Hello. Hello.
Who is it? It is King Arthur and these are
my Knights of the Round Table. Whose castle is this?
This is the castle of my master. Go and tell your Master that we
have been charged by God with a sacred quest.
If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can
join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen.
He's already got 1. You see what he says?
They've already got one. Are you sure he's got one?
Oh, yes, it's Paranasa. I told them we already got one.
Hello and welcome to Goon Pod as it is 50 years.
Can you believe it? Since Monty Python and the Holy
Grail first hit the screen, the cinema screen like a migratory
swallow over laden with coconuts, I thought Goon Pod
would mark the occasion. How could it not?
By releasing this bonus edition, in which myself and the writer
and performer Tom Solinsky, who's 1/3 of the wonderful
podcast Best Pick, we we talk about the film and we resist the
temptation more or less to just quote our favorite lines and
thus in the process render them leaden and dull.
And My Chat with Tom was first released as part of Goonpod Film
Club, which offers members monthly chats about classic
British comedy films. Head over to patreon.com/goonpod
to try A7 Day trial. The latest episode is on Shaun
of the Dead, but we've stretched back as far as Kind Hearts and
Coronets. David Quantix on that one.
Anywho, enough of my bubbling. I will leave you to enjoy the
show. So Tom, welcome to the show.
Thank. You very much indeed, Tyler.
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I mean, I've been aware of
your voice, I would say probably for 18 months, two years now.
Because yeah, because I, I'm a, I'm a voracious podcast listener
as well as podcaster. And I'm, I'm particularly keen
on film based podcasts when they're when they're done right.
And there's a hell of a lot that aren't done right, as I'm sure
you know, where research what's that?
This is kind of the, but I, I don't know how I stumbled upon
it, but I came across the podcast that you Co host called
best pick, which is well, there's three of you, isn't
there? That, that, that present best
pick, which is basically it's all about the Oscars.
Yeah. So we had this idea that we
wanted to go through all of the films that had won Best picture
of the Academy Awards, and we decided to try and keep it
interesting by doing that journey in a random order.
So at the beginning of the process, we had, I think it was
then 89 slips of paper with years and names of films on
them. And for each episode, we'd pick
a film out of the hat, and then that would determine which we
talk about the next time. And then we completed the
journey. And so, Tyler, I think you must
have joined us after that process had been completed.
So did you listen to them? Because we actually have two
feeds for the podcast. Did you listen to them in the
order they were recorded, or did you use the feed which organizes
the films chronologically according to their release?
So starting with Wings and then going on to the most recent
world, which now would be Oppenheimer.
I chronologically. You did so not in the order we
we recorded them. No chronologically.
So what was that like? Because we'll be, we'll be in in
some podcasts talking about, oh, this is something we referenced
back in Podcast 34, but that for you is going to be 10 podcasts,
hence. Well, I excuse me, we're both of
us suffering a little bit, aren't we?
I must tell them. There's a little, yes, but as of
this morning I've graduated from Lemsip.
Back onto coffee. All right, OK, Well, I mean, I,
I, I love old films and I, I did set out to try and watch every
film that you guys have covered, but some of the earlier ones,
you know, it's, it's very easy to say, OK, I'll stick Day of
the Jackal on instead. You know what?
I only just watched the original Day of the Jackal.
I was inspired by the new is it Netflix?
The new Eddie Redmayne version, and I thought well before I
watched this, I really should go back and watch the original and
the 1997 Mark, the Hayden Jones version.
The original is fantastic. I had such a good time watching
that. And one of the things that
really struck me is that at no point does anyone get in Michael
Lonsdale's way and say to him, you've you've you've pushed this
too far. You've got $40 to wrap up the
case. You're, you're a loose cannon.
They just give him every single resource that he could possibly
want and he back channels and he still only barely manages to
stop Edward Fox in time. And it's and that made was one
of the many things that made the 97 one so boring, because all of
those tiresome police procedural cliches were brought to the
fore. Yeah, I, I, I've said this many
times. And because I have, I have
ranked them. Day of the Jackal is my all time
favorite film. Oh.
Great choice. And I have seen the Jackal a few
times. I actually it's kind of a guilty
pleasure, The Jackal, the Bruce Willis Jackal.
I think there's there's some nice stuff in it.
The stuff with Jack Black is very good, but I can't get past
Richard Gere playing Declan McQueen of the IRA.
It's so ludicrous. Tapping the moan in two years.
It's so. Good.
So OK, so best pick. There's you, there's there's
John and Jessica, Isn't it Jessica?
That's right. Yes, Jessica Regan.
I'm going to ask you which in your in your opinion is the was
the best Oscar year just in terms of the film that won and
also the the other nominees if you like.
I mean, it's hard to get past 1939, which is one of those anis
mirabilis, those once in a lifetime years where basically
you can kind of imagine every film being nominated, and they
nominated about 10 back in those days for Best Picture like they
do today. You can kind of imagine almost
any of them winning Best Picture.
It's the year that Gone With the Wind won everything, but Gone
With the Wind was up against The Wizard of Oz and Goodbye, Mr.
Chips and all these other incredible classics.
So that's got to be up there. My favorite film.
As you've shed yours. He's also a Best Picture winner,
and that would be The Apartment from 1960.
I don't remember what else it was up against off the top of my
head, but that's a very special film.
Spartacus. Wouldn't it be Spartacus?
Or was that? Spartacus is around then.
I don't know it's exactly then. Anyway.
Kubrick never had much luck at the Oscars.
No. And what about worst year?
Would it? Would it be driving Miss Daisy?
Would that be the year that? I mean, Green Book is pretty
egregious. Crash is fairly dire.
I'm one of those people that sticks up for Shakespeare in
Love for a couple of reasons, which I know puts me the
minority. But I think it is a problem for
Shakespeare love that it's doing something very difficult to make
you look very easy. And I think that tricks people
into thinking that a film like Saving Private Ryan, which is
the film that quote UN quote should have won, is a bigger
achievement. But there's a lot of complexity
to Shakespeare love and I think that the message of Saving
Private Ryan is a bit muddled. I don't think it's 100% an anti
war movie because if you track the ark of the Tom Hanks
character, it's sort of the story of a man who loses his
faith in the idea of warfare and then regains it.
I'm not 100% sure that's a message I can get behind.
There's wonderful stuff in Saving Private Ryan, not just in
the 1st 20 minutes. But if you ask me which film I'd
like to go and watch now, I would go and watch Shakespeare
in Love. I I rewatched Private Ryan
literally over Christmas. I've probably seen it 6-7 times
and I always forget. And this.
