Monty Python: Almost the Truth - Lawyers Cut (2009) s01e04 Episode Script
The Ultimate Holy Grail Episode
And now, a short introduction from the producers' legal representative, Mr Abe Appenheimer.
Hello, and welcome to this documentary containing new and exclusive interviews with the five surviving members of Monty Python.
The producers wish to make it clear that any opinions expressed herein are those of the individuals and hold no truth whatsoever.
Pursuant, therefore, to clause 4.
6 of the Broadcasting, Video, Television Act, 1989, subsection 4, 3 and 2, clause .
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subject to clause 4.
123, no viewer or watcher may copy, repeat, impersonate, mime, either contextually or noncontextually, any material whatsoever in any public place such as a street, pub, club, hotel, oil rig, Baptist church Python The legend they call Python At first they were small Then they grew up to be tall The world heard of their fame Everyone knew their name Now it's ''Who the fuck are Python?'' ''Never bleedin' heard of them'' That's why we made this documentary So we can all make more money from Python We never thought it would go to America.
l can remember a guy from WGBH in Boston, the PBS station in Boston, coming and meeting us and sitting in a little room, a little projection theatre.
He was very excited, he'd heard wonderful things, and wanted to see the show.
He'd had to come, in those days there weren't DVDs, they hadn't been invented, and he sat with us and when the lights went up at the end of the second show, he was sitting there as though he'd seen a ghost.
l mean, he waspale.
And we said And he got up and walked out of the room and said, ''lt's been a great pleasure meeting you guys.
'' He was so frightened at what would happen to his career if he put this on in America.
l can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab.
Yes, you know, we find that nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab.
lt's true.
We can't! No, we can't! No.
- You're on television, aren't you? - Yes, yes.
He does that thing with those silly women who can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab.
Yes! You try that around here, young man, and we'll slit your face.
Yes! With a razor.
There was a lovely woman called Nancy Lewis who pushed us by showing people our records and got some of the people in the American record industry interested.
The problem in those days was nobody could afford to put it on public television.
They couldn't afford to convert it from the PAL system to NTSC, which was a very expensive process in those days.
One day l got a phone call from Greg Garrison.
He was the man who had produced Dean Martin's show and had a big success record.
They were putting together a show which was called World Of Comedy.
Primarily, it was going to be made up of sketches from comedy shows all over the world and they wanted to use some Monty Python clips in there.
The Pythons at that stage were really reluctant to let anybody take clips from their shows.
But l remember writing them a rather impassioned memo saying, ''Look, this is a summer replacement show.
Nobody will see it.
''They only want to use little clips and they pay a lot of money ''which will be paid to TimeLife that would pay to convert it ''and after that the PBS stations could afford it.
'' l think it was '7 4, before a very great pal of ours called Ron de Villiers, who was in charge of the PBS station in Dallas, finally plucked up his courage and one night he put us out in Dallas of all places, and, you know, all his friends were calling him saying, ''What happened? ''Were you stoned? Did they set fire to the station?'' He said, ''lt's all right.
There's no protest.
'' Then it went out everywhere.
When the Python thing came on it was much better, let's say it was a whole lot better than having to watch a sitcom.
OK.
All right.
Cut him down, Mr Fuller.
Oh, you're no fun any more! They were different and so when l saw the show it was a huge moment to see the freedom with which they were doing their comedy, but most importantly to me they were presupposed a level of intelligence in their audience .
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that you couldn't do then in America.
They got huge reaction.
First of all, it was so different from anything.
They were used to seeing Masterpiece Theatre and these wonderful, noble programmes.
Here comes this completely insane British humour show.
Suddenly, people understood British humour.
lsn't that amazing? And now for something completely different.
l was always excited about And Now For Something Completely Different.
People run it down nowadays.
''lt wasn't a proper Python film.
'' lt was a movie shown in movie theatres.
We went to some previews.
Victor Lownes had loved the show.
He was the Playboy Club in London and he thought it was a great show.
He did a deal with Columbia.
He put up l think the budget was 80 million dollars, no, 80 thousand dollars, is that possible? Yes, it must have been! He is the one who was located in London and a huge fan of the Pythons and encouraged me to do the film.
They had done it especially for the American market.
lt was the idea.
They didn't want it shown in England really.
Good morning.
l am a bank robber.
Please don't panic, just hand over all the money.
This is a lingerie shop, sir.
They got to lan McNaughton to direct and we did the ''best of' sketches.
lt wasn't a happy experience cos we weren't in charge of it.
We didn't have final cut.
lan tended to be drunk by lunch time so we'd just get on with it anyway.
l know that really Terry Jones wanted to direct it, and was sort of, you know, didn't feel it was how we should be doing what we should be doing.
This is a frightened city.
Over these streets, over these houses, hangs a pall of fear.
An ugly kind of violence is rife, stalking the town.
Yes, gangs of old ladies attacking fit, defenceless young men.
We twisted the arm of Columbia Pictures and got it out here, but it wasn't a huge box office success! lt got some very nice reviews.
That started.
lt helped.
l remember going in 197 1 on Yonge Street in Toronto.
My friend Dave Bennett took me.
Maybe we smoked something.
Maybe we didn't, but it didn't matter! lt was just great, solid, absurdist, out-there humour.
We have a lot of trouble with these grannies.
Pension day is the worst.
As soon as they get it, they blow the lot on milk, tea, sugar, a tin of meat for the cat.
lt connected really well sketch to sketch and was just so ridiculously silly.
l am warning this film not to get silly again! They could leave before you tied up the plot, the least interesting part of the sketch.
So, it was a huge advance.
They were very They just seemed very free.
''Dear Sir, l would like to complain about that last scene, ''about people falling out of high buildings.
''l myself have worked all my life in such a building ''and have never once'' lt is what it is.
lt's a collection of the first series and a bit more.
lt lacked the Python input.
So it's OK, and some of the sketches are done quite well, but it wasn't that interesting.
And it gave us the incentive to want to make our own film.
l think that was the basic thing about it which led to us saying, ''Next time we'll write our own film, we'll direct our own film, ''and that will be fine.
'' The important thing about making a film of our own .
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as opposed to And Now For Something Completely Different, was that we should do something that was more integrated.
We were aware that if you've got 90 minutes there, how do you get something that runs 90 minutes, holds people's attention for 90 minutes? And Terry J particularly was very keen on a story.
He and l had written various storylines for earlier Python shows like the Pither, the bicycling sketch.
lt almost was a full half-hour.
This idea that narrative was very important, that involves the audience much more, so we can't just do sketches.
We said, ''We'll write our own film.
'' So we set about writing it.
The Python way, we start to write and all this stuff comes in.
The writing went round and round for a long time.
How we finally honed it down to what it was l can't even remember! l remember Terry and l had written, maybe for the Python fourth series, we'd written something about knights approaching a castle and talking about the unladen swallow and all that.
''Where is your master?'' That sort of thing.
l think the coconuts were in there as well.
A little bit of it is about the coconuts and King Arthur.
Then another little bit is King Arthur in Harrods and looking for the Grail in the grail department! There's other bits about a boxing championship.
lt's a mishmash.
l think you'll find that about 85 per cent of it went out! We threw away almost all of that first draft and gradually staggered towards something that approached a little bit more of a story.
We put it away and in two or three months it was clear on rereading that the interesting bit was the Grail, so we said, ''All right, OK.
Toss the rest of it out.
''Second rewrite.
Let's concentrate on making this the story of Arthur.
'' And people came back saying, ''Yeah, the good thing about something like the search for the Grail ''is we could each have a character but would also play lots of others''.
We could each be a knight but we could do the subsidiary characters as well.
Everybody did a lot of research, that's the good thing.
Everybody read the Grail stories and Arthur.
We were sort of library nerds really, all of us, brought up to respect reference books and all that.
We did quite a bit of reading.
That's what happened for the next two or three rewrites.
So, we have this semi-tight script with a crap ending lt's such a loose story that you can go in all sorts of directions, but at the end you know that it is about the quest for the Grail.
So long as we can resolve the ending then we've got something which appears to be a good, strong narrative film.
lt sort of came out in about '73, that they needed money to make Holy Grail.
The problem with raising money was they'd already done And Now For Something Completely Different.
So the idea of making another Python film didn't seem to warrant.
Because nobody in the British film industry as it was then, which was essentially Rank and EMl, were prepared to put up anything for it.
Now we need money to finance it, and we went to l think Graham had a friend called Tony Stratton-Smith .
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who was a rock-and-roll record owner and bon viveur.
Tony Stratton-Smith grandly said, ''Well, we'll raise the money.
We can do it.
'' l think Steve O'Rourke, our manager, knew Tony well.
Andso there was this sort of obvious connection there.
l remember sending the copies of the film, our little 16-millimetre copy of And Now For Something Completely Different, out to various people, bands on the road here, some of whom didn't respond.
He got money from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd definitely.
Charisma put up a chunk as well.
l think we thought it would work.
l think we were by then were fans and it seemed like a really, really good idea.
You can't sort underestimate how big they were at the time.
Much, much bigger than us! We were quite stage-struck by the fact that these people might even know about Python let alone want to put some money into it! The actual budget that was offered to them was 150,000 pounds.
And the good news was they were rock-and-roll people and they didn't want to interfere.
They didn't want to read the script.
