Posted on 04/09/2025 5:40:24 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Fifty years after Monty Python and the Holy Grail redefined comedy, stars Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam look back on the freedoms – and limitations – that shaped the film.
An independent British comedy made on a shoestring by a television sketch troupe? It sounds like a film destined to be forgotten within weeks of leaving cinemas – assuming it reaches cinemas in the first place. But Monty Python and the Holy Grail is still revered as one of the greatest ever big-screen comedies, 50 years on from its release in April 1975. Terry Gilliam, who co-directed the film with Terry Jones, thinks he knows why. "Every time I watch it I'm completely bowled over by how incredibly wonderful it is," Gilliam tells the BBC. "It's still so funny, and I just love everything about it."
The Monty Python team first appeared on TV together in a BBC series, Monty Python's Flying Circus, in 1969. Five of the six members – Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin – had honed their craft in student comedy societies at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The sixth, Gilliam, had moved to the UK from the US, and provided animated segments which linked their surreal sketches. In 1971, some of these sketches were reshot and compiled into a film, And Now for Something Completely Different, but the Pythons had ambitions to make a bona fide feature film – or some of them did, at least.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
“Very few ladies appreciate a good Monty Python reference”
I’ve never thought of it that way. I’m a girl. When it was out it was summer. 1975? we used to pile into my brother’s truck, get beer, go to the drive in. Often.
The girls liked it. My friends did, anyway
My kids know it backwards and forwards. It’s hilarious. My father didn’t get it. He had a good sense of humor. Too linear for Brit humor perhaps.
HG is so filled with funny lines, it’s practically impossible to pick a favorite. But the one simple line that just cracks me up every time …. Comes after the fierce taunting from the Frenchie castle; “Is there someone else up there we can talk to ?”
That, and of course, when they say to ME, “obviously, you’re a busy man!”
Loved the movie. However I’ve always thought they must have run out of money; hence the lame ending
I always warn them! :-)
Five is right out!
No. You have to try Marx bros again. I agree on stooges and chaplain and that Lloyd and Keaton were funnier. But park yourself and try either night at the opera. Animal crackers, day at the races. With someone. Someone who gets it.
I was at work at a store a few months ago and some SPAM, so started singing the SPAM song in front of two managers, one male and one female. The male got the reference immediately and started laughing, and the female just looked at me like I had gone nuts.
“ More likely a balance of magical chemicals!”
No these guys were highly intelligent. They all met at Cambridge in school.
I am definitely female but not my of a lady
Fart challenge accepted
“Five is right out!”
Ugh. So funny.
I love them both
I love them both
“ I was at work at a store a few months ago and some SPAM, so started singing the SPAM song in front of two managers, one male and one female. The male got the reference immediately and started laughing, and the female just looked at me like I had gone nuts.”
When I’m out and about and at the supermarket or so with family who are girls any we discuss how many of something we need of something one of us says something like ‘five is right out’. Funny movies go over in our heads. The anarchy humor lends itself to dealing with the fluorescent light and the grocery store tasks
Heh, that is a line I have used a lot!
“Bad Zoot! Naughty Zoot!”
Exactly! I use that one a lot too...:)
You guys are slipping!!
... so I just added it.
The Biggus Dickus scene is one of the funniest scenes in movie history, but I think Life of Brian is not quite as consistently funny as Holy Grail.
Pronounced; non-my- grate-ory.
Bloody Brits.
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