Is this a spoiler? I suppose it is.
I'll say it anyway. It's it's 25 years old for God's
sake. Yeah, exactly.
There's such a limitation to these things, I'm sure it's
fine. Yeah, it's Bookend.
We're going to spoil Holy Grail as if we ever get to Holy Grail.
Absolutely. Because because Private Ryan's
bookended by modern day veteran visiting the French cemetery,
cemeteries, War cemetery. And you, you, you think that
it's the Tom, I was going to say Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks character,
but it turns out at the end, no, it's the Matt Damon character.
It's Matt Damon. That's right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Private. Ryan So they met they they did
that very well, I thought. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's it's a
nifty listen. And this is not so much of A
slam on Private Ryan, which is a terrific film, more of a let's
give Shakespeare Love a chance because Shakespeare love does a
lot of things right as well. It's not a perfect film.
It's not my favorite best picture.
We're not by any means. But I I of the two, I prefer the
one with the the frocks and the silliness of the people falling
over. Well, the perfect segue I
suppose. There we go.
So let's let's let's talk about the reason that we're here
today. So what?
While I'm I'm usually dubious about revisionist history, it
seems to me that in in recent times, a lot of historians, a
lot of men called Dan and Dom and the like.
Some of my best friends are called Dan and.
Dom OK, how? Dare you?
Not them specifically, but but a lot of a lot of these, a lot of
the, the, the, the, the theory these days is that the, the dark
Ages weren't actually all that dark and that they were, they
were actually times of relative enlightenment and flourishing
artistic development. And so while this film, which is
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, doesn't flinch from depicting,
you know, dirt, disease and often bloody death, it it I was
watching it and I was thinking it does sort of make 10th
century Britain seem quite appealing, you know, compared.
To this day, this is an interesting question.
When is this film set? There's a very obvious caption
that says 932 AD. Yes, but the the stories of King
Arthur are generally set in like the 6th century.
Oh yeah. Mort Darthur was published in
the 15th century, but Gilliam and Jones have basically said
that they were thinking about Chaucer.
So it's, it's 13th, 14th century, that sort of time
that's, that's influencing the aesthetic.
And I, I think in some, in some early drafts, there were
different years given on screens.
I think 930 of you just means a long time ago.
Yes. You're not watching this as a
history lesson, are you? Really.
Not despite the presence of the historian who isn't AJP Taylor.
Well, there's a lot of people even to this day who still ham
and Haw about that, that conceit of framing the story within a
within like a what is it? A modern day history documentary
turned murder investigation. Yes, I mean, the Pythons would
have grown up watching things like, I don't know exactly when
all these things went out, but I know around the same time there
were things like The Ascent of Man and there's, you know, BBC
documentaries and that's what they're spoofing there.
But of course, the original draft was about 50%, let's call
it medieval and 50% modern day with so half of it set in
Harrods. And some of that material was
later repurposed for Monty Python series 4.
So they can still have some Cleese Chapman material even
though Cleese wasn't participating in front of the
camera. And I I've seen you've got the,
I've got it here, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail book,
which is this slightly eccentric script book.
I don't actually have that. I don't actually own that book.
So it's got about 30 pages of the original draft, which
includes all the Harrods stuff. I don't remember the Michael
Ellis, so does Monty Python. So all that began life as a
first draft of Holy Grail. Can I help you?
Ah, yes please. I'm interested in buying an Ant.
Oh yes, and what price do you think you're paying?
So Oh well, I haven't actually got as far as that.
Well, so they start about half AP, but they can go as high as
3P or even 3 1/2 P for a champion.
Inflation I'm afraid. And.
Then there's some other bits and pieces like the hilarious letter
from the producer regarding the census view on some of the
language, which we might come back to in a minute.
And then there's the the script of the film.
And I think this script is is a little bit of a fiction.
So the the 30 pages of the first draft have all been done on
different typewriters. So somebody with a more forensic
enthusiasm that I have could probably figure out that's
Michael Palin's typewriter versus John John Kleeser's
typewriter versus Eric Idle's typewriter and so on.
But the the screenplay that's presented is all in the same
style, but not all of it reflects the film on screen.
And some of it has sort of pencil emendations all in the
same handwriting, which by and large conform the script to
what's on screen, but not always.
OK. Sometimes there are differences
which haven't been changed, or sometimes there are things which
are in one version not the other.
But it's a very, very interesting book and it's a it's
a fascinating document. The only big deletion from the
shooting script is this, the story of King Brian the Wild.
You ever read this? I've heard of this, yes.
Yeah, yeah. So this would have come just
after the Knights, you say Knee, I think.
And and writes out to Robin's minstrels because King Brian the
Wild is a king who its chief pleasure in life is assembling
groups of close harmony singers and then when they start
singing, murdering them with arrows.
So, and there's lots of very, very funny stuff in here, but it
would have been about an extra, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes,
and it would have been expensive.
And it's all just crossed out. But it's really, really funny.
Who would have? Who would have played Brian?
Well, there was some talk of Brian Blessed playing Brian, but
I don't know who wrote this. It, it feels Palin Jones to me,
but I'm not absolutely sure. So I mean, Palin can play
anything. So it, it could very well have
been Palin if they weren't able to get Brian Blessed to do it.
It wouldn't have been Eric Idle because Robin is in it.
It wouldn't have been Chapman because Arthur's in it.
So basically Brian's trying to get Arthur and his Knights to
come and sing for him. And then the only reason they're
saved is that Brian turns up with his minstrels.
There's some very, very funny stuff in there.
Will you come and sing for King Brian?
What King Brian the Wild? He's calmed down a lot.
Yeah, I could imagine Brian Blessed in his essaying the role
as he did the King in the first series of Blackadder.
Yes, exactly. So yeah, precisely.
Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, this is a very interesting document.
And the last time I watched this, which was last night, I, I
watched it with this book in hand because they're going to
get a sense of what had changed and what was the same.
I think, and maybe this is jumping to the end, but I think
you said Palin can do anything. Of course he can.
I actually think this is Cleese's film.
What do you? Think there's a lot of Cleese in
it though. One of these that struck me for
the first time this time is there's almost no Cleese Palin
scenes. Apart from Castle Anthrax.
Yeah, Castle Anthrax I think is the only one and it was when
they were on screen together. I went hang on a minute.
This is really the first time we've seen this because, as I'm
sure you know, the reason that they, these six individuals were
assembled under a single banner was because John Cleese wanted
to work with Michael Palin. That's right.