So it was great backing, the best backing to have.
The important thing was for Python to have complete control and final cut, and all the things they needed to do things in their own way.
And off we went.
lt seems, it seems foreverago.
ls ''forever ago'' a word? l don't know but it seems that way.
Whoa there! Of course, Terry and l, the two desperate filmmakers who hadn't made films before said, ''Anybody named Terry gets to direct this film'' and everybody seemed to agree! We're learning, that's what's nice.
We've been given a feature film to learn how to make films! Charlie, you come to this mark there to where Sue's going.
We do tag-team directing! When he finishes that he'll come out here and tap me on the shoulder and l'll rush through the action and away we'll go.
One of the problems we had was that we had two directors, neither of whom had ever directed a film before Plus the fact that they were both loonies! l think it is quite difficult to have two directors.
l think the idea was that Terry Jones would be doing a lot of acting anyway therefore when he was acting, Terry Gilliam could come in and do that.
Because Terry was playing Sir Bedivere, doesn't suddenly mean he's not interested in how that scene looks.
Of course he wanted to direct everything! Terry Gilliam wanted to direct everything but they had to share it! lt didn't altogether work out.
The big difference between Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam is Terry Jones is much more shooting from the hip.
lt's almost the action can flow because he's almost shooting it like a documentary at times.
He shoots pretty fast, on schedule and all the rest of it.
Terry Gilliam is worrying about the visual details much more.
lt was great for the movie because in the movie you get these wonderful Gilliam scenes with the boat so it becomes actually a movie.
Whereas Terry Jones is very good at making sure the joke is on camera.
Terry is a perfectionist and so he'd be spending time on getting shots.
l remember him getting really angry with me because l would come out, or maybe he was directing, and l'd come onto the set and we hadn't shot anything or something like that by ten, eleven o'clock in the morning! So l'd start hurrying up and getting things moving quicker.
l think Terry probably resented that a bit.
We were trying to work out how the two of us worked together, which was interesting because in preparation he and l shared the same ideas, and it became clear very quickly that when we got onto the floor shooting that we weren't saying the same thing, which was confusing for the crew.
One Terry had come along in the morning and set up the lighting, blah, blah, blah and then went off.
The other Terry came in the afternoon and said, ''No.
Don't like that.
Change it.
'' So Gerry Harrison, who was the first AD, became the common voice between the two Terrys, but then we discovered he was making his own film which wasn't So he was saying what neither of us was saying! Ultimately, it settled down with Terry dealing with the group, the actors, and me back with the camera trying to set up shots and get that done.
That worked very well, and that's how we got through the film.
But you're all treating him with proper respect? Well There's never been any mutual respect within the Python group at all, as you probably know, but we are withholding a lot of the criticism we'd normally be making.
Certain members of the group actually exploited the difference, the fact that we had two directors, and would sort of say things like, ''Terry Gilliam wouldn't get us to do that.
'' ''Terry Jones wouldn't ask us to do that,'' if Terry Gilliam was directing.
l thought that was a bit unfair and unhelpful.
They're doing a grand job, well, l mean, l can't say anything.
l adore them all and everything they do so well.
They are working very well together and it works.
l think the others realised directing Python was a dogsbody job so they were happy that these two energetic guys with the same name could go out and do all the stuff.
You've just got to organise things and work out what you're doing in the morning and it's a very thankless task.
lt was wonderful, because l'd always wanted to be a film director but saw no way to get there, so when finally it's handed to us on a plate, it's fantastic.
Now, the big one! Come on, Concorde! ln a movie of six weeks, you probably do three great takes.
Others are OK.
We did one really great take.
l remember Cleese and l, we'd be doing this, ''Message for you, sir'' scene Message for you, sir.
And we did a really funny take.
At the end of it, Terry shouted, ''Cut!'' And l said, ''How about that?'' because l was really pleased with it.
Brave, brave, Concorde! You shall not have died in vain.
l'm l'm not quite dead, sir.
Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain.
Terry Gilliam said, ''Not enough smoke''.
That's when l get angry! For an actor, that's fucking ''Not enough smoke!'' l should have learned then not to have been in Munchausen, because there was too much smoke in Munchausen.
When they say, ''More smoke, more smoke'' and this kind of thing, because we've hardly had a shot yet that we haven't had smoke or some arty visual effect, we tend to ask them how many laughs there are in smoke, you know, just to keep them, as it were, thinking.
But that's the only criticism l'd make.
l'll just stay here, then, shall l, sir? Yeah.
l think movies, like television, attract people who are really fundamentally fascinated by the visuals and therefore you get a slant.
Do you see what l mean? Even people writing about movies tend to be slanted towards the visual.
When in fact it's a total experience, not just a visual experience.
People say to me, ''But movies, you know ''Movies are a visual experience'' and l say to them, ''Life is a visual experience but here we are sitting talking.
'' Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! Both Terry and l were very keen on Pasolini's films because they were always done in real places, you could smell them.
You feel the textures, the sounds and everything were all real.
That was what we were trying to achieve, just that kind of reality.
l think in the end we achieved a lot because nobody had done comedy like that before where you were so immersed in the time and place and the filth! - Who's that, then? - l don't know.
Must be a king.
- Why? - He hasn't got shit all over him.
The jokes worked better if you really believe in that world so when they say, ''How do you know he's a king?'' ''Because he doesn't have shit all over him,'' that works because the world is just steeped in mud and filth and depredation.
And that's that was important to those jokes.
Dennis! Got some lovely filth down here.
Oh! How'd you do? How do you do, good lady? l am Arthur, King of the Britons.
- Whose castle is that? - King of the who? - The Britons.
- Who are the Britons? lt was very, very wet and very damp and very dirty and there was a lot whingeing going on, a lot of complaining, mainly from John, l must say, because John didn't like discomfort at all! There was one scene which Terry Gilliam was directing, when we were all in armour and we were kneeling down.
l think it was the cow scene.
He was trying to get the composition right.
We have been charged by God with a sacred quest.
lf he will give us food and shelter for the night, he may join us in our holy quest for the Grail.
Well, l'll ask him but l don't think he'll be very keen.
He's already got one, you see? What? He says they've already got one.
Are you sure he's got one? Oh, yes, it's very nice.
l told them we already got one.
Trying to get them to get in the right position so we could actually have all the animals coming over the battlement, and their heads weren't sticking above the matte line.
The armour was not very comfortable, and he was really moving us this much to the left and this ''Can you lower your head that much?'' l remember making some remark about the fact that he normally does animation with bits of card cutouts.
lt was easier to do that, but if you were a human being in armour that was sort of cutting into your knees, that there was a limit to the final perfection that could be achieved.
All he kept doing, John in particular and Graham grousing about the positions l was putting them in.
We had an argument and l think l was rude to him, and as far as l remember he went off .
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and lay in the shadow of a wall for some time! l just stormed off that day and said, ''Fuck it.
'' ''You wrote the sketch, l'm trying to make it work.
lf you don't like it, fuck off.
'' l went and got all humphy and sat in the grass while Terry took over.
l think l hurt his feelings and l'm sorry l did that, but That's about the only time l've lost it with Python.
lt was as though we were bits of cardboard cutout.
There wasn't a great understanding that we were human beings.
lt was difficult, on Holy Grail, for me to make the transition from a man who commanded paper to move to a man who was requesting other members of the group to move.
l don't know, l hadn't developed the use of language or the whip, either one, at that point and that was difficult.
We managed to do it.
That's why Holy Grail was a very abrupt learning experience for me because l had to begin to be able to speak to the others and convince them why they should stand in mud up to their neck! We'd get on the hillside at seven in the morning, at 7:12 the rain would come down and we'd all be huddling under this the knitted string chainmail would get damp.
lt was like that.
l mean, we wore woollen armour.
You could tell what time of day it was by how far up your legs the damp had penetrated! Then, at the end of the day, when the first assistant director shouted, ''lt's a wrap'', the scurry, the rush, the scrum, to get in a car and get back to the hotel, because there was only enough hot water in the hotel for about 50 per cent of the guests! We were staying in the same hotel as the crew because we were ''right on''.
So, people raced back to get their shower or bath before anyone else! Dirty work going on as people were tripping each other and trying to get in the bus.
Finally, John and l got fed up and we moved off to this We found there was a hydro hotel down the road, 25 minutes away.
We checked in there, and there were some big hot water baths and oh, great, great, great.
And then all the girls from Anthrax Castle came in and we went ''Yes! Thank you!'' Here in Castle Anthrax we have but one punishment for setting alight the Grail-shaped beacon.
You must tie her down on a bed and spank her.
A spanking! A spanking! You must spank her well and after you have spanked her, you may deal with her as you like and thenspank me.
- Spank me! - And me and me! Yes, yes! You must give us all a good spanking.
l've played all sorts of things with Monty, from sort of young girls to old ladies, from men to nuns to what have you.
They came to me with a script and they said, ''Oh, Carol.
''This one is going to be a bit difficult.
''This you might have to work at a bit.
'' And l said, ''What is it?'' They said, ''Carol, l don't know if you'll be able to carry this off.
'' l said, ''What? What is it?'' They said, ''A 19-year-old virgin, Carol.
'' So, l'm trying my best! Oh shit! We were in the nick of time.
You were in great peril.
- l don't think l was! - You were in terrible peril.
