir Robin's minstrels, they venture further to a pyromaniac enchanter named "Tim", who takes them to a cave guarded by a killer rabbit.

The Killer Rabbit attacks

After killing the vicious Rabbit of Caerbannog with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, the knights face the Legendary Black Beast of Aaargh in an animated scene, ending because the animator suffered a "fatal heart attack," and cross the Bridge of Death that is guarded by "the old man from Scene 24". Arthur and Bedevere survive to arrive at Castle Aaargh, and face the French Taunter once more. The film ends abruptly when a group of police from the 1970s interrupt the climactic battle scene to arrest Bedevere and King Arthur for the murder of Frank, the "famous historian", who was cut down by a knight while he was narrating a scene from the film.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

At several points in the film, the separation between the action on screen and the production offscreen is blurred. For example:

• At one point, King Arthur refers to "the old man at Scene 24". "Scene 24" is the proper name of that chapter in the movie, and theoretically, the characters should not have known that.
• Another example is when a scene is cut short by the animator suffering a heart attack.
• The narrator is actually a part of the story's plot, as he is killed while narrating events that supposedly already took place.
• "The aptly named 'sir-not-appearing-in-this-film' ".

Production

The film was shot on location in Scotland, particularly around Doune Castle, Glen Coe, and the privately owned Castle Stalker. The many castles seen throughout the film were either Doune Castle shot from different angles or cardboard models held up against the horizon. (This was referenced in Patsy's famous line, the dismissive "It's only a model" in reference to Camelot—which it was.) The only exception to this is the very first exterior shot of the castle of the Swamp King, which is Bodiam Castle in East Sussex—all subsequent shots of its exterior and interior were filmed elsewhere. The chain mail armour worn by the various knights was also actually silver-painted wool except Arthur's (which tended to absorb moisture in the cold and wet conditions).

The film was co-directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, the first major project for both and the first project where any members of the Pythons were behind the camera. This proved to be troublesome on the set as Jones and Gilliam had different directing styles and it often wasn't clear who was in charge. The Pythons evidently preferred Jones, an acting member of the group, as opposed to Gilliam, who began as an animator. On the DVD audio commentary track Cleese expresses irritation at a scene set in Castle Anthrax where he says the focus was on technical aspects rather than comedy. Two later Python feature films, The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life, both have Jones as the sole director.

File:HolyGrail036.jpg

Chapman as King Arthur in Holy Grail

The Pythons decided on a joke where the characters would pretend to ride horses while their porters banged coconut shells together, an in-joke as to how BBC radio shows and old-time radio in general had produced the sound effect of horses since the 1930s (a gag seen previously in the sole surviving episode of the 1956 program A Show Called Fred, produced by Richard Lester and starring Peter Sellers, and also used on The Goon Show in the form of "here comes a man riding on coconut shells"), with the added benefit of being much cheaper than hiring horses and learning to ride them. This was later referenced in the German release on 13 August 1976, which translated the title as "Die Ritter der Kokosnuss" ("The Knights of the Coconut"), and in a successful attempt in Trafalgar Square at 7pm on St George's Day 2007 to break the world record for the largest coconut orchestra.

The use of coconuts leads to an extended (and boring, to Arthur) discussion on how coconuts could have found their way to the British Isles. The possibility of swallows carrying them, absurd as it seems, reappears in a key moment late in the film and helps Arthur advance his quest.

As an extension of the group's penchant for bizarre title credits, the 2001 DVD release of the film commences with the British Board of Film Censors' certification for Dentist on the Job, a film "Passed as more suitable for Exhibition to Adult Audiences", followed by its grainy black and white opening titles and nearly two minutes of the film itself. During the opening scene of Dentist on the Job, the projectionist (played by Terry Jones) realises it is the wrong film and puts the correct one on. (Dentist on the Job was a 1961 comedy starring Bob Monkhouse, perhaps chosen as an epitome of the comedy to which Monty Python had once provided an alternative. Also, Dentist on the Job's alternate title is Get On With It, a phrase that appears multiple times throughout Holy Grail.)

Holy Grail's start credits spoof Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal and so include mock Nordic subtitles and many gratuitous references to "møøse" and llamas. The subtitles fictionally tell how those responsible for the fake credits were sacked and replacement credits were created at great expense. The film has no ending credits, or indeed any indication whatsoever that the film is over, instead showing a policeman forcibly shutting down the camera and cutting straight to a black screen and a full two minutes and forty seconds of organ music. Due to the abrupt ending of the movie, the first few seconds of the opening credits are sometimes shown again when the film is played on television. The organ music is often missing from cinema showings as inexperienced cinema projectionists tend to mistake the ending blank footage (with audio track) as scrap film and remove it before sending the film back to the depot.