And Palin said can Terry Jones come to and Cleese said can
Graham Chapman come to? And then before long you had
this slightly random assembly of 6 individuals.
And some of our favourites sketches from their TV series
are Cleese Palin, the Ministry of City Walks or the Parrot, The
Parrot Sketch or The Cheese Shop.
And they're such a good pairing and they really enjoyed being on
stage with each other, yes, or in front of a camera with each
other. But they hardly get to do it in
this one, except for when Lancelot rescues.
Galahad. Galahad from Castle Anthrax.
Yeah, of course it was. It was the the the TV show that
Palin was in that Cleese saw him in.
Yes. Obviously he would have known
him. Was the complete and utter
history it was, wasn't it? The complete.
I think it was. Do not adjust your set.
Was it? Do not adjust your set.
I think so, yes. Right.
OK, but but. It also had Eric Harden in it.
And David, Jason. And David, Jason and Denise
Coffey. And, and by the way, we're going
to you'll, you'll soon realise that I'd go all over the shop,
just get him just just on Galahad.
Yes. I was reading the Palin Diaries
and he said that originally they were going to have Galahad in a
blonde wig or Palin. Oh yes, Palin in a blonde wig,
obviously. But he he said it made him look
like he worked at a supermarket. Yes.
Is that his real hair? Because they all had quite long
hair at. That I assume so, yeah.
Apart from please, yes. To go back to your earlier
point, yeah, a lot of the scenes we remember most fondly about
this are, are clay scenes. I actually think he's least
funny as Lancelot. I don't, I don't, I think
there's a little bit of a a sag in the film.
It, it hits you out of the gate with like four or five
incredibly funny sketches which don't really hang together as a
story. But I I don't really care.
And then you can kind of feel the pace slow a bit and it's
roundabout Castle Anthrax. I start to think, no, they
probably couldn't have sustained that Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang,
bang pace. But it feels like there's a
little bit of a sag here. And I know that they felt, for
example, that the the three headed knight needed to be cut
right down in order to work and that they weren't quite sure
about the Knights who say knee. And that then in the edit, oh,
those two scenes actually look a bit too similar.
And that's a bit of a shame. So there's some things there
that were slowing them down. But every time Cleese is on
screen, whether he's Tim the enchanter, or whether he's the
French taunter, or even just that very underplayed second
sketch which is the bring out, you're dead.
He is just the one you eye keeps being drawn to.
Oh, and the the, the witch seat, of course, where he's the
foreman Ute yes. Yeah, where you can see Eric
Idle biting his side in order to keep from laughing.
What makes you think she's a witch?
Well, she turned me into a Newt. A Newt got better.
You say about Lancelot being perhaps the the weakest please
character and I I, I, I see where you're coming from, but my
favorite scene is just that stupid scene of Lancelot running
towards the castle with that tense drum roll that endless on
an endless loop. So a a rare bit of directorial
comedy because. It's it doesn't sort of feel
like something that would that would come in a Terry Gilliam
film. And I can't think of another
example from any other Terry Jones film, but clearly that's
something which has been worked out in the edit.
I don't think it's in the script book, for example.
And that was the last minute reshoot.
They did some last minute reshoots on Hampstead Heath and
which was round the back of Terry Gilliam's house and please
running towards the camera as well as the very first shot of
Arthur and Patsy there. There's a pick ups on hamster
teeth. Oh, really?
OK, Yeah. OK.
So when we see when we first see, that's a good excuse to
talk about this. When we first see Arthur and
Patsy, we see the the ingenious device of the coconut shells.
Yes. And it seems common.
It seems obvious now, but to to your knowledge, what's the
earliest example of coconut shells being used as standings
visibly, you know, on screen? Or is this the?
Is this to your knowledge, the first time it's been used?
I think it is because this is a radio gag, which, as a purveyor
of all things goon related, you'll be intimately familiar
with. And Spike Milligan was one of
the first people, as I'm absolutely sure you know, who
just tried to push the sound effects department to do a bit
more than just footsteps on a gravel path and a door open
closing. But they'd have a Bank of
recorded sound effects. They'd have Foley artists with
trays of gravel and, and doors that could open and close and so
on, and coconuts, because that's how you make horses.
So they they would have seen that from their radio days and
and remembered it when the the news came that the budget wasn't
going to stretch to actual horses.
Well. Well, one horse.
Well, here we go. Here's here's something that
hold on to your hat here Tom, because there does exist and
this is goon related. There's are you aware of a show
called Fred? No, OK, 1956 first proper
attempt to translate goon humour to TV.
It was associated re diffusion and it was the first proper
directorial gig for Dick Lester. So he's working with Peter
Sellers. Spike Milligan comes on board.
We've got the the the goon Rep company like Graham Stark and
Valentine Dial people like that. OK, very few episodes and well,
there's only I think 1 1/2 episodes of a show called Fred
that exist. And in one of the existing
segments they do a sketch about the Count of Monte Cristo, and
right at the beginning you've got Sellers as the Count
knocking 2 coconut shells together to symbolize riding up
on a horse. Amazing, now that according to
the. Rehearsal the king has been
thrown into prison Which prison EC prison EC prison We oh, we
must get that immediate and of course it was that's. 1956 I'd
I'd like to think perhaps one of the pythons sword at the time
scribbled it away, but it's it's it's an obvious gag if you think
about it there isn't it to to. Visualize there's a there's a
continuum, I think from two people having the same idea
totally independently and then going through you did see it 20
years ago and you half remember it.
But actually your experience of coming up with the gag is the
same as creating it de Novo to oh, I thought of this, but then
I have remembered someone else has used it.
But I think I can get away with it too.
I'm just ripping this off, and I think all we can do is speculate
when it comes to any particular situation.
But I think all points along that continuum are equally
plausible, and I tend to want to give people the benefit of the
doubt. I tend to want to look at the
more creative end of the spectrum, because these are very
creative people we're talking about who don't need to RIP off
other people's ideas in order to get creative inspiration.
Absolutely. I'm not saying any of these is
more or less likely than the other, but I'm saying just
because A preceded B does not mean that B copied A.
Oh. Absolutely.
And just on that I just said that was the most, well, it was
the most successful transfer of goon humour to the small screen.
They did also the same earmaker film short film called The Case
of the Mukanese Battle Horn. Yes, I have heard of that.
Now that was the supporting feature for Holy Grail in 96.
Brilliant. Yeah.
Just to get people in the right sort of mood, I suppose.
Now, I probably saw this film on V8.
Well, I did see it on VHS video, you know, probably late 80s.