Let me go back in there and face the peril.
No, it's too perilous.
But my duty as a knight is to sample as much peril as l can! We've got to find the Holy Grail.
Come on.
- Let me have just a bit of peril! - No! lt's unhealthy.
Bet you're gay! We were not being like, you know, proper directors and producers, being nice to people.
We were trying to get through it.
Terry and l were just exhausted.
We did have to shoot such a lot.
l mean the ''The Knights Who Say Ni'' sequence, starts with Bedivere and Arthur sitting around a campfire and l think that sequence, the whole ''going through the woods'' sequence was shot in one day which is like, it's almost ten minutes of cut film.
We are the knights who say, ''Ni!'' No! Not the knights who say, ''Ni!'' The same! Ten minutes of cut film, that's a lot of material.
By the end of the day, l remember Terry and l were saying, ''But, what happens next? ''Robin and his minstrels have got to come in.
''OK, so which side should they come in from? Oh, God!'' The cameraman didn't know.
Terry didn't know.
l didn't know.
We just lt was work in such a panic.
Surely you have not given up your quest for the Holy Grail? - He is sneaking away and buggering off.
- Shut up! No, no, no! Far from it.
l am running Holy Grail and l am worried about the logistics, and Terry Jones was always going, ''Jules, l wonder if'' Then he would ask for something that was always the impossible thing l could never produce and l would have to produce it! lt was worrying as he approached me every time.
He was mainly in his Bedivere costume, so l used to see this costume coming towards me.
lt was like this dread of the costume coming towards me.
Even when he wasn't there and there was somebody else in it ''Oh, God! Terry's going to ask me for something! ''What is he going to ask me for that l'm not expecting? ''How the hell am l going to do it on this sort of budget?'' The budget was low on Holy Grail but it wasn't any different from the BBC.
The budget was low in the BBC.
Filming was always a rush to get everything filmed in time.
They were used to running around with a 16-mil camera, shooting sketches on Ben Nevis or whatever.
l remember travelling around with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones to look at the location.
One day, lad, all this will be yours.
- What, the curtains? - No, not the curtains, lad! All that you can see, stretched out over the hills and valleys of this land.
That'll be your kingdom, lad.
We'd gone over Scotland and over Wales actually, and decided on Scotland in the end.
We'd chosen a whole lot of castles all over Scotland.
lt looked great.
Then they would say, ''This is great, this castle in Scotland.
''Then in the afternoon we can travel to ''to Killin and shoot the cave.
'' And l'm saying, ''Yeah, but feature film, we've got costumes, we've got make-up.
''We've got piles of stuff and extras! ''We can't just shoot in the morning one place, ''travel 100 or 200 miles and shoot in the afternoon in the other place.
'' lt doesn't work like that on features.
Then, about two weeks before we were actually due to start filming, we got a letter from the Department of the Environment for Scotland telling us that we couldn't use any of their castles because they considered that we would be doing things that were inconsistent with .
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the dignity of the fabric of the building.
That a bit of jokery might undermine all the blood spilling that had gone on in those castles! l thought that was just extraordinary.
So we had to go up the week before we started filming to find some privately owned, non-nationalised castles that we could use.
The only one we really found was Doune Castle.
Camelot! That had to stand in for all the castles.
lt had to stand for Camelot and for every castle in the film.
Actually, we found it was a great thing in the end, because it meant we were just located in Doune most of the time and we didn't have to change around which would have taken up time, so it meant we got more done.
lt was just a strange scramble.
And in the midst of all this, everything was going wrong, because we get up to Glencoe, we get up there and the first day shooting, the camera breaks.
l had made a camera that .
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that you could carry up a mountain.
l'd had somebody engineer a zoom front, and we had a much lighter camera that was an invention that we created just for the film.
The cameraman suddenly said, ''Wait, something's gone wrong.
'' He opened up the camera and all the gears fell out and the camera had just sheared its gears! We only had one camera that was shooting sound and the only other camera we had was a mute camera.
So we'll shoot on a wild camera, just get any old wild camera.
lt doesn't matter if you shoot in sync.
We've got enough noise of explosions and smoke, just shoot and l'll go and try get it fixed.
And what do we do? We shoot close-ups which could have been done in somebody's back garden rather than shooting the expanse.
lt was great in a sense to be you know, much of the responsibility was taken off of our shoulders because anything was better than nothing at this point.
The first week of Holy Grail, l had planned only to have the Pythons themselves with their costumes just wandering around the locale up in Glencoe.
The end shot of the army rushing down, and then the police stopping the army and arresting Arthur and Bedivere, was supposed to take place weeks later in Stirling.
Couldn't we get the charge up here? We wanted to do the charge up in the West Coast.
Hazel, our costume designer said, ''We just haven't got the costumes.
'' ''We won't have the costumes for another five weeks ''until the end of the shooting to costume 200 people charging.
'' So we got everybody, everybody's child, everybody who was around, to hold up banners and pike staffs in front of the camera.
A few helmets we had, so they You see those, l mean, set up very, very carefully.
You would swear there's an army there but there wasn't.
My lasting image of Terry as a director was Terry organising this We had a few passers-by who had come to watch the filming.
There was about a dozen of them and some little children and things like that.
So there's Terry putting a helmet on some little child and giving her a spear to carry! So, you see the army charging which was shot five weeks later, the 200 students, charging down the hill slope.
Then in the frame you see Castle Stalker and then the army comes into shot.
lt's a head down there and a spear up there and, of course, it's just a little child and some children holding spears and things.
Terry got it absolutely spot-on.
lt was madness rushing around because we had very little transport.
Everybody was having to drive themselves.
Everybody was exhausted.
People were going off the roads at night.
There was a bad atmosphere on the set and l didn't know what was going on.
The crew didn't seem very happy.
Nobody seemed very happy.
They were so cold.
They were so tired.
There were murmurings of dissent from the crew.
lt was lovely Graham who sort of saved the day.
We were staying at this hotel and it was the first time we were going to see any of the rushes.
So everyone, all the crew was invited for the rushes.
Everyone was very grumpy and miserable.
Graham sort of came to the rescue straightaway, get everybody in the right mood, and he said, ''Right, drinks on me''.
So, of course that helped.
By the time we went to see the rushes everyone had a few, feeling merry.
And it turned out the rushes looked spectacular.
Just looked so wonderful.
And when they saw the rushes, people were so astounded by the quality they had produced and the quantity they had produced that they said they all relaxed and they said, ''Right.
We're going for this.
'' So the next day, everybody was happier.
ln fact, l believe the crew actually agreed to work for well, half their wages or something, so it changed everything.
lt's about a search for the Holy Grail, you see, which is a large sort of creature, a bit like a dodo, with a big beak.
Andpeople are trying to find this Grail.
lf you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by force! You don't frighten us, English pig dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! l blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King! You and all your silly English knnniggits! The whole film is a great anti-climax.
l see, and that starts fairly soon after the credit titles, does it? lt does, yes.
lt starts immediately.
lmmediately after the censor certificate? ln comes the anti-climax.
Graham is a fantastic actor.
ls, because you still see him doing fantastic acting in those films.
Graham was the right choice for Arthur.
There is a dignity about him and a seriousness there, which is fantastic.
We discovered there was a leading man in the group and it was Graham.
l thought it would be Mike but it turned out to be Graham.
- Old woman! - Man! Man, sorry.
What knight lives in that castle over there? - l'm 37.
- What? l'm 37.
l'm not old! - l can't just call you ''man''.
- You could say ''Dennis''.
l didn't know you were called Dennis.
You didn't bother to find out! l did say sorry about the ''old woman'' but from behind you looked What l object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior.
- Well, l am king.
- Oh, king, eh? Very nice! Graham was drinking when we were doing Holy Grail.
l remember one morning him looking at up an aeroplane and saying, ''Just think of all those people drinking their gin and tonics.
'' l look at an aeroplane one way and Graham looks at it another, in terms of a gin and tonic! What's it like being a film star? l'm not.
l'm just a l'm just an extra.
- You're just an extra? - Yes.
lt's the crown and this that probably - that makes you think - l was looking for Graham - Oh, yes.
He's around somewhere.
- ls he? Yes, here he is.
Well of course we didn't know that Graham was an alcoholic! We knew he liked to drink! He became so antagonistic towards Terry and myself, because us little jumped-up shits were ruining his picture because lan McNaughton, who had directed the television shows and And Now For Something Completely Different, had been sidelined.
He was a man who knew how to get things done and we were destroying everything.
He would go on these drunken rampages at night where we could barely stand up out of sheer exhaustion, and there's Graham screaming.
Then you'd go on the day, trying to get through a shot, and Graham was so unable to remember his lines.
We wouldn't get things done.
lt was l don't know how we did it, frankly.
But the Grail! Where is the Grail? Seek you the Bridge of Death.
The Bridge of Death which leads to the Grail? The first time we realised there was anything wrong was on the first shot which was ''The Bridge of Death'' and ''The Gorge of Eternal Peril''.
We had the six of us, in fact, standing on the edge of this precipice on a small path.
We were up there and mountaineers had built this Bridge of Death, which was terrifying and l would not go near it, let alone cross it! We get there, we're ready to shoot, and Graham, the great mountaineer, the man who had tales of climbing this, that mountain, couldn't walk across the bridge, he just froze.
He was shaking and l'm thinking, ''You're supposed to be a mountaineer! ''We're up on a mountain and you're shaking!'' We couldn't understand why he was like that! He seemed to be afraid of heights! Anyway, we didn't have time to think about it.
We were halfway up a mountainside in Glencoe and l hadn't got my daily dose and it was seven o'clock in the morning that we left the hotel.
The bar wasn't open.
l hadn't realised this.
l hadn't gotten anything prepared the night before as l should have, if l had researched my drinking properly.
Once you've got the shakes and the tremors, that is a physicality which means you can't really put one foot in front of the other.
l had DT's on the mountainside while having to try and remember lines and stand up.
So it's Gerry Harrison, the assistant director, in Graham's clothes going across the bridge.
l don't think we ever put together that it was alcoholism and there was a problem and he needed help.
There was no support for him in that sense.
lt was then that l decided that the next time l do a job like this l am going to be clean for it.
lt's not fair to the other chaps in the group.
lt's not fair to me.
lt's not fair to what l've written.
lt's so stupid.
And so when l next had a patch of time in which l thought l would need to recover, l took that patch of time and recovered after l suppose really three days of hell.
Charge! lt was pretty amazing that we shot in five weeks and nothing really went materially wrong until post production when it clearly wasn't working.
The hardest thing was for them to edit because Jonesy would edit by day and Gilliam would edit by night and there was only one editor! What a nightmare for him! Holy Grail was a disaster, the first showing we had of The Holy Grail.
l mean, Grail had, in the end, 13 edits, from the very first screening we did with 100 people which was justnot good.
The film started and people laughed and laughed and laughed.
Actually, at that point we opened with the ''Bring Out Your Dead'' sequence.
Bring out your dead.
- Here's one.
- Ninepence.
- l'm not dead! - What? Nothing.
Here's your ninepence.
- l'm not dead! - Here.
He says he's not dead! Yes, he is.
People started laughing and they laughed for about five minutes, and thendead, absolutely zilch.
The whole film played to nobody laughing and it was just the most awful evening l think.
And the only thing l could think of was thaton the We'd done a film before which was a compilation film and in that was the ''Dirty Fork'' sketch.
No apologies l can make can alter the fact that in our restaurant you have been given a dirty, filthy, smelly piece of cutlery.
- lt wasn't smelly.
- lt was smelly! And obscene and disgusting.
And l hate it.
l hate it! l hate it! Nasty, grubby, dirty, mangy, scrubby little fork.
Roberto! That had been very funny when we did it on TV and it wasn't funny when we showed it in the cinema.
lt didn't get any laughs.
And the only thing l could see different was that lan McNaughton had put on some muzak over the scene.
So we took the muzak off and it then got laughs again.
So l kind of thought, ''Maybe the same thing is happening with The Holy Grail.
'' The music budget was, l think, 3,000 pounds.
And l could afford 12 musicians for abouteight sessions.
What are you exactly contributing to the film? Terror and heroics at certain points to really do a job with the music to either create the lump in the throat, or make the back hairs stick out.
l had written some pretty good, l thought, Arthurian themes with two French horns sort of in harmony sort of going Orchestra But, you play it with 12 people and it sounds like a sort of an afternoon's alternative activities at the Women's lnstitute.
And so Terry rang me up and said, ''lt's awful l know, but you know ''Really, we can't have all the other cheap jokes and have thin music.
''We've got to go to the library.
'' And l perfectly understand and You know, that is the correct decision.
1 47 musicians playing any old thing is better than 12 playing something beautiful.
l think the music made a huge difference by using library music and cod heroics.
lt just gave it a whole other aspect.
The bits l did do stayed in with the little medieval bits, the jaunty little medieval music.
Bravely bold Sir Robin Rode forth from Camelot He was not afraid to die Oh brave Sir Robin And of course the music for the Knights of the Round Table.
ln war we're tough and able Quite indefatigable Between our quests You have to push the pram a lot! l have to push the pram a lot No, on second thoughts, let's not go to Camelot.
lt is a silly place.
Bit by bit, we put it together.
We linked up the laughs.
We shot little linky bits the gorilla paw in it.
Come on, come on! That's an offensive weapon that is! Back! Right, come on! l ended the Holy Grail, we didn't have an end for that either and said, ''Why don't we have the police arrest him.
Put their hand over the camera''.
My daughter hates me for that.
She says, ''The shittiest ending of a movie ever! l hate you, Dad!'' All right, sonny.
That's enough.
Just pack that in.
But then we were so nervous about it that We'd get people in and get them into a small viewing theatre, and we had 20 people or something and say, ''What do you think?'' People would watch and say, ''Well, yeah, it's all right''.
But nobody was very keen on it.
Then eventually, we were Terry Gilliam and l, were going out with this film, what we thought was a turkey, to a film festival in Los Angeles.
And there we had a paying audience for the first time, and we showed the film to a big audience and they laughed.
And it was kind of like, ''Oh! They laughed! They laughed!'' Then of course we realised that A, it's a paying audience, who paid their money, they're going to want to laugh.
And the other thing was, you don't ever say to anybody, ''We're really worried about this comedy film.
''Would you come and see if it's funny?'' because they're not going to find it funny! My favourite Monty Python movie is Holy Grail, it has to be.
lt's just amazing.
From the first second the thing starts Just that The fact they were taking themselves so seriously was instantly funny.
lt is set up like any other epic film, except that when you see them riding on horses, it's just a dude hopping along, and another guy carrying his stuff clip-clopping with coconuts.
Then they get off on a philosophical debate of the migration instincts of tropical birds.
You know what l mean? lt all becomes these mundane assessments of absolutely ridiculous things.
The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate? Not at all! They could be carried.
What? A swallow carrying a coconut? lt could grip it by the husk.
lt's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios.
A five-ounce bird could not carry a one-pound coconut.
Well, it doesn't matter! Things like the knights arriving with the coconut shells, and stuff like that.
Still a great idea.
Mixed in with this film is that wonderful sort of realism of medieval England with all the mud.
lt's probably rather better than anything that's been done recently.
Not only is it very funny, it's also very affectionate in terms of its treatment of the Grail legends and incredibly faithful to the actual story.
''The wise Sir Bedivere was the first to join King Arthur's knights, ''but other illustrious names were soon to follow ''Sir Lancelot the Brave, ''Sir Galahad the Pure, ''And Sir Robin, the not quite-so-brave as Sir Lancelot.
'' My brother can lip-synch the whole fucking film, and l'm not exaggerating! From the moment it starts, he's there.
l can't watch the film with him in the room.
Now look here, my good man l don't want to talk to you no more you empty-headed, animal food trough wiper! l fart in your general direction.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Apparently Elvis's favourite film, Holy Grail.
He watched it about 45 times in the Graceland private cinema.
You can imagine Elvis watching Holy Grail, what a superb image that would be! Elvis loved it.
l mean, he was He was laughing so much that his eyes were just tearing.
Come, Patsy.
None shall pass.
- What?! - None shall pass.
l have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but l must cross this bridge.
Then you shall die.
The scene that Elvis used to imitate, the sword fight scene We played a lot of football and one time we were playing, and he literally broke his finger.
- ''Oh, are you OK, Elvis?'' - ''Merely a flesh wound.
'' And he did it just like the movie.
Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left! - Yes, l have! - Look! lt's just a flesh wound.
l was the hugest Elvis fan.
That was like so weird and trippy just to think Elvis was a Python fan doing those voices.
Come, Patsy.
Oh, l see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! l'll bite your legs off! Just the very idea of Elvis knowing those catch phrases and him being as annoying as my brother as well, sat next to Priscilla on the sofa, ''lt's just a flesh wound.
'' l like the image of Elvis Presley reciting Python lines.
That's pop culture reaches its apotheosis in that moment.
There's nothing Andy Warhol can do about that.
The Castle Aaargh.
Our quest is at an end.
Holy Grail was number one for weeks in America, you know.
For a 200,000 pound film, it was amazing, you know.
By the time it came out here, it was 1975.
The TV series had been on.
We were getting some great publicity.
The Python trademark was becoming known.
l used to look in Variety and it was like looking at your bank account.
So, you'd buy Variety and look up, you know, ''Oh, it's number one and it's made another billion, million pound, ''of which l get my two and a half percent.
Great!'' We'd done this promotional ad to give out free coconuts to the first 100 or however many people would turn up at the cinema.
There was a full-page ad in the Times.
Well, there was a line around the block.
They had to open the movie even earlier.
lt was tremendous.
lt was very exciting.
lt was at the opening of Holy Grail in New York, and there was a question from a journalist, he said, ''So what's your next movie?'' and l said, ''Jesus Christ - Lust For Glory.
'' Everyone knows the inspiring story and life of the child born in a manger.
This isn't that story.
lt's not that life.
Brian The babe they called Brian This is Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
lt was the Golden age of Roman rule Do we have any cwucifixions today? 139, sir.
Special celebration.
A time of miracles l was blind and now l can see Oh! Of imperial benevolence Hail, Caesar.
ls that absolutely clear? lt was a time when getting stoned wasn't breaking the law.
lt was the law.
For the people of Jerusalem, things were looking bad.
Still a few crosses left.
And then Brian dropped in.
Brian ln fact, he wasn't the Messiah.
He was a very naughty boy.
Terrific race, the Romans.
Terrific.
Hello, and welcome to this documentary containing new and exclusive interviews with the five surviving members of Monty Python.
The producers wish to make it clear that any opinions expressed herein are those of the individuals and hold no truth whatsoever.
Pursuant, therefore, to clause 4.
6 of the Broadcasting, Video, Television Act, 1989, subsection 4, 3 and 2, clause .
.
subject to clause 4.
123, no viewer or watcher may copy, repeat, impersonate, mime, either contextually or noncontextually, any material whatsoever in any public place such as a street, pub, club, hotel, oil rig, Baptist church Python The legend they call Python At first they were small Then they grew up to be tall The world heard of their fame Everyone knew their name Now it's ''Who the fuck are Python?'' ''Never bleedin' heard of them'' That's why we made this documentary So we can all make more money from Python We never thought it would go to America.
l can remember a guy from WGBH in Boston, the PBS station in Boston, coming and meeting us and sitting in a little room, a little projection theatre.
He was very excited, he'd heard wonderful things, and wanted to see the show.
He'd had to come, in those days there weren't DVDs, they hadn't been invented, and he sat with us and when the lights went up at the end of the second show, he was sitting there as though he'd seen a ghost.
l mean, he waspale.
And we said And he got up and walked out of the room and said, ''lt's been a great pleasure meeting you guys.
'' He was so frightened at what would happen to his career if he put this on in America.
l can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab.
Yes, you know, we find that nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab.
lt's true.
We can't! No, we can't! No.
- You're on television, aren't you? - Yes, yes.
He does that thing with those silly women who can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab.
Yes! You try that around here, young man, and we'll slit your face.
Yes! With a razor.
There was a lovely woman called Nancy Lewis who pushed us by showing people our records and got some of the people in the American record industry interested.
The problem in those days was nobody could afford to put it on public television.
They couldn't afford to convert it from the PAL system to NTSC, which was a very expensive process in those days.
One day l got a phone call from Greg Garrison.
He was the man who had produced Dean Martin's show and had a big success record.
They were putting together a show which was called World Of Comedy.
Primarily, it was going to be made up of sketches from comedy shows all over the world and they wanted to use some Monty Python clips in there.
The Pythons at that stage were really reluctant to let anybody take clips from their shows.
But l remember writing them a rather impassioned memo saying, ''Look, this is a summer replacement show.
Nobody will see it.
''They only want to use little clips and they pay a lot of money ''which will be paid to TimeLife that would pay to convert it ''and after that the PBS stations could afford it.
'' l think it was '7 4, before a very great pal of ours called Ron de Villiers, who was in charge of the PBS station in Dallas, finally plucked up his courage and one night he put us out in Dallas of all places, and, you know, all his friends were calling him saying, ''What happened? ''Were you stoned? Did they set fire to the station?'' He said, ''lt's all right.
There's no protest.
'' Then it went out everywhere.
When the Python thing came on it was much better, let's say it was a whole lot better than having to watch a sitcom.
OK.
All right.
Cut him down, Mr Fuller.
Oh, you're no fun any more! They were different and so when l saw the show it was a huge moment to see the freedom with which they were doing their comedy, but most importantly to me they were presupposed a level of intelligence in their audience .
.
that you couldn't do then in America.
They got huge reaction.
First of all, it was so different from anything.
They were used to seeing Masterpiece Theatre and these wonderful, noble programmes.
Here comes this completely insane British humour show.
Suddenly, people understood British humour.
lsn't that amazing? And now for something completely different.
l was always excited about And Now For Something Completely Different.
People run it down nowadays.
''lt wasn't a proper Python film.
'' lt was a movie shown in movie theatres.
We went to some previews.
Victor Lownes had loved the show.
He was the Playboy Club in London and he thought it was a great show.
He did a deal with Columbia.
He put up l think the budget was 80 million dollars, no, 80 thousand dollars, is that possible? Yes, it must have been! He is the one who was located in London and a huge fan of the Pythons and encouraged me to do the film.
They had done it especially for the American market.
lt was the idea.
They didn't want it shown in England really.
Good morning.
l am a bank robber.
Please don't panic, just hand over all the money.
This is a lingerie shop, sir.
They got to lan McNaughton to direct and we did the ''best of' sketches.
lt wasn't a happy experience cos we weren't in charge of it.
We didn't have final cut.
lan tended to be drunk by lunch time so we'd just get on with it anyway.
l know that really Terry Jones wanted to direct it, and was sort of, you know, didn't feel it was how we should be doing what we should be doing.
This is a frightened city.
Over these streets, over these houses, hangs a pall of fear.
An ugly kind of violence is rife, stalking the town.
Yes, gangs of old ladies attacking fit, defenceless young men.
We twisted the arm of Columbia Pictures and got it out here, but it wasn't a huge box office success! lt got some very nice reviews.
That started.
lt helped.
l remember going in 197 1 on Yonge Street in Toronto.
My friend Dave Bennett took me.
Maybe we smoked something.
Maybe we didn't, but it didn't matter! lt was just great, solid, absurdist, out-there humour.
We have a lot of trouble with these grannies.
Pension day is the worst.
As soon as they get it, they blow the lot on milk, tea, sugar, a tin of meat for the cat.
lt connected really well sketch to sketch and was just so ridiculously silly.
l am warning this film not to get silly again! They could leave before you tied up the plot, the least interesting part of the sketch.
So, it was a huge advance.
They were very They just seemed very free.
''Dear Sir, l would like to complain about that last scene, ''about people falling out of high buildings.
''l myself have worked all my life in such a building ''and have never once'' lt is what it is.
lt's a collection of the first series and a bit more.
lt lacked the Python input.
So it's OK, and some of the sketches are done quite well, but it wasn't that interesting.
And it gave us the incentive to want to make our own film.
l think that was the basic thing about it which led to us saying, ''Next time we'll write our own film, we'll direct our own film, ''and that will be fine.
'' The important thing about making a film of our own .
.
as opposed to And Now For Something Completely Different, was that we should do something that was more integrated.
We were aware that if you've got 90 minutes there, how do you get something that runs 90 minutes, holds people's attention for 90 minutes? And Terry J particularly was very keen on a story.
He and l had written various storylines for earlier Python shows like the Pither, the bicycling sketch.
lt almost was a full half-hour.
This idea that narrative was very important, that involves the audience much more, so we can't just do sketches.
We said, ''We'll write our own film.
'' So we set about writing it.
The Python way, we start to write and all this stuff comes in.
The writing went round and round for a long time.
How we finally honed it down to what it was l can't even remember! l remember Terry and l had written, maybe for the Python fourth series, we'd written something about knights approaching a castle and talking about the unladen swallow and all that.
''Where is your master?'' That sort of thing.
l think the coconuts were in there as well.
A little bit of it is about the coconuts and King Arthur.
Then another little bit is King Arthur in Harrods and looking for the Grail in the grail department! There's other bits about a boxing championship.
lt's a mishmash.
l think you'll find that about 85 per cent of it went out! We threw away almost all of that first draft and gradually staggered towards something that approached a little bit more of a story.
We put it away and in two or three months it was clear on rereading that the interesting bit was the Grail, so we said, ''All right, OK.
Toss the rest of it out.
''Second rewrite.
Let's concentrate on making this the story of Arthur.
'' And people came back saying, ''Yeah, the good thing about something like the search for the Grail ''is we could each have a character but would also play lots of others''.
We could each be a knight but we could do the subsidiary characters as well.
Everybody did a lot of research, that's the good thing.
Everybody read the Grail stories and Arthur.
We were sort of library nerds really, all of us, brought up to respect reference books and all that.
We did quite a bit of reading.
That's what happened for the next two or three rewrites.
So, we have this semi-tight script with a crap ending lt's such a loose story that you can go in all sorts of directions, but at the end you know that it is about the quest for the Grail.
So long as we can resolve the ending then we've got something which appears to be a good, strong narrative film.
lt sort of came out in about '73, that they needed money to make Holy Grail.
The problem with raising money was they'd already done And Now For Something Completely Different.
So the idea of making another Python film didn't seem to warrant.
Because nobody in the British film industry as it was then, which was essentially Rank and EMl, were prepared to put up anything for it.
Now we need money to finance it, and we went to l think Graham had a friend called Tony Stratton-Smith .
.
who was a rock-and-roll record owner and bon viveur.
Tony Stratton-Smith grandly said, ''Well, we'll raise the money.
We can do it.
'' l think Steve O'Rourke, our manager, knew Tony well.
Andso there was this sort of obvious connection there.
l remember sending the copies of the film, our little 16-millimetre copy of And Now For Something Completely Different, out to various people, bands on the road here, some of whom didn't respond.
He got money from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd definitely.
Charisma put up a chunk as well.
l think we thought it would work.
l think we were by then were fans and it seemed like a really, really good idea.
You can't sort underestimate how big they were at the time.
Much, much bigger than us! We were quite stage-struck by the fact that these people might even know about Python let alone want to put some money into it! The actual budget that was offered to them was 150,000 pounds.
And the good news was they were rock-and-roll people and they didn't want to interfere.
They didn't want to read the script.
So it was great backing, the best backing to have.
The important thing was for Python to have complete control and final cut, and all the things they needed to do things in their own way.
And off we went.
lt seems, it seems foreverago.
ls ''forever ago'' a word? l don't know but it seems that way.
Whoa there! Of course, Terry and l, the two desperate filmmakers who hadn't made films before said, ''Anybody named Terry gets to direct this film'' and everybody seemed to agree! We're learning, that's what's nice.
We've been given a feature film to learn how to make films! Charlie, you come to this mark there to where Sue's going.
We do tag-team directing! When he finishes that he'll come out here and tap me on the shoulder and l'll rush through the action and away we'll go.
One of the problems we had was that we had two directors, neither of whom had ever directed a film before Plus the fact that they were both loonies! l think it is quite difficult to have two directors.
l think the idea was that Terry Jones would be doing a lot of acting anyway therefore when he was acting, Terry Gilliam could come in and do that.
Because Terry was playing Sir Bedivere, doesn't suddenly mean he's not interested in how that scene looks.
Of course he wanted to direct everything! Terry Gilliam wanted to direct everything but they had to share it! lt didn't altogether work out.
The big difference between Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam is Terry Jones is much more shooting from the hip.
lt's almost the action can flow because he's almost shooting it like a documentary at times.
He shoots pretty fast, on schedule and all the rest of it.
Terry Gilliam is worrying about the visual details much more.
lt was great for the movie because in the movie you get these wonderful Gilliam scenes with the boat so it becomes actually a movie.
Whereas Terry Jones is very good at making sure the joke is on camera.
Terry is a perfectionist and so he'd be spending time on getting shots.
l remember him getting really angry with me because l would come out, or maybe he was directing, and l'd come onto the set and we hadn't shot anything or something like that by ten, eleven o'clock in the morning! So l'd start hurrying up and getting things moving quicker.
l think Terry probably resented that a bit.
We were trying to work out how the two of us worked together, which was interesting because in preparation he and l shared the same ideas, and it became clear very quickly that when we got onto the floor shooting that we weren't saying the same thing, which was confusing for the crew.
One Terry had come along in the morning and set up the lighting, blah, blah, blah and then went off.
The other Terry came in the afternoon and said, ''No.
Don't like that.
Change it.
'' So Gerry Harrison, who was the first AD, became the common voice between the two Terrys, but then we discovered he was making his own film which wasn't So he was saying what neither of us was saying! Ultimately, it settled down with Terry dealing with the group, the actors, and me back with the camera trying to set up shots and get that done.
That worked very well, and that's how we got through the film.
But you're all treating him with proper respect? Well There's never been any mutual respect within the Python group at all, as you probably know, but we are withholding a lot of the criticism we'd normally be making.
Certain members of the group actually exploited the difference, the fact that we had two directors, and would sort of say things like, ''Terry Gilliam wouldn't get us to do that.
'' ''Terry Jones wouldn't ask us to do that,'' if Terry Gilliam was directing.
l thought that was a bit unfair and unhelpful.
They're doing a grand job, well, l mean, l can't say anything.
l adore them all and everything they do so well.
They are working very well together and it works.
l think the others realised directing Python was a dogsbody job so they were happy that these two energetic guys with the same name could go out and do all the stuff.
You've just got to organise things and work out what you're doing in the morning and it's a very thankless task.
lt was wonderful, because l'd always wanted to be a film director but saw no way to get there, so when finally it's handed to us on a plate, it's fantastic.
Now, the big one! Come on, Concorde! ln a movie of six weeks, you probably do three great takes.
Others are OK.
We did one really great take.
l remember Cleese and l, we'd be doing this, ''Message for you, sir'' scene Message for you, sir.
And we did a really funny take.
At the end of it, Terry shouted, ''Cut!'' And l said, ''How about that?'' because l was really pleased with it.
Brave, brave, Concorde! You shall not have died in vain.
l'm l'm not quite dead, sir.
Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain.
Terry Gilliam said, ''Not enough smoke''.
That's when l get angry! For an actor, that's fucking ''Not enough smoke!'' l should have learned then not to have been in Munchausen, because there was too much smoke in Munchausen.
When they say, ''More smoke, more smoke'' and this kind of thing, because we've hardly had a shot yet that we haven't had smoke or some arty visual effect, we tend to ask them how many laughs there are in smoke, you know, just to keep them, as it were, thinking.
But that's the only criticism l'd make.
l'll just stay here, then, shall l, sir? Yeah.
l think movies, like television, attract people who are really fundamentally fascinated by the visuals and therefore you get a slant.
Do you see what l mean? Even people writing about movies tend to be slanted towards the visual.
When in fact it's a total experience, not just a visual experience.
People say to me, ''But movies, you know ''Movies are a visual experience'' and l say to them, ''Life is a visual experience but here we are sitting talking.
'' Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! Both Terry and l were very keen on Pasolini's films because they were always done in real places, you could smell them.
You feel the textures, the sounds and everything were all real.
That was what we were trying to achieve, just that kind of reality.
l think in the end we achieved a lot because nobody had done comedy like that before where you were so immersed in the time and place and the filth! - Who's that, then? - l don't know.
Must be a king.
- Why? - He hasn't got shit all over him.
The jokes worked better if you really believe in that world so when they say, ''How do you know he's a king?'' ''Because he doesn't have shit all over him,'' that works because the world is just steeped in mud and filth and depredation.
And that's that was important to those jokes.
Dennis! Got some lovely filth down here.
Oh! How'd you do? How do you do, good lady? l am Arthur, King of the Britons.
- Whose castle is that? - King of the who? - The Britons.
- Who are the Britons? lt was very, very wet and very damp and very dirty and there was a lot whingeing going on, a lot of complaining, mainly from John, l must say, because John didn't like discomfort at all! There was one scene which Terry Gilliam was directing, when we were all in armour and we were kneeling down.
l think it was the cow scene.
He was trying to get the composition right.
We have been charged by God with a sacred quest.
lf he will give us food and shelter for the night, he may join us in our holy quest for the Grail.
Well, l'll ask him but l don't think he'll be very keen.
He's already got one, you see? What? He says they've already got one.
Are you sure he's got one? Oh, yes, it's very nice.
l told them we already got one.
Trying to get them to get in the right position so we could actually have all the animals coming over the battlement, and their heads weren't sticking above the matte line.
The armour was not very comfortable, and he was really moving us this much to the left and this ''Can you lower your head that much?'' l remember making some remark about the fact that he normally does animation with bits of card cutouts.
lt was easier to do that, but if you were a human being in armour that was sort of cutting into your knees, that there was a limit to the final perfection that could be achieved.
All he kept doing, John in particular and Graham grousing about the positions l was putting them in.
We had an argument and l think l was rude to him, and as far as l remember he went off .
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and lay in the shadow of a wall for some time! l just stormed off that day and said, ''Fuck it.
'' ''You wrote the sketch, l'm trying to make it work.
lf you don't like it, fuck off.
'' l went and got all humphy and sat in the grass while Terry took over.
l think l hurt his feelings and l'm sorry l did that, but That's about the only time l've lost it with Python.
lt was as though we were bits of cardboard cutout.
There wasn't a great understanding that we were human beings.
lt was difficult, on Holy Grail, for me to make the transition from a man who commanded paper to move to a man who was requesting other members of the group to move.
l don't know, l hadn't developed the use of language or the whip, either one, at that point and that was difficult.
We managed to do it.
That's why Holy Grail was a very abrupt learning experience for me because l had to begin to be able to speak to the others and convince them why they should stand in mud up to their neck! We'd get on the hillside at seven in the morning, at 7:12 the rain would come down and we'd all be huddling under this the knitted string chainmail would get damp.
lt was like that.
l mean, we wore woollen armour.
You could tell what time of day it was by how far up your legs the damp had penetrated! Then, at the end of the day, when the first assistant director shouted, ''lt's a wrap'', the scurry, the rush, the scrum, to get in a car and get back to the hotel, because there was only enough hot water in the hotel for about 50 per cent of the guests! We were staying in the same hotel as the crew because we were ''right on''.
So, people raced back to get their shower or bath before anyone else! Dirty work going on as people were tripping each other and trying to get in the bus.
Finally, John and l got fed up and we moved off to this We found there was a hydro hotel down the road, 25 minutes away.
We checked in there, and there were some big hot water baths and oh, great, great, great.
And then all the girls from Anthrax Castle came in and we went ''Yes! Thank you!'' Here in Castle Anthrax we have but one punishment for setting alight the Grail-shaped beacon.
You must tie her down on a bed and spank her.
A spanking! A spanking! You must spank her well and after you have spanked her, you may deal with her as you like and thenspank me.
- Spank me! - And me and me! Yes, yes! You must give us all a good spanking.
l've played all sorts of things with Monty, from sort of young girls to old ladies, from men to nuns to what have you.
They came to me with a script and they said, ''Oh, Carol.
''This one is going to be a bit difficult.
''This you might have to work at a bit.
'' And l said, ''What is it?'' They said, ''Carol, l don't know if you'll be able to carry this off.
'' l said, ''What? What is it?'' They said, ''A 19-year-old virgin, Carol.
'' So, l'm trying my best! Oh shit! We were in the nick of time.
You were in great peril.
- l don't think l was! - You were in terrible peril.
Let me go back in there and face the peril.
No, it's too perilous.