Cast

Actor	Role	Other roles
Graham Chapman	King Arthur	God, Hiccoughing Guard, Middle Head of Three-Headed Knight
John Cleese	Sir Lancelot	Second soldier in opening scene, Man in plague scene with body, Black Knight, Villager in Witch Scene, French Guard, Tim the Enchanter
Terry Gilliam	Patsy	Soothsayer in Scene 24, Bridgekeeper, Sir Bors (First to be killed by rabbit), Animator who suffers a fatal heart attack
Eric Idle	Sir Robin	The Dead Collector, Villager in Witch Scene, Confused Guard at Swamp Castle, Concorde, Roger the Shrubber, Brother Maynard
Neil Innes	Sir Robin's Minstrel	Monk, Page crushed by rabbit, Villager in Witch Scene
Terry Jones	Sir Bedevere	Dennis's mother, Left head of Three-Headed Knight, Prince Herbert
Michael Palin	Sir Galahad	First soldier in opening scene, Dennis, Villager in Witch Scene, Right head of Three-Headed Knight, King of Swamp Castle, Monk, Main Knight who says "Ni"
Connie Booth	Witch
Carol Cleveland	Zoot	Dingo
Bee Duffell	old crone to whom King Arthur said "Ni!"
John Young	Historian	Man who is "not dead yet"
Rita Davies	Historian's Wife
Sally Kinghorn/Avril Stewart	Winston/Piglet

Characters

Knights of the Round Table

King Arthur – King of the Britains (of Britainny), Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, The aptly dubbed' 'Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film'.

Villains

Knights Who-Say-Ni, The French, The Cops, The Black Knight, The Three Headed Knight, and The Keeper of the Bridge of Death (a.k.a., the man from scene 24).

The Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh

The legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh [King Arthur's pronunciation: [ɑːɡ]] is a famous creature from the film. The beast dwells in the Cave of Caerbannog, the entrance of which is guarded by the vicious killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. The Beast's name was coined by Brother Maynard, who announced "It's the Legendary Black Beast of... Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh!" as he falls into the Beast's jaws.

In the film, the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table encounter the Black Beast in the Cave of Caerbannog while they are reading the carvings written by Joseph of Arimathea which tell the location of the Holy Grail. The characters are distracted by the carvings, which say that the Grail is located in the "Castle Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh", and as they try to figure out what the Castle Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh is, the Beast sneaks up on them from behind. The monster (which comically appears in the film as an animation, in which he has multiple eyes, two legs, and is quite colourful instead of black) then eats the scholar Brother Maynard and Sir Alf (whose death was cut out of the film) and chases the fleeing knights.

Arthur and his men are unable to combat the beast and are almost killed by it, until the animator (as portrayed by Terry Gilliam) inexplicably suffers a fatal heart attack, thus ending the "cartoon peril". At this point the Beast turns white and disappears.

References

The final scene features a huge army which has apparently been following the knights unseen throughout the film. This may be a spoof on many of Shakespeare's historical dramas in which large battles are implied by the few actors on stage.

2001 Re-release

On June 15 2001, Monty Python and the Holy Grail was re-released on four North American screens. This version of the film was digitally restored and remastered with a new stereo soundtrack. In addition, it restored 24 seconds of material to the Castle Anthrax scene that was not originally in the theatrical release (although had appeared on several video and DVD editions of the film, and when the film was shown on TV in the UK on the BBC on 31 December 1992) where Zoot's "identical twin sister Dingo" gets side-tracked in conversation, and she randomly stops saying her lines and remarks on how much she is enjoying this scene. Several characters, including Tim the Enchanter, God, and the army at the end of the film, tell her to "get on with it!".

In its opening weekend, it grossed a strong US$45,487 ($11,372 per screen). It played in limited release until December 2003, playing at 26 screens at its widest point and eventually grossing US$1,821,082 during its re-release run. This version of the film still plays periodically at North American repertory theatres.

Soundtrack

The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the movie's official soundtrack, is less of a soundtrack and more of a comedy album in its own right, which depicts the "premiere" of the film along with several other sketches intercutting scenes from the movie.

The flagellant monks are chanting a phrase from the Latin Requiem mass, pies Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem, which in English is rendered, Holy Lord Jesus, grant unto them rest. They then hit themselves with wooden boards. This may be in reference to the flagellants during the time of the black plague.

The dramatic music played during Sir Lancelot's misguided storming of Swamp Castle is The Flying Messenger by Oliver Armstrong, and was not specifically written for the film (rather, it was written as part of a library of music to be used by whomsoever wished to buy rights to it).

The intermission sequence also plays a part of Fats Waller's Alligator Crawl on the organ although it was originally written for piano.

Home video editions, locations

The first DVD was released in 1999 and boasted only a non-anamorphic print, about two pages of production notes, and trailers for other Sony Pictures releases. On October 23, 2001, the Special Edition DVD was released. It includes two commentary tracks, documentaries related to the film, the "Camelot Song" as sung by LEGO minifigures (Source), and "Subtitles For People Who Don't Like the Film", consisting of lines taken from William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, and in the opening has a conversation between two people written in "Swedish". There are also two scenes synchronised in Japanese, where the knights search for a "holy sake cup" and where the Knights Who Say Ni request a bonsai. Most of the home video adaptations feature an extra scene where several characters are telling Carol Cleveland's character Dingo to "Get on with it!". Some of them include characters not seen yet at that point in the film, such as Tim the Enchanter, The Old Man from Scene 24 and the army at the end of the film (this scene was also shown in the Comedy Central broadcasts of the film). It also includes a small featurette about proper use of a coconut.