Me and a friend, we used to rent out every week or every couple
of weeks from the video library and memorized it and all the
rest of it. Now I bought it on DVD about
1215 years ago and was completely thrown because on the
DVD it begins with the the opening credits of the film
don't just. On the job.
So this is one of the things that the Pythons are known for
and Joel Morris writes and talks very eloquently about this, but
he's absolutely right. One of the things was that
wherever there was fertile ground, they wanted to fill it
with jokes. So even from the earliest
episodes of Flying Circus, they were messing around with the
titles, putting them in the wrong places, making you think
that the program ended before it had all that kind of stuff.
That the spine of the script book, which I have here that on
the front it says Monty Python and the Holy Grail brackets
book, but the spine reads Monty Python, Icktan, Holy Grail and
book. So obviously the the titles of
the film are so Michael Palin, who came up with those was
thinking about watching Bergman films at repertory cinemas when
he was working on this. And they had no money for any
any kind of elaborate titles. But they needed to try and get
the film off to start because early previews have been
disappointing. And so he came up with these
very, very cheap to to shoot titles with just stop music and
letters on a on a on a black background.
But the gag of the Swedish subtitles is incredibly funny.
You first saw this film on Vhsi first encountered this film via
a cassette tape copy that a friend of mine had made of the
record album. OK, Yeah.
Yeah, so I know the record album in some ways better than I know
the film. And so when I finally got to see
the film at the National Film Theatre aged about 12, I was
totally unprepared for these opening titles.
So I had a very similar experience actually, that John
Cleese has, because he said, you know, he'd been off working on
his shorts with Connie Booth. Romance with a double bass.
Oh yeah. And came back after all this
hard work had been done, cutting it down, re editing it and and
creating these titles and was totally unprepared for Michael
Palin's titles. And, and similarly, I was
falling out of my seat laughing basically before the film had
even begun. And so I think when the DVD came
out, they wanted to try and give people a similar experience.
And so they got hold of this old Bob Munkhouse film and paste it
on whatever it is. 95 seconds of that.
I genuinely thought they'd been a mistake at the DVD pressing
plant. Which is what you're supposed to
think. Have you ever heard the record
album? I have years ago, years ago.
I yeah, I think Mark Kermade, I think, I think he thinks that
the opening credits sequence is the best bit of the film.
I mean, it's a high bar because it's an incredibly funny film
pretty much all the way through, but those titles do take some
beating. It's definitely the funniest
title sequence. Let's.
Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
Tis but a scratch, a scratch your arms off.
No, it isn't. But what's that then?
I've had worse, you liar. Come on, ya tansy.
Victory is mine. We thank the Lord that in thy
Come on. Then what?
How about you? You're indeed brave tonight, but
the fight is mine. Oh, and enough, eh?
Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left.
Yes, I have. Look, just a flesh wound.
I suppose one of the most, probably the most is it the most
famous sequence in the film, the Black Knight sequence?
I guess it is. Or is it?
So many sequences are so famous. But yes, that's that's up there.
Now I read about something that you wrote a long, long time ago
about that sequence. Let me just let me just bring it
up here. So you were talking about how
it's so the the violence in it is so cartoonish and over the
top that it's funny if it. Was Oh yeah, this is me talking
about black humour. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is not black humour. This is.
This is cartoon humour. This is cartoon in my view.
Yeah, so you said that the pain and dismemberment is presented
unrealistically and we feel able to laugh at it and not withdraw
in horror. It still sticks with me how
surprised I was. And whatever age I would have
been at the, I wouldn't have used this word at the time.
But the chutzpah, you know, just just the, the, the total
dismemberment or more or less total dismemberment.
And it's just, I mean, it would be a perfect sketch, just just a
sketch in isolation as part of the the TV series as well,
wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And it's very, it's very Cleese.
I'm making guesses here about who wrote what.
Often you can make an educated guess just based on who's
playing the parts. But this really feels like a
Cleese sketch because there's a relentlessness to please his
comedy, and that this is really typified here.
You know, Basil Fawlty will not give up once he sets his mind on
something. And similarly, the Black Knight
here absolutely will not surrender.
And even right at the end when he's sitting there limbless, he
just, he says, all right, we'll call it a draw, which is a
fantastic punchline. I was trying to find out because
I remember in the Palin Diaries he obviously talks about
Chapman's alcohol dependency around this time.
Now, I couldn't actually find it for some reason for the purposes
of this, but I'm sure that I read somewhere that he was.
During the filming of this, Chapman was struggling quite a
bit and yet you wouldn't know it on screen.
The amount of physical business that Chapman puts in, He seems
on top of his game. Well, we always have the edit.
Yeah, I know. You don't know what what takes
weren't used. And I do think actually that
Gilliam playing the Green Knights, I think that that
earlier fight is a bit more sophisticated.
It's a bit more elaborate than the fight between Please and
Chapman. People say this about great
films that they particularly comedy films.
Every time you watch it, even if you've watched it 2530 times,
there's always something new. There's a couple of times in
this, There's a couple of bits in this when I was re watching
it, the the witch scene with Connie Booth as the witch as the
accused witch. There's there's a bit, there's a
little. Just a glimpse of a man in the
crowd with this face full of shaving foam.
Two shots of him that's it's it's not not very medieval
shaving foam. It looks very much as if it's
just been squirted out of a can. That's very odd.
And and Sir Robin's Shield has a chicken on it.
That's the first time I noticed. Yes, yeah, I believe all of the
Alder Knights Shields have some sort of appropriate heraldic
emblem. But yes, Robins is a chicken.
What, what sort of tension was there because we had the, the,
the two Terry's on director duty.
What was the what was the tension like between the two of
them? I think it there was quite so I
think there wasn't very much tension between the two of them
because I think they both felt that they were going to have to
learn how to direct a film while directing a film, which wasn't
ideal. They essentially directed on
ultimate days. But I think each could call upon
the other if they wanted to get some advice about something.
But you know, things got after a very bad start on that, that
first day of filming when they're up in Scotland on on
Take One shot 1, the camera broke.
Oh, this? This was the bridge of Death
scene, Yeah. I think it was it the bridge of
death. It was, I know that was very
early in the shoot, but I, I, I do know that yes, I think it
might have been actually. And it so they, they had to
complete the days filming without being able to record any
sound because they had a second camera.
But it, it didn't have the, the necessary capability.
I'm not quite sure what the issue was because the sound
would be recorded separately anyway, But it, it, it lacked
something which allowed them to sync it up to the sound
recording. So they had to record everything
silent and dub the the footage on afterwards because I had very
little time to do all this. I think the whole thing was shot
in about six weeks. So I think the problem I had is
that it's a bit bit like having estranged parents that the rest
of the cast felt if they didn't get the answer they wanted off 1
Terry, they could go to the other and see if they can get a
different response. And Please, in particular felt
that Terry Gilliam was spending a lot of time worrying about
what things looked like and not very much about whether or not
things were funny. And he remembers doing the scene
with Eric Idle where Concorde gets the arrow in the chest and
finding it a bit difficult and finding the first couple of
takes weren't really funny. And then getting it what both he
and Eric thought were just right.
And I mean slightly puzzles when I think it was Gilliam asked for
a few more takes. And I never felt any of them
were quite as good as that one. And then when he saw the edit,
he said, well, hang on a minute. You know, the, the funny take is
take three, don't you? And Terry Gibbons said we
couldn't use that one because there's too much smoke, right?
So please ask to see it. And, and it was clear there was
a bit more smoke than would be ideal, but it was perfectly
usable. And he made a very strong case
for it to be put back in. And I think it was.
I think that is the take that we've got.
So they're all these things. They're just they're kind of
figuring out as they go. And there are some there are
some very Gilliamy shots in it. But then there's there's also a
few examples of real directorial restraint, like the very funny
almost Abbott and Costello scene with Michael Palin trying to get
through to the two guards of what he wants, what it is he
wants them to do. It's it's a single locked off
shot that lasts for about two or three minutes.
And, you know, these are these are now very seasoned stage and
television performers who are used to having to learn lots of
dialogue and repeat it fairly faultlessly and all tipsy Greg
Chapman has to do his hiccup, which isn't too bad, but anyone
else would have at least got more coverage.
But I think that's the only angle they did it from because
they just thought, well, we got it, let's move on.
Yeah, that's that. That's that whole sequence with.
This is what I can't understand. So you've got Prince Herbert,
who's the very fae, sickly looking Terry Jones and his
father. Who's is he?
If he's the Prince, then is his father the king is?
There seems to be a lot of, a lot of kings knocking around of,
of different area. I mean we, we, I don't quite
know what area of the country Mercier occupied, but we seem
now to have gone more to Yorkshire judging by the accents
that people using. That's it.
I built this Kingdom up from nothing.
Well, I started here. All of us were swamped.
Well, the king said it was daft to build a castle on the swamp,
but I built it all the same just to show him they sank into the
swamp. So I built the second one that
sank into the swamp. So I built a third one that
burned down fellow, but then sank into the swamp.
But the 4th one stayed up. And that's what you're going to
get, lad. The strongest castle on these
islands. But I don't want any of that.
I'd rather rather what I'd rather.
Just. Sing.
Stop that. Stop that.
You're not going into a song while I'm here.
No. Listen, lad, in 20 minutes
you're getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest
tracts of open land in Britain. But I don't want land.
Listen, Alice Herbert. Herbert.
We live on a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get.
But I don't like her. Don't like her.
What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich.
She's got huge track for land. And so the quest for the Holy
Grail seems to have taken us up and down the British Isles.
Of course everything shot in Scotland apart from the stuff in
Twickenham and hamster death. And of course.
Mainly the same castle. You know that story, don't you?
Oh, go. On.
Well, they scouted all these castles that we're going to use.
And then with like a couple of days before filming started, the
National Trust said, well, hang on a minute, you're going to
make fun of these castles and denied the permission to film
with any of them. And I think it was Gilliam who
said so blood, torture, murder in these castles is all fine,
but comedy? You must be joking.
So there was one Scottish castle which they've scouted, Dune
Castle, which was privately held and so the the National Trust
couldn't keep them away from it. So basically every castle you
see is Dune Castle from a different angle.
So the interior of Anthrax Castle is Dune Castle, the
interior swamp castle is Dune Castle.
The exterior of the French taunting scene is Dune Castle.
There's a couple of cutaways I think.
I think the castle I go to at the end, there's a cutaway like
as an establishing shot of it, and I think that is a castle in
Wales that the cinematographer just went off and did a bit of
second unit. Shooting for Castle Arg is that?
Castle Arg yes I think that's that's not Doonecastle.
Almost every other castle is Doonecastle.
OK this. Was done well because the say
this was done on a shoestring. I actually went back and checked
this because it's often said, oh, this was, you know, this
incredibly cheap film. And the budget is in the back of
the of the book. And the total budget with film
is 229,000 lbs, which sounds like absolutely nothing at all.
I did a little bit of checking, a little bit of arithmetic.
Adjusted for inflation, that's about 2,000,000 lbs, which is
low. Still not much.
Micro budget it's it's is low, but for example the same year's
Carry On film cost a little bit less.
To be fair, that was on set in a caravan park, but The Rocky
Horror Picture Show cost three times as much.
Right. Well, it's a bit Then you've got
the the they can they can get away with having the the black
beast that lives in The Cave, the.
Black Beast of Arc. We don't need, well, they didn't
have CGI back then. We don't need expenses.
You've got Gilliam. Just got Gilliam just drawing
something and having a heart attack on screen but.
They're generally speaking working within their means.
None of it looks impoverished. And the fact that you do have.
Two people behind the camera who care about what it looks like
does mean it has this consistent look like if you go back to and
now for something completely different, yes, there are some
good performances in that, but there's no there's no sense of
style or place. There are no directorial
flourishes apart from a couple of low angle shots here and
there. It is ATV production shot on 35
millimetre film, whereas this is a film and I think that does
make a difference. Does it make it funny or?
I don't know, but it makes it a more complete experience.
But Python was always about the tension between Terry Jones and
John Cleese. That's kind of what defines it.
And here's that, that tension that is played out again, and I
think once again a very nice balance is found.
I thought the scene the sequence with the the large wooden rabbit
being. Dropped on Neil Innis.
Yeah, basically it was. That was so well done and so
looked so effective even now and.
How do they do it? They got a large wooden rabbit
and they hoisted it up on a crane and they topped it on the
Ennis. Neil Ennis who he turns up About
a week into filming, Neil Ennis arrives up in Scotland and he
said everyone was rejoicing when he arrived.
Such a nice guy. He's he's delightful.
I saw him do a one man show at the Edinburgh Fringe years ago.
He came out with a banjo and played urban Spaceman and
everyone clapped and he said thank you for that lovely warm
round of applause, for that medley of my greatest hit.
Yeah, his his song about Braves of Robin is such an earworm.
Yeah. And and you kind of touched it
earlier a little bit. It's the only use that I picked
up of of the F bomb in the film. Yeah.
