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 ...
Flagged! To even mention Smoky and the Bandit in the same breath as Holy Grail!
I don’t know...it’s kind of in the same spirit as many skits on Flying Circus. I thought the ending was funny.
Hahahahaha! I can’t tell you how tickled I was to see the lyrics! That made me smile...:)
We’re Knights of the Round Table
We dance whene’er we’re able
We do routines and chorus scenes
With footwork im-pec-cable
We dine well here in Camelot
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot
We’re Knights of the Round Table
Our shows are for-mi-dable
But many times, we’re given rhymes
That are quite un-sing-able
We’re Opera mad in Camelot
We sing from the dia-phragm a lot
In war we’re tough and able
Quite in-de-fat-i-gable
Between our quests we sequin vests
And impersonate Clark Gable
It’s a busy life in Camelot
I have to push the pram a lot
I introduced my grandson to Monty Python & The Holy Grail when he was about 10 years old. He’s close to 30 now, and still can quote it word for word. (I created a monster ;~)
Doune Castle wasn’t open to visitors last time I was in Scotland - but I was on a tour that passed close enough to see it from a half-mile or so away. The kilted tour guide asked the group if anyone recognized it. I responded “Yes, even without the grail-shaped beacon”. :-)
Not Guilty!
Watch it at least once a year. Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason at their best. Good ol’ boy humor. As opposed to satirical, intellectual, somewhat off humor in the classic British style. Very different style of humor but love and own them both.
The “bring out your dead” and the Holy Hand grenade of Antioch scenes are my favorite parts of the movie, but even after seeing the entire at least five times I still find it hilarious.
And it put me off salmon mousse for life!
Do you have anything without Spam in it?
Just giving you a hard time. I love people enjoying what they like in movies. The funniest thing about Smoky and the Bandit to me is when it is on regular television and the dub over almost all of Gleason’s lines, with the silliest substitutes for the foul language.
Ever watched Benny Hill...?
Back then, some guys had the entire movie memorized, and some girls would quote from it, too. To this day, we still do. And other Monty Python movies and skits were just as quotable.
You will soon be getting a very angry letter from the British Dental Association.
Love Benny. Don’t know where to find it anymore. I’m sure it’s on YT.
I figured that. Without the language Gleason’s role loses its context. Did you know SATB was the fourth highest grossing film of 1977 after two Star Wars films and Saturday Night Fever?
I was going to make a snotty remark about your taste in comedy. Then I read your tagline.
Anyone who quotes Tom Waites lyrics is okay by me.
L
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