Monty Python and the Holy Grail – 1975 | 89mins | Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

The Monty Python team’s first feature film proper, this reunited the six members for the big screen; capitalised on the historical comic genius of the writing of Jones and Palin relishing this major canvas for injecting contemporary types and mannerisms into a mediaeval Britain setting. Not so much a parody, more a conventional mediaeval epic with heaps of very silly things going on, there’s a sense of special occasion, all members are united for this major onslaught on the film market. Basically made up of disjointed sketches, complete with class Gilliam animations, outlandish touches of absurdity and even a couple of jolly ditties from Neil Innes, the film does play like an elongated, focused Python TV show.

However, rather than take cinematic form over the hot coals, Grail decides to simply mock historical concept via typically insane Python logic, inject some mild religious mockery via Gilliam’s bossy God animation and revel mainly in tried and tested comic ideals. With the added bonus of superb period detail and some of the team’s funniest material you can forgive everything. Even the baffling and unsuccessful lapses into educational television historical presentation parody with John Young’s on-screen historian, the contemporary police investigation and the final arrest of our Round Table heroes in place of a proper ending.

From the moment we enter this murky landscape, dripped in poverty-stricken contempt the Pythons can let loose with surreal, dysfunctional and totally brilliant madness with the clip-clop of coconuts ushering in King Chapman and skivvy Gilliam – this is pure film magic. Instantly, we can see the team happily embracing an affectionate and knowledgeable grasp of history while riding full on through the pomp with manic arrows of comedy puncturing everything in sight with convincing murky backdrops. Graham Chapman, as with his landmark Brian, is allowed to play his comedy straight surrounded by a galaxy of grotesques and here, in deep discussion about weight ratio of swallows, are Michael Palin and John Cleese undermining the absurdity of coconut travel with a typically spiralling conversation. Eric Idle’s biting characterisation wastes no time in digging in with class deconstruction with his identification of Chapman as a King because he isn’t covered in excrement while sugar-coating the pill with the painfully hilarious ‘bring out your dead’ sequence, bending the red-tape, committing murder and commenting on the class divide all in the name of being a good neighbour.

For many the film’s ultimate highlight is Palin’s bolshie Dennis condemning Chapman’s bemused King with a string of communist complaints and structured pointers for a more acceptable social doctrine. With his filth collecting mother (Terry Jones ‘Well, 1 didn’t vote for you!’) in tow, his working class fury (embracing the classic challenge on the Lady of the Lake legend), mapped out plans for a communal system and outraged reaction to being addressed as just one of the masses – despite Chapman’s limited knowledge – this is a classic of repressed British comedy observation. Next up in the laughter stakes is Cleese’s glorious Black Knight, battling on against Chapman’s super cool figure with dismembered limbs, gushing blood (‘just a flesh wound’) and determined sarcastic taunts.

The arrest of Cleese’s Lancelot by interlopers from 1974 law-enforcing and a return from the French taunters, using insults as the ultimate weapon, more or less rounds things off. The final battle quickly curtailed by the arrival of modern policemen, stopping the historical goings-on, arresting our hapless heroes, blocking the film cameras to avoid the public gaze and thus finishing the film with no fanfare. At the cinema screening there was brief mediaeval play-out music but whatever way you cut it this is an easy and slightly unsatisfactory closure. Seemingly with no way to finish the movie and lacking an everlasting supply of Gilliam animations to cross-fade and merge into, the only way out was a sudden cut to black. Jones decided that with nothing else to say he would simply run out of film and stop the story, hoping for 30 seconds of total darkness, some dreadful muzak and some sort of closing moment – cinemas across the country were not willing to play ball so the audience are left in the air but, so what; the previous 90 minutes includes some of the most cherished comedy moments ever committed to film.

Review© Robert Ross: Monty Python Encyclopedia.