So if you haven't seen the script book then I might read
now this letter from the from the producer.
It's just Dear Mike, which I imagine is Michael Palin, but it
could be someone else. The census representative, Tony
Kerpel came along to Friday's screening and gave his opinion
of the film's probable certificate.
He thinks this film will be a A, which would be the equivalent of
15 today. But it would be possible given
some dialogue cuts to make the film an A rating which would
increase the audience. So that would take it down to
PG. For an A.
We would have to lose as many shits as possible.
Take Jesus Christ out if possible, lose I fart in your
general direction, lose the oral sex, lose oh fuck off lose make
castanets out of your testicles. I would like to get back to the
sensor and agree to lose the shits.
Take out the odd Jesus Christ and lose oh fuck off.
But to retain fart in your general direction, castanetical
testicles and oral sex and ask him for an A rating on that
basis. This is ludicrous.
Kind of horse trading that goes. Off by Christ and there's a goon
show. Sorry to bring it back to that,
but. Damn.
Oh no, you must. There's a goon show.
So the goons had a number of series and and towards the end
of the run, sort of series 8 was probably probably the weakest,
the probably the weakest point because they kept going through
producers. They had about four different
producers for series 8 and one of the producers that they got
didn't like the show at all. He was, he was hostile.
And there was a bit in the script for a show where there's
a house and it was on Minges Lane, right?
And this producer refused to allow them to use the word
Minges. So they just changed it, changed
it to Fairy Cake Lane just to just to prove a point I suppose.
I'm always amazed that Kenny Everett got away with having a
character called Cupid Stunt on on BBC One or two every night
for weeks. No.
Well, yes, but but then whoever the head of Light Ant was at the
time worked it out eventually and told and told Barry Cryer,
you're going to have to change that.
And so he did, and the character became known as Mary Hinge.
Barry Tucker and Marty Feldman tell a story which I don't know
if it's true or not, but when they were working on Round the
Horn, they were always A filling the scripts with duble entendres
and then B, making fun of the fact that the scripts were full
of duble entendres. And they wondered because often
things would get cut and they'd appeal and it would go up the
chains and eventually it got to the director general.
It was supposed to be Hugh Weldon, who would just say, I
see nothing wrong with this. And then it would stay in.
And Barry took remembers wondering, did he not get the
jokes? Is that possible?
And ask him about it years later when he's retired.
Like, why did you let us keep all that stuff in?
And Hugh Weldon just leaned over and said I like dirty shows.
Yes, I was that. Was that Hugh Weldon or was it
Hugh Carlton Green? Oh, it could it be Hugh Carlton
Green? I might have got my Hughes.
Graham Graham, Greene's brother, so I guess quite liberal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mention Castle Anthrax, which I
think is I think is probably where it it let the film lags a
little bit. Yeah.
Although Carol Cleveland is Zoot and Zoot's twin.
What's the other? Character called Dingo.
That's it. Carol Cleveland is wonderful.
The the right at the bit where Palin gets dragged off and she
just turns and goes oh shit, I just thought Chef's kiss I.
Mean I, I find that the Knights Usain knee and Castle Anthrax
together because they're into cuts, which is a sign that the
pace is slowing a little bit. I, I sort of feel a little bit
of energy comes out of the film. And yet there are half a dozen
wonderful lines in both of those sequences that I would hate to
lose. But I I said before that they
were very worried after early previews.
They made a lot of changes. They scrapped Neil in his score
and replaced it with library music.
They tightened up a lot of things.
And at the last minute, before I think the last preview, which I
think might have been in in LA, Terry Jones got nervous about
the bit where Carol Cleveland turns to the camera and says, do
you think this scene should have been cut?
And he ordered it taken out and it was his last chance before
the the negative cutters got to work.
And then at that preview, that little moment got a huge
reaction. But it was too late.
The the scene had gone. So that's why on your DVD, as
well as starting with Dennis on the job, it may also have
splashed across it with the missing 23 seconds restored.
And that's that little bit of Carol Cleveland saying the scene
should have been cast. And everyone's saying get on
with it. Yes, yes, yeah.
That's the that's that's that's on the DVD, the bit with the
historian, the TV historian, who by the way, I am I right in
saying that I I should have checked?
Am I right in saying that the historian, Frank is the same?
Is the old guy in life O Brian? Oh, I don't know.
I know he's the he's the body in bring out You're dead.
It's the same actor, John Young. I don't know if he's also in
life, O Brian, I think. He's the one that gets stoned or
is is up for a stoning. Could be, I mean, do you do you
want to check? I'm going to check.
Yeah, Monty Python Holy Grail Live for Brian.
There you go, Matthias. Matthias yes.
Yes. So it's the same guy.
Finding the right guest actors to play these other small parts
is difficult and you can imagine people who would have got the
tone wrong and it wouldn't have worked.
And you can see some of them in the TV shows, people who, I have
no idea what show this is they're in and aren't quite up
to the job. But everyone in Grail is
terrific. The the the old woman who Arthur
and Betover say need to is great.
John Young is great. Not only Carol Cleveland and
Connie Booth, but also Winston and Piglet, the two the two
doctors for basic medical training attempt to attend to
Galahad's injuries are great. Everyone just gets the turn
exactly right. Absolutely.
And and the same goes for Brian as well, because you had Gwen
Taylor. Yes, yeah, there's a few, a few
people. At the McKenna.
Yeah, and Spike Milligan. Spike Milligan?
Absolutely. That's why we have covered it on
Goon Pod because he's in it. Little throwaway gags again,
just to keep the laughs coming When when you when you, you have
the the narrator turning the pages of the book.
And then there's this gorilla hand snatches it away.
Yeah, yeah, there's no part of the film that can't have a a gag
into it. My my possibly my favorite Joker
in the whole film is, again, it's a it's a trawl thing.
It's not in the script book, but it's when Arthur and Bedevir are
crossing the Bridge of Death, and just for five seconds
there's that intermission card and organ music playing.
Well, because Chapman got Vertigo, couldn't cross.
That, well, John Cleese refused to run across it at all.
He would just took one look at it and said absolutely no way.
Well, it was, yeah, this was, this was a bridge that had been
specially rigged for them by experienced Mountaineers, and it
was completely safe. But he just took one look at it
and went absolutely. Not.
I'm sure I saw that bridge in the film Sorcerer.
I'm sure that was used. I don't.
Think it's this, now there's a film.
Is there any any excuse for covering Sorcerer on this
podcast? Maybe not Sorcerer.
See, I'm a big fan of Wages of Fear.