The DVD "Special Edition" includes "The Quest for the Holy Grail Locations", hosted by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, which shows places in Scotland used for the setting titled as "England 932 A.D." (as well as the two Pythons purchasing a copy of their own script as a guide). Many scenes were filmed in or around Doune Castle, "Scene 24" and the blood-thirsty rabbit's "Cave of Caerbannog" were in sight of Loch Tay, near Killin, and "The Bridge of Death" was in Glen Coe. In the closing battle scene, shots facing "Castle Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh" were filmed at Castle Stalker but the shots looking the other way towards the huge army were filmed later on Sheriffmuir near Stirling once they had managed to get enough people—one of them being author Iain Banks, then a student, as he recounts in his non-fiction work Raw Spirit. It should be noted that this DVD edition is missing the "Swedish" subtitle "Mønti Pythøn ik den Hølie Gräilen" in the film's opening title screen.

In this special edition DVD release, the opening credits of the 1961 film Dentist on the Job is seen before the voice of the projectionist (presumably that of Terry Jones) mumbles that this is wrong film. The film stops abruptly and a slide reading "One moment while the operator changes reels" is seen on screen. The projectionist can be heard scrambling to start the correct film (Dentist on the Job has an alternative title of Get On With It!).

On September 16, 2003, a "Collector's Edition" DVD was released that includes the features of the previous "Special Edition" as well as a copy of the Screenplay. This set came in a collectible box.

On October 3, 2006, an "Extraordinarily Deluxe" DVD was released that includes the features of the previous "Special Edition" as well as other, new features. These include songs from the Spamalot (with accompanying animation), a "Holy Grail Challenge" feature, and a "Secrets of the Holy Grail" feature. The aspect ratio for the "Extraordinarily Deluxe" DVD is 1.66:1, whereas the previous Special Edition features a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Also, the "Extraordinarily Deluxe" DVD restores the "Swedish" subtitle missing from the Special Edition.

Games

In 1985, an unofficial text adventure game called The Quest for the Holy Grail appeared for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers, released as a budget title on cassette tape by Mastertronic. While the game borrowed many concepts from the movie (the three headed knight, the white rabbit, holy hand grenade, shrubbery, etc.), the plot of the game made no real attempt to follow the plot of the film. Reviews of the game were not kind, lambasting it for weak humour and ease of completion.

In 1996, 7th Level released the official Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail. It used footage and imagery from the film, as well as audio clips (some new) and featured an animated version of a scene never filmed entitled "King Brian The Wild".

Minigames included variations on popular games such as Whack-A-Mole ("Spank the Virgins") and Tetris ("Bring Out Your Dead").

A collectible card game using the characters and plot of the movie was released by Kenzer & Company in 1996.

The MUD Starmud contains an area that is based closely upon the movie.

Reaction and legacy

This film is number 40 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Monty Python and the Holy Grail the 5th greatest comedy film of all time. The next Monty Python film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, was ranked #1. A 2004 poll by UK arm of Amazon and the Internet Movie Database named Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the best British picture of all time.

Cultural references

A number of works, such as video games, novels and newspapers pay homage to this movie.

• In the DVD commentary for the Lord of the Rings films, director Peter Jackson admitted crowd scenes with rural peasants were tricky to design, as they could easily remind viewers of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, in The Two Towers commentary, previsualization artist Christian Rivers compares Helm's Deep to Camelot, saying, "it's only a model."
• The 2007 DreamWorks animated film Shrek the Third includes a scene in which a character is banging coconuts together to simulate the sound of horses' hooves. Although both John Cleese and Eric Idle appeared in the film, Idle stated that he did not know and did not approve of the use of the gag in the film. He claims to be considering suing the producers of Shrek for the unauthorised use of this gag, while the producers claim they were honoring Idle and Cleese by putting the part in.
• In the MMORPG RuneScape by Jagex, in Party Pete's, when the player pays a fee and pulls a lever, knights start dancing on the table, similar to the Camelot Song sequence.
• In "Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for White and Nerdy he claims to be able to recite the entire movie.
• In the video game Shadow Warrior, there is a secret area in one level, where there is an assortment of gore, a black knight's helmet, a holy grail, and an evil bunny rabbit with red eyes who will attack you.
• The game SimCity 2000 has 4 speeds at which time can be advanced, two of them being 'Llama' and 'African Swallow'
• Zoos in SimCity 2000 contain only llamas and other dromedaries

Sequel

According to the autobiography The Pythons, Eric Idle had proposed the idea of a Holy Grail sequel in 1990. According to Idle, the movie would be about an attempt to bring the knights together for one last crusade, as a sort of self-referential statement about the Python group. The team, however, did not want to do it, which made Idle realize that "[the group] would never, ever work together again," especially since Graham Chapman had died the year before.

External links

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail at IMDb
• Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow