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Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a film released in 1975. It was written, performed, and directed by Monty Python, an English comedy group, during a gap between the third and the final season of their popular BBC television series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The group's first film, And Now For Something Completely Different, had been a compilation of sketches from the television series; in contrast, Holy Grail was 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 the Python Eric Idle.
King Arthur is recruiting his Knights of the Round Table throughout England. He finds himself in a tedious debate about coconuts and swallows with the guards at a castle and leaves in frustration. Further frustrated by anarcho-syndicalist peasants and his battle with the Black Knight, he meets up Sir Bedevere the Wise who demonstrates his advanced scientific knowledge while assisting the ignorant villagers in their attempt to prove a women dressed as a witch is actually a witch. So thus, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad, called both the Chaste and the Pure, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, and Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film form together the Knights of the Round Table. After a celebratory song and dance routine of "Knights of the Round Table", the knights decide Camelot is a "silly place", and are told by an animated version of God (played by an animated picture of W. G. Grace wearing a crown) to find the Holy Grail. In the course of their travels, they encounter insulting Frenchmen occupying a castle. They try to gain entry by using a Trojan Rabbit, but forget to get inside it. The French immediately catapult it over the walls anyway. The knights are forced to retreat; meanwhile, a famous historian from the 1970s is killed by a knight on horseback.
Splitting up, Sir Robin encounters the prissy Three-Headed Giant, to which his minstrels sing songs of his cowardice. Galahad runs across the perils of Castle Anthrax, which turns out to be occupied by nubile females between the ages of 16 and 19½ who crave to be spanked. Sir Lancelot massacres the wedding at Swamp Castle between the Lord's effeminate son, Herbert, and Princess Lucky. Arthur and Bedevere encounter the dreaded Knights who say Ni, and after delivering them a shrubbery, discover their weakness of the word "it." They meet up with the other knights and get trapped over winter in an animated segment. Much to Sir Robin's relief, he and the other knights are forced to eat the minstrels, and there was much rejoicing. They meet a pyromaniacal enchanter called "Tim", who takes them to a cave. They defeat the killer rabbit that guards it by throwing the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Hearing the explosion, the 1970s police come closer. Going into the Cave of Caerbannog itself, the knights are a chased by a gigantic cartoon monster, the The Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh, and are saved when animator Terry Gilliam suffers a fatal heart attack.
They encounter the Bridge of Death, guarded by "the old man from Scene 24". Lancelot is successful in answering the question of his favourite colour, which is blue. Robin is thrown over the bridge by an unseen force, for not knowing the capital of Assyria (which is Assur), and Galahad mistakenly answers his favourite colour as blue when it is actually yellow. The old man then asks Arthur about the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow. Arthur responds by asking "What do you mean, an African or European swallow?" which tricks the old man into saying "Well, I don't know that", and the old man himself is hurled into the chasm, opening the way for King Arthur and Sir Bedevere (who doesn't have to answer any questions at all) to cross the rickety bridge. As they cross, there is an "Intermission", as the word flashes on the screen for a several seconds while silly "intermission-type" organ music plays. This ends as we see the knights reach the other side. Lancelot has disappeared, arrested by the policemen, and the remaining knights take a ship to the Castle Aaargh. They again encounter the taunting Frenchmen who throw a dead sheep and dung on them. The film ends abruptly when a group of police from the 1970s interrupts the climactic battle scene to arrest Bedivere and King Arthur for the murder of the "famous historian".
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 (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. The two later Python feature films, The Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life, both have Jones as the sole director.
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 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"[1] ("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.[2]
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 several minutes of the film itself (approximately 1 minute 48 seconds). 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 Jobs alternate title is Get On With It, a phrase that appears multiple times throughout Holy Grail.)
Holy Grail rejected the typical layout for a film, starting with the "end credits", which include mock Nordic subtitles and many gratuitous references to "møøse" and llamas. The fake credits would have gone on for hours, if it weren't for the fact that those responsible for the fake credits were sacked. Eventually replacement credits were created at great expense. The film has no ending credits, instead cutting to a black screen and some 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.
Profits from Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon went towards financing the movie. The band members were such fans of the show, they would halt recording sessions just to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974).[3]
<includeonly>The cast is the most notable element of the film. Please expand each Python to his own section, describing each role in more than just a list.</includeonly>
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).
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 $1,821,082 USD during its re-release run. This version of the film still plays periodically at North American rep theatres.
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 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. 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 features 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 somewhere near Stirling once they'd 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 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.
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. The game borrowed many concepts from the movie (the three headed knight, the white rabbit, holy hand grenade, shrubbery, etc.) while 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 its 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.
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.[4]
A number of works, such as video games, novels, newspapers, and even anime pay homage to this movie, an indication of its huge following.
According to the autobiography The Pythons, Eric Idle 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.