But my duty as a knight is to sample as much peril as l can! We've got to find the Holy Grail.
Come on.
- Let me have just a bit of peril! - No! lt's unhealthy.
Bet you're gay! We were not being like, you know, proper directors and producers, being nice to people.
We were trying to get through it.
Terry and l were just exhausted.
We did have to shoot such a lot.
l mean the ''The Knights Who Say Ni'' sequence, starts with Bedivere and Arthur sitting around a campfire and l think that sequence, the whole ''going through the woods'' sequence was shot in one day which is like, it's almost ten minutes of cut film.
We are the knights who say, ''Ni!'' No! Not the knights who say, ''Ni!'' The same! Ten minutes of cut film, that's a lot of material.
By the end of the day, l remember Terry and l were saying, ''But, what happens next? ''Robin and his minstrels have got to come in.
''OK, so which side should they come in from? Oh, God!'' The cameraman didn't know.
Terry didn't know.
l didn't know.
We just lt was work in such a panic.
Surely you have not given up your quest for the Holy Grail? - He is sneaking away and buggering off.
- Shut up! No, no, no! Far from it.
l am running Holy Grail and l am worried about the logistics, and Terry Jones was always going, ''Jules, l wonder if'' Then he would ask for something that was always the impossible thing l could never produce and l would have to produce it! lt was worrying as he approached me every time.
He was mainly in his Bedivere costume, so l used to see this costume coming towards me.
lt was like this dread of the costume coming towards me.
Even when he wasn't there and there was somebody else in it ''Oh, God! Terry's going to ask me for something! ''What is he going to ask me for that l'm not expecting? ''How the hell am l going to do it on this sort of budget?'' The budget was low on Holy Grail but it wasn't any different from the BBC.
The budget was low in the BBC.
Filming was always a rush to get everything filmed in time.
They were used to running around with a 16-mil camera, shooting sketches on Ben Nevis or whatever.
l remember travelling around with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones to look at the location.
One day, lad, all this will be yours.
- What, the curtains? - No, not the curtains, lad! All that you can see, stretched out over the hills and valleys of this land.
That'll be your kingdom, lad.
We'd gone over Scotland and over Wales actually, and decided on Scotland in the end.
We'd chosen a whole lot of castles all over Scotland.
lt looked great.
Then they would say, ''This is great, this castle in Scotland.
''Then in the afternoon we can travel to ''to Killin and shoot the cave.
'' And l'm saying, ''Yeah, but feature film, we've got costumes, we've got make-up.
''We've got piles of stuff and extras! ''We can't just shoot in the morning one place, ''travel 100 or 200 miles and shoot in the afternoon in the other place.
'' lt doesn't work like that on features.
Then, about two weeks before we were actually due to start filming, we got a letter from the Department of the Environment for Scotland telling us that we couldn't use any of their castles because they considered that we would be doing things that were inconsistent with .
.
the dignity of the fabric of the building.
That a bit of jokery might undermine all the blood spilling that had gone on in those castles! l thought that was just extraordinary.
So we had to go up the week before we started filming to find some privately owned, non-nationalised castles that we could use.
The only one we really found was Doune Castle.
Camelot! That had to stand in for all the castles.
lt had to stand for Camelot and for every castle in the film.
Actually, we found it was a great thing in the end, because it meant we were just located in Doune most of the time and we didn't have to change around which would have taken up time, so it meant we got more done.
lt was just a strange scramble.
And in the midst of all this, everything was going wrong, because we get up to Glencoe, we get up there and the first day shooting, the camera breaks.
l had made a camera that .
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that you could carry up a mountain.
l'd had somebody engineer a zoom front, and we had a much lighter camera that was an invention that we created just for the film.
The cameraman suddenly said, ''Wait, something's gone wrong.
'' He opened up the camera and all the gears fell out and the camera had just sheared its gears! We only had one camera that was shooting sound and the only other camera we had was a mute camera.
So we'll shoot on a wild camera, just get any old wild camera.
lt doesn't matter if you shoot in sync.
We've got enough noise of explosions and smoke, just shoot and l'll go and try get it fixed.
And what do we do? We shoot close-ups which could have been done in somebody's back garden rather than shooting the expanse.
lt was great in a sense to be you know, much of the responsibility was taken off of our shoulders because anything was better than nothing at this point.
The first week of Holy Grail, l had planned only to have the Pythons themselves with their costumes just wandering around the locale up in Glencoe.
The end shot of the army rushing down, and then the police stopping the army and arresting Arthur and Bedivere, was supposed to take place weeks later in Stirling.
Couldn't we get the charge up here? We wanted to do the charge up in the West Coast.
Hazel, our costume designer said, ''We just haven't got the costumes.
'' ''We won't have the costumes for another five weeks ''until the end of the shooting to costume 200 people charging.
'' So we got everybody, everybody's child, everybody who was around, to hold up banners and pike staffs in front of the camera.
A few helmets we had, so they You see those, l mean, set up very, very carefully.
You would swear there's an army there but there wasn't.
My lasting image of Terry as a director was Terry organising this We had a few passers-by who had come to watch the filming.
There was about a dozen of them and some little children and things like that.
So there's Terry putting a helmet on some little child and giving her a spear to carry! So, you see the army charging which was shot five weeks later, the 200 students, charging down the hill slope.
Then in the frame you see Castle Stalker and then the army comes into shot.
lt's a head down there and a spear up there and, of course, it's just a little child and some children holding spears and things.
Terry got it absolutely spot-on.
lt was madness rushing around because we had very little transport.
Everybody was having to drive themselves.
Everybody was exhausted.
People were going off the roads at night.
There was a bad atmosphere on the set and l didn't know what was going on.
The crew didn't seem very happy.
Nobody seemed very happy.
They were so cold.
They were so tired.
There were murmurings of dissent from the crew.
lt was lovely Graham who sort of saved the day.
We were staying at this hotel and it was the first time we were going to see any of the rushes.
So everyone, all the crew was invited for the rushes.
Everyone was very grumpy and miserable.
Graham sort of came to the rescue straightaway, get everybody in the right mood, and he said, ''Right, drinks on me''.
So, of course that helped.
By the time we went to see the rushes everyone had a few, feeling merry.
And it turned out the rushes looked spectacular.
Just looked so wonderful.
And when they saw the rushes, people were so astounded by the quality they had produced and the quantity they had produced that they said they all relaxed and they said, ''Right.
We're going for this.
'' So the next day, everybody was happier.
ln fact, l believe the crew actually agreed to work for well, half their wages or something, so it changed everything.
lt's about a search for the Holy Grail, you see, which is a large sort of creature, a bit like a dodo, with a big beak.
Andpeople are trying to find this Grail.
lf you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by force! You don't frighten us, English pig dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! l blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King! You and all your silly English knnniggits! The whole film is a great anti-climax.
l see, and that starts fairly soon after the credit titles, does it? lt does, yes.
lt starts immediately.
lmmediately after the censor certificate? ln comes the anti-climax.
Graham is a fantastic actor.
ls, because you still see him doing fantastic acting in those films.
Graham was the right choice for Arthur.
There is a dignity about him and a seriousness there, which is fantastic.
We discovered there was a leading man in the group and it was Graham.
l thought it would be Mike but it turned out to be Graham.
- Old woman! - Man! Man, sorry.
What knight lives in that castle over there? - l'm 37.
- What? l'm 37.
l'm not old! - l can't just call you ''man''.
- You could say ''Dennis''.
l didn't know you were called Dennis.
You didn't bother to find out! l did say sorry about the ''old woman'' but from behind you looked What l object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior.
- Well, l am king.
- Oh, king, eh? Very nice! Graham was drinking when we were doing Holy Grail.
l remember one morning him looking at up an aeroplane and saying, ''Just think of all those people drinking their gin and tonics.
'' l look at an aeroplane one way and Graham looks at it another, in terms of a gin and tonic! What's it like being a film star? l'm not.
l'm just a l'm just an extra.
- You're just an extra? - Yes.
lt's the crown and this that probably - that makes you think - l was looking for Graham - Oh, yes.
He's around somewhere.
- ls he? Yes, here he is.
Well of course we didn't know that Graham was an alcoholic! We knew he liked to drink! He became so antagonistic towards Terry and myself, because us little jumped-up shits were ruining his picture because lan McNaughton, who had directed the television shows and And Now For Something Completely Different, had been sidelined.
He was a man who knew how to get things done and we were destroying everything.
He would go on these drunken rampages at night where we could barely stand up out of sheer exhaustion, and there's Graham screaming.
Then you'd go on the day, trying to get through a shot, and Graham was so unable to remember his lines.
We wouldn't get things done.
lt was l don't know how we did it, frankly.
But the Grail! Where is the Grail? Seek you the Bridge of Death.
The Bridge of Death which leads to the Grail? The first time we realised there was anything wrong was on the first shot which was ''The Bridge of Death'' and ''The Gorge of Eternal Peril''.
We had the six of us, in fact, standing on the edge of this precipice on a small path.
We were up there and mountaineers had built this Bridge of Death, which was terrifying and l would not go near it, let alone cross it! We get there, we're ready to shoot, and Graham, the great mountaineer, the man who had tales of climbing this, that mountain, couldn't walk across the bridge, he just froze.