Of course, Yeah, yeah, which. It's based on both, but both
films. Both films are brilliant in
their own right, even though one's technically a remake of
the other, I suppose. Just the hope that no one's
going to attempt to. Remake.
Oh, it's bound the bounty now, Dennis, the character of Dennis
Michael Palin's sort of, what would you call him?
Sort of shit ridden, firebrand mud ridden.
Agitator. Agitator.
Yeah, possibly. Would you say the most quoted
character in this film? Listen, strange women lying in
ponds, distributing swords. There's no basis for a system of
government. Supreme executive power derives
from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic
ceremony. Be quiet.
But you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just
because some watery tart through a sword that you shut up.
I mean, if I went round saying I was an emperor just because some
moistened bin had loved a scimitar at me, they put me
away. Shut up.
Will you shut up? Up now.
The violence inherent in the system.
Shut up. Come and see the violence
inherent in the system. Help.
I'm being repressed.
Bloody peasant. Oh, what a giveaway.
Julia that. Julia that.
Aye. So there's really 2 sketches in
one there, isn't there? Because the the first half,
which I think, and I think this may be Palin Jones Begin and
Cleeson Chapman take on this is again, just speculation, but the
first half, yeah, think about the the world in which this film
was written. So this this is the three day
week and the general strike and all this stuff happening around
this time. So all this stuff about unions
and organization and what the government for are very, very
hot topics that would have been discussed around North London
dinner tables the whole time. So the first half of that when
he's talking about, you know, being an anarcho syndicalist
commune and so on. And that's all very much yeah.
Those conversations that would have been had student communist
societies and things like that. But then the second-half about
why Arthur should be king is pure Cleese Chapman thesaurus
comedy. You know, if I started claiming
supreme executive power drives from a mandate for the masses,
not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Yes, that's now you say that absolutely.
It very much is that you sort of alluded to before, as if you
were reading the original script and the the the the the page
where that dialogue appears is slightly yellower or a.
Different colour a. Different typewriter.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you say is the
strongest part of this film? It varies every time I watch it.
Very first time I watched it, it was the titles and when I was
listening to the cassette, ignoring the stuff that's only
on the the album. And there's some very funny
stuff there. I particularly like Eric Idle's
story of the form so far on Side 2, which is complete gibberish.
But he comes to the end of this extraordinarily convoluted
sentence about people we've never encountered and never
liking to and then just says this they now do.
And there's something about that that just makes me absolutely
raw. When I was a kid, the bit I
found the funniest was Sir Robin.
And I just think that is a that is a beautiful piece of comedy
craftsmanship. And I'd say the same about the
Bridge of Death and the Gatekeeper.
And there's that little that sequence of Lancelot finds it
easy, Robin goes in with misplaced confidence, and then
finally, the twist at the end that Arthur outwits the the
Gatekeeper. What is your name?
It's a Gallahad of Camelot. What is your quest?
I seek the grail. What is your favorite colour?
Blue. Stop.
What is your name? It is Arthur, King of the
Britons. What is your quest to seek the
Holy Grail? What is the airspeed velocity of
an unladen swallow? What do you mean an African or
European swallow? I I don't know that.
Who do you lose? How much bits swallows?
Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you
know. One of the bits cut from the
script is when they retreat from Castle Arg, they're meant to
come across Gilliam's character again, now posing as the boat
keeper, and he says he he he would cross the sea of fate must
answer me these questions. 28 They Chuck him off the boat, but
either there wasn't time to shoot that or he was too
expensive or I don't know, but I slightly bore the loss of.
Yes, I right. I missed just talking about the
gate, obviously. Gilliam.
Gilliam, what happened to Patsy? Did I miss something?
Did Patsy get beheaded or something or what?
What happened? I mean, this very, very bad
night continuity throughout this, my brother Maynard and his
monks are just there where they need to be, and they're not
there when they no longer need to be.
And it's quite difficult to keep track of which night is which at
any given moment. Who's the knight that Gilliam
plays? He gets eaten by the rabbit.
Is that boars? I can't remember.
No. Gawain.
I think it is Gawain, no? It's.
It's one of those anyway, he's I think he might only be there in
that scene is just so they have someone who they could feed to
the rabbits. So there's there's just very,
very poor continuity about this stuff.
So I I honestly wouldn't worry too much about Patsy.
Maybe Patsy stays with the horses when they dismount.
Maybe. Did you notice when they're when
they're in The Cave? There's a there's a fake Shemp,
yes, yes, there's an Eric Idle standard because we've got
Brother Maynard in the foreground.
And. There's and there's a story
about this, which only came across this week when I was
doing research for this podcast, which is that I think that's
John Cleese's driver who was like hanging around the set and
was offering his services and ended up appearing in about 20
different roles, always in the background, never with any
dialogue. But I think in a film which has
almost everybody playing multiple roles, I think he's
actually the person who plays the most different parts is he's
standing for whoever has to be in the foreground for this shot.
Really. He's he's in multiple.
Scenes desperately trying to sort of huddle behind please so
you don't get a proper look at his face.
Former a former guest of of my show Simon Meddings, he told me
that one of his his old lecturers, university lecturers,
I think he said had had been an extra and and it's been a stand
in I think for Tim the enchanter 10.
Right. So it's sort of like most people
have at some point that the, the extras on this, by the way, you
know, the, the, the, the final scene where you've got the, the,
the charge, if you like. Just before they were paid £2
each for the day, Palin said that he and Eric and Neil he got
regularly stoned during the filming, surprise me.
And yet unlike The Beatles because Help because how Day's
Night obviously was pre pre weed beetles I think.
And help was the poorer film because they were pretty much
stoned throughout it. But if you think about this
film, I think it's the best Python film.
And yet, if if payments to be believed, he and Eric and Neil
were stoned during a lot of it. Chapman was pissed.
Gillian. Jones didn't know what they were
doing behind the camera. Yeah, yeah, please.
Was grumpy with everybody. But you don't have to have a
good time to make a good film. What's that?
They say the the more fun that you're having on set, the less
fun the audience has. Quite quite often the case, I
think quite often the case with comedies, because comedy is
quite technical. But I think if you are making a
film about people going through horrific experiences,
particularly emotional, rather than, you know, just people
being dismembered. I think if you're able to keep a
light atmosphere on set, it stops everybody just becoming
incredibly depressed and then unable to work.
