Pious Paladins and Holy Hand Grenades

 

The Midnite Drive-In has passed another milestone with this post!

Going back, since beginning this blog in 2015, my most prolific years were 2017 and 2018, when I managed to hit the mark of 85 posts. I passed that mark this year back in September, but it escaped my notice. So, at the time I did notice, I decided I was going to do something special for post #100. Admittedly, today's post doesn't mark any drastic difference from my usual stuff, but I thought that the movie ought to be at least something with which most people would be familiar, if not enamored. 

 

If you've been reading this blog for a while you are probably thinking along these lines:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail?? Haven't you covered that movie before, Quiggy?

Well, believe it or not, and I'm just as shocked as you are, it turns out that in the 11 years of writing this blog I have never actually sat down and wrote a piece on this classic.  I THOUGHT I had. I really did. But, I was looking at my movies list, the section of this blog where I try to keep an ongoing list of post entries, the other day, and I realized it was missing. Well, since I do have a tendency to procrastinate sometimes, as well as a tendency to forget to add updates to the archive, I thought it might be possible that I just never put a link to that entry in the list. So I searched the entire blog and sure enough it's not here. So I decided it was high time, and what better way to celebrate the 100th post...?

 

 (And there was much rejoicing!)

The Monty Python troupe came into my world the same way that it probably came into your world (if you are, like me, an American). That is, the original BBC production, Monty Python's Flying Circus, showed up in the programming on the local PBS station, which is where almost every British made show got it's start for American audiences back in those days. Anybody in my age range probably remembers seeing Masterpiece Theater or maybe Are You Being Served? (and there was an addictive program...)

The original show featured 5 British comedians (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin, and an American transplant, Terry Gilliam), and the show was a sketch comedy featuring stuff that was a far cry from the typical British fare at the time on the BBC. Many of the sketches have gone on to become a part of the zeitgeist in modern times. Probably very few people of a certain age have never heard of at least some of them.

For instance: Who today hasn't heard of such lines as "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!"? Or "You call that poor? We used to live in a shoe-box in the middle of the road!" (or a similar line...)? Possibly even "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK!" will trigger a memory. 

When I was a college student there was a couple in my group of friends, who eventually got married, whose relationship got started because they both could sing/recite one of the songs from a sketch on the show... ("Emmanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable...") {This relationship was in 1989, but I could see it happening today...}

A typical episode would usually begin with a cold opening, often involving Michael Palin, dressed as an old man, struggling to reach the camera, collapsing just as he gets there, saying "It's..." and then the opening credits featuring Terry Gilliam's cartoon artwork and the theme music (which, surprisingly enough, was musically accompanied by John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell", an American tune... go figure.)

The chaos of the show would include jarring sudden endings to a skit that were totally unexpected. And many of the "female" roles were played by Python members in drag. (Usually, only if the female character was supposed to be attractive, were the females played by real female actresses, and this was part of the irreverence of the show). 

I have the entire series on DVD now. I recently stumbled across it at a local resale place operated by one of the local churches, and got it for only $5.00(!!!)  

So, now, on to the review of Monty Python and the Holy Grail...

 

 (And there was much rejoicing!)

 

 

 

 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975):

The film starts out with the credits, and those are a hoot, just in themselves...

 

(Hopefully that link above is still active by the time you read this, because I can't really give it justice in description...) 

In the year 932 A.D. (or maybe that's 93² A.D. 93 squared? That would mean this film actually takes place in 8649 A.D... Talk about post apocalypse devastation...)

 

Arthur, King of the Britons, is on a quest to garner brave knights to join him at Camelot, and from there for his quest to find the "Holy Grail". That is the basic plot of the film, although, essentially that's just the glue that holds the entire movie together.

What it really is is an excuse to throw a bunch of medieval times sketches together that center around said quest. And satire, to boot. You don't actually get a story, per se, but a series of tweaks and fidgets that are melded together around the "quest". But that, my friends, is what makes this whole endeavor so endearing.

So I won't spend a lot of time trying to point out any of the basic plot or it's relation to the legend of the "historical" quest surrounding it.... Rather, I am going to be looking at some of the various sketches.

 

(And there was much rejoicing!)  

The first segment involves King Arthur (Graham Chapman) approaching a castle to ask the lord of the manor to join his quest, only to be hindered by a couple of guards who argue with him. Mainly because instead of coming on horseback Arthur approaches with his servant, Patsy (Terry Gilliam) clashing two halves of a coconut together. The guards argue with Arthur about just how coconuts could have ended up in Britain...

 

The second scene involves Arthur arguing with an old man, Dennis (Michael Palin), and his wife [or mother] (Terry Jones) about the correct form of government in Britain. Dennis insists that king rule is akin to a dictatorship, even though Arthur claims a sort of "divine right" to rule.

 

The skits involve such things as a battle with a Black Knight (John Cleese) who refuses to yield passage over a bridge, despite losing both his arms and legs in a sword battle to Arthur ("It's only a flesh wound, you pansy!"). 

 

Another that has a band of peasants, (led by Cleese again) trying to convince a knight, Sir Bedevere (Jones again) to execute a woman they claim to be a witch ("She turned me into a newt!.... I got better..."). 

 

and Sir Galahad the Pure (Palin again) trying to fend off the amorous advances of a commune full of nubile females. 

 

(Every member of the troupe plays multiple parts throughout the film. Don't let that distract you, it's part of the fun...)

Eventually the knights do make their way to the ultimate hiding place of the Holy Grail, but to get there they have to not only face off against a guy who insists they have to answer three questions to prove their worthiness to pass on the bridge, but they also have to face off against one of the most vicious and dangerous monsters to ever appear on film.

(No. I'm not going to post a pic of that monster... why spoil the fun for someone who hasn't seen the movie yet...?)

 (And there was much rejoicing!)

This being a Python endeavor, the movie just couldn't end in a normal fashion, and if you've never seen it I won't reveal it but it is just as chaotic and irreverent as anything that came previously.

(Again, no pic. Watch the film...) 

 (And there was much rejoicing!)

Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to watch this film at a revival at a movie house. As I recall, I think I was only one of about three in the theater, which I thought was a shame, since it's such a classic. However, I give a nod to the fact that it was an afternoon showing on a work day and a school day, so it wasn't entirely unprecedented.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was not exactly a resounding success in it's first week or so. But it did manage to make a huge profit after that first week. What with only a £250,000 production cost, it eventually garnered about £2.5 million by the time it's first run ended in the UK alone. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 92% Fresh rating. Critics have been kind to it also. One of my favorites was one written by Charles Champlin, who said the film "like Mad comics, is not certain to please every taste. But its youthful exuberance and its rousing zaniness are hard not to like."

The film, I admit, does have some moments were the humor seems to drag a bit. I personally found the sequence where the troupe interacts with the "Knights who Say 'Ni'"  to be a little dull, but most of it has me sniggering even after the dozen or so times I've watched it.

That wraps up this "100th post" outing. 

(And there was much rejoicing!)

 

Drive safely, folks. And be sure to pack along the "holy hand grenade" when you leave the theater. You never know when it might come in handy.

Quiggy