He was shaking and l'm thinking, ''You're supposed to be a mountaineer! ''We're up on a mountain and you're shaking!'' We couldn't understand why he was like that! He seemed to be afraid of heights! Anyway, we didn't have time to think about it.
We were halfway up a mountainside in Glencoe and l hadn't got my daily dose and it was seven o'clock in the morning that we left the hotel.
The bar wasn't open.
l hadn't realised this.
l hadn't gotten anything prepared the night before as l should have, if l had researched my drinking properly.
Once you've got the shakes and the tremors, that is a physicality which means you can't really put one foot in front of the other.
l had DT's on the mountainside while having to try and remember lines and stand up.
So it's Gerry Harrison, the assistant director, in Graham's clothes going across the bridge.
l don't think we ever put together that it was alcoholism and there was a problem and he needed help.
There was no support for him in that sense.
lt was then that l decided that the next time l do a job like this l am going to be clean for it.
lt's not fair to the other chaps in the group.
lt's not fair to me.
lt's not fair to what l've written.
lt's so stupid.
And so when l next had a patch of time in which l thought l would need to recover, l took that patch of time and recovered after l suppose really three days of hell.
Charge! lt was pretty amazing that we shot in five weeks and nothing really went materially wrong until post production when it clearly wasn't working.
The hardest thing was for them to edit because Jonesy would edit by day and Gilliam would edit by night and there was only one editor! What a nightmare for him! Holy Grail was a disaster, the first showing we had of The Holy Grail.
l mean, Grail had, in the end, 13 edits, from the very first screening we did with 100 people which was justnot good.
The film started and people laughed and laughed and laughed.
Actually, at that point we opened with the ''Bring Out Your Dead'' sequence.
Bring out your dead.
- Here's one.
- Ninepence.
- l'm not dead! - What? Nothing.
Here's your ninepence.
- l'm not dead! - Here.
He says he's not dead! Yes, he is.
People started laughing and they laughed for about five minutes, and thendead, absolutely zilch.
The whole film played to nobody laughing and it was just the most awful evening l think.
And the only thing l could think of was thaton the We'd done a film before which was a compilation film and in that was the ''Dirty Fork'' sketch.
No apologies l can make can alter the fact that in our restaurant you have been given a dirty, filthy, smelly piece of cutlery.
- lt wasn't smelly.
- lt was smelly! And obscene and disgusting.
And l hate it.
l hate it! l hate it! Nasty, grubby, dirty, mangy, scrubby little fork.
Roberto! That had been very funny when we did it on TV and it wasn't funny when we showed it in the cinema.
lt didn't get any laughs.
And the only thing l could see different was that lan McNaughton had put on some muzak over the scene.
So we took the muzak off and it then got laughs again.
So l kind of thought, ''Maybe the same thing is happening with The Holy Grail.
'' The music budget was, l think, 3,000 pounds.
And l could afford 12 musicians for abouteight sessions.
What are you exactly contributing to the film? Terror and heroics at certain points to really do a job with the music to either create the lump in the throat, or make the back hairs stick out.
l had written some pretty good, l thought, Arthurian themes with two French horns sort of in harmony sort of going Orchestra But, you play it with 12 people and it sounds like a sort of an afternoon's alternative activities at the Women's lnstitute.
And so Terry rang me up and said, ''lt's awful l know, but you know ''Really, we can't have all the other cheap jokes and have thin music.
''We've got to go to the library.
'' And l perfectly understand and You know, that is the correct decision.
1 47 musicians playing any old thing is better than 12 playing something beautiful.
l think the music made a huge difference by using library music and cod heroics.
lt just gave it a whole other aspect.
The bits l did do stayed in with the little medieval bits, the jaunty little medieval music.
Bravely bold Sir Robin Rode forth from Camelot He was not afraid to die Oh brave Sir Robin And of course the music for the Knights of the Round Table.
ln war we're tough and able Quite indefatigable Between our quests You have to push the pram a lot! l have to push the pram a lot No, on second thoughts, let's not go to Camelot.
lt is a silly place.
Bit by bit, we put it together.
We linked up the laughs.
We shot little linky bits the gorilla paw in it.
Come on, come on! That's an offensive weapon that is! Back! Right, come on! l ended the Holy Grail, we didn't have an end for that either and said, ''Why don't we have the police arrest him.
Put their hand over the camera''.
My daughter hates me for that.
She says, ''The shittiest ending of a movie ever! l hate you, Dad!'' All right, sonny.
That's enough.
Just pack that in.
But then we were so nervous about it that We'd get people in and get them into a small viewing theatre, and we had 20 people or something and say, ''What do you think?'' People would watch and say, ''Well, yeah, it's all right''.
But nobody was very keen on it.
Then eventually, we were Terry Gilliam and l, were going out with this film, what we thought was a turkey, to a film festival in Los Angeles.
And there we had a paying audience for the first time, and we showed the film to a big audience and they laughed.
And it was kind of like, ''Oh! They laughed! They laughed!'' Then of course we realised that A, it's a paying audience, who paid their money, they're going to want to laugh.
And the other thing was, you don't ever say to anybody, ''We're really worried about this comedy film.
''Would you come and see if it's funny?'' because they're not going to find it funny! My favourite Monty Python movie is Holy Grail, it has to be.
lt's just amazing.
From the first second the thing starts Just that The fact they were taking themselves so seriously was instantly funny.
lt is set up like any other epic film, except that when you see them riding on horses, it's just a dude hopping along, and another guy carrying his stuff clip-clopping with coconuts.
Then they get off on a philosophical debate of the migration instincts of tropical birds.
You know what l mean? lt all becomes these mundane assessments of absolutely ridiculous things.
The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land.
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate? Not at all! They could be carried.
What? A swallow carrying a coconut? lt could grip it by the husk.
lt's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios.
A five-ounce bird could not carry a one-pound coconut.
Well, it doesn't matter! Things like the knights arriving with the coconut shells, and stuff like that.
Still a great idea.
Mixed in with this film is that wonderful sort of realism of medieval England with all the mud.
lt's probably rather better than anything that's been done recently.
Not only is it very funny, it's also very affectionate in terms of its treatment of the Grail legends and incredibly faithful to the actual story.
''The wise Sir Bedivere was the first to join King Arthur's knights, ''but other illustrious names were soon to follow ''Sir Lancelot the Brave, ''Sir Galahad the Pure, ''And Sir Robin, the not quite-so-brave as Sir Lancelot.
'' My brother can lip-synch the whole fucking film, and l'm not exaggerating! From the moment it starts, he's there.
l can't watch the film with him in the room.
Now look here, my good man l don't want to talk to you no more you empty-headed, animal food trough wiper! l fart in your general direction.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Apparently Elvis's favourite film, Holy Grail.
He watched it about 45 times in the Graceland private cinema.
You can imagine Elvis watching Holy Grail, what a superb image that would be! Elvis loved it.
l mean, he was He was laughing so much that his eyes were just tearing.
Come, Patsy.
None shall pass.
- What?! - None shall pass.
l have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but l must cross this bridge.
Then you shall die.
The scene that Elvis used to imitate, the sword fight scene We played a lot of football and one time we were playing, and he literally broke his finger.
- ''Oh, are you OK, Elvis?'' - ''Merely a flesh wound.
'' And he did it just like the movie.
Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left! - Yes, l have! - Look! lt's just a flesh wound.
l was the hugest Elvis fan.
That was like so weird and trippy just to think Elvis was a Python fan doing those voices.
Come, Patsy.
Oh, l see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! l'll bite your legs off! Just the very idea of Elvis knowing those catch phrases and him being as annoying as my brother as well, sat next to Priscilla on the sofa, ''lt's just a flesh wound.
'' l like the image of Elvis Presley reciting Python lines.
That's pop culture reaches its apotheosis in that moment.
There's nothing Andy Warhol can do about that.
The Castle Aaargh.
Our quest is at an end.
Holy Grail was number one for weeks in America, you know.
For a 200,000 pound film, it was amazing, you know.
By the time it came out here, it was 1975.
The TV series had been on.
We were getting some great publicity.
The Python trademark was becoming known.
l used to look in Variety and it was like looking at your bank account.
So, you'd buy Variety and look up, you know, ''Oh, it's number one and it's made another billion, million pound, ''of which l get my two and a half percent.
Great!'' We'd done this promotional ad to give out free coconuts to the first 100 or however many people would turn up at the cinema.
There was a full-page ad in the Times.
Well, there was a line around the block.
They had to open the movie even earlier.
lt was tremendous.
lt was very exciting.
lt was at the opening of Holy Grail in New York, and there was a question from a journalist, he said, ''So what's your next movie?'' and l said, ''Jesus Christ - Lust For Glory.
'' Everyone knows the inspiring story and life of the child born in a manger.
This isn't that story.
lt's not that life.
Brian The babe they called Brian This is Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
lt was the Golden age of Roman rule Do we have any cwucifixions today? 139, sir.
Special celebration.
A time of miracles l was blind and now l can see Oh! Of imperial benevolence Hail, Caesar.
ls that absolutely clear? lt was a time when getting stoned wasn't breaking the law.
lt was the law.
For the people of Jerusalem, things were looking bad.
Still a few crosses left.
And then Brian dropped in.
Brian ln fact, he wasn't the Messiah.
He was a very naughty boy.
Terrific race, the Romans.
Terrific.