I think the, I think the, the trick ultimately is, is to be
relaxed. I think if you're in a state of
tension, then it's no good. So whether that relaxation comes
from a, a spirit of let's get through this or is aren't we
having every time or whether it's chemically enhanced, I
think it it often helps. What was the the original ending
to this film? Because I don't think it was
meant to end like it did. No, I'm thinking again, judging
by the script book, so the the original ending of the very
first draft is that the holy grow is found in Harrods, but
the the script book has this ending.
Basically the only thing that's different is that they imagined
that the end credits would be a sort of short film in their own
right. But I've got the the script book
here. So again, this script is a
fiction. I'm, I'm like 100% sure of that.
Exactly what its provenance is, I couldn't say.
But I, I don't believe that this is a photocopy of a document
that they had with them on location.
It's just barely possible that in fact it was, but I don't
think it was. But the amendations are are
clearly something that'll be done for the book of that
there's there can be no doubt at all.
But it's what it says. Suddenly he notices the camera
as the Black Mirror drives away. Quick shot through window of all
the nights huddled inside Inspector end of film to camera.
All right, Sonny, put that away. He walks over to it, puts his
hand over the lens. The film runs out through the
gate and the predictor shines on the screen.
There's a blank screen for some 15 seconds.
That is what the script book tells us was the intended
ending. How do you feel about the
ending? I love it, and I'm watching
YouTube reactors who aren't prepared for it and get
incredibly frustrated that there's no proper ending.
Because again, the whole point, if you like, of the Python
experience is to keep wrong footing.
You keep putting things that you aren't expecting.
Make sure that there's no such thing as a beginning, middle,
end. And actually, there's a
surprising amount of cause and effect in this film,
particularly in the last half where people assert that they're
going to attempt the thing and then do attempt it, which hasn't
really happened in the 1st 3rd at all.
But there's a certain linearity to the last third that I think
gives a lie to the assertion I've seen elsewhere that Life of
Brian is the better film because that is the it's the one with
the proper story. You know, in in any other film,
having a proper story is the minimum requirement.
And yes, there's a more of a story in Brian, but it's not a
wonderful story and it's I don't want us to be all skateboarding
dog about this. You know, the the the thing
about skateboarding dog is not that it skateboards well, is
that it does it at all. So I don't think blind for Brian
particularly deserves props for having a story because it's not
it's not a wonderful story. It's just that there is a bit
more of a story in Brian than there is in Grail.
But there isn't no story in Grail the way there is basically
no story in Meaning of Life. Yeah.
It's just that the story is a bit more episodic.
But that's part of the structure of the Knights of the Round
Table. You follow one night and then
another night and then another night.
So I I love that ending. I think it's the only way it
could have ended. Do you like it?
You don't. I don't, I don't dislike it, I
just think like possibly could have done something better.
Something. Something.
Who am I to tell the the pythons?
But you know what I mean. I just feel.
I remember, I think it might have been, I think it might have
been Jeffrey Perkins talking about hitchhikers, where they'd
always put on the radio show, they'd always put a little joke
for the announcer to read at the end of the credits.
And he said, I think one of the things that Douglas Adams and
Monty Python have in common, apart from that they were
contemporaries, is they had this amazing quality of making
whatever came on the radio or the television next seeming
ridiculous because it was following either Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy or Monty Python's Flying Circus.
And like, imagine watching today, Monty Python and the Holy
Grail on Netflix and then going on to whatever film was
recommended to you next. Whatever was recommended to you
next would seem absurd. He was following Monty Python
and the Holy Grail. Even the other two Python films,
which are both a bit more traditional in their structure,
they they play around less with the conventions of being a film
much less than you know. Life of Brian starts with a cold
open, which is in itself terribly unusual, and then has a
fairly traditional title sequence and then does the end
titles over the shots of the crucifixes.
And Meaning of Life starts with the short feature, and then that
has a fairly traditional opening closing titles, just with a
little a little code at the end of the closing titles.
The the short feature The Crimson Assurance.
Is that the best bit of the film?
So my so my take is Holy Grail is the funniest life of Bryan's
born with the most to say, but I don't think it's as consistently
funny and it's not close. I I get a bit tired of the same
joke coming up again and again in Life of Brian.
I don't find the speech impediment stuff as funny as I
think I'm supposed to. Me.
Too. And then Meaning of Life, I
think has got some of the very best Python material and some of
the very worst. I think it is an incredibly
vertiginous experience, but I think the world would be a
poorer place if we didn't, for example, have that very first
birth scene, which I think is tremendous, or the Galaxy Song,
or Mr. Creosote. There's wonderful stuff in
Meaning of Life. It's just a bit of a pudding and
you never know when you're going to stumble across something
which really doesn't work at all.
It's the one that I watch the well, no, it's not the one I
watch the least because that would be now for something
completely different. But but yeah, also Holy Grail
for film, for British comedy film made in the mid 70s.
There's not a lot problematic in it is.
There, No, I bet you're gay from From Galahad to Lancelot is a
little bit unfortunate, but even that is not too egregious.
Some of the worst stuff is the stuff from the record album.
There's a after Benavere does his bit with the she wears the
same as a duck. She's made of wood.
We cut to John Cleese's logician, which has got some
very funny stuff in it, but it's also quite kind of vulgar.
And in his Diaries, Michael Palin recalls being quite
shocked at how vulgar it was. And racist, which is a bit
unfortunate. Yeah, but luckily that doesn't
translate to the film. No.
By the way, I have this in my notes.
The Spanish title was the Knights of the Square Table and
they're crazy followers. I heard that yes, and in German
it's the Knights of the Coconut, which I think is a bit more
apropos. That's all right.
How?
What would you do to improve it? If you could improve it, If
there's anything, what would you do?
What would you take out? What would you extend?
What would you trim back? There's nothing really I'd take
out. So for example, the three headed
knight, I don't think is particularly funny, but you
can't cut the three headed knight without cutting Serobin,
which is an absolute highlight. And part of the structure of
that is that the three headed knight needs to talk to each
other. That's a difficult sentence to
pass out. The three heads need to talk to
each other for a certain amount of time in order to give Robin
and his minstrels time to scarper.
So there's very little that I changed really.
I think I think it just all it all works.
And that that balance that I was talking about is there.
I think the performances are are pretty much top notch, came out,
managed to do a good job and it's the one that does the most.
It's the one that feels most like the TV show at its best,
where things are floating in and out and the grammar of the very
idea of watching a movie in the cinema is being played around.
With which they did a little bit of in and now something
different, but it doesn't feel quite the same.
The you said before there was a joke that you noticed for the
first time, and it is that kind of film.
The thing I noticed for the first time this time around is
when Lancelot is chanting through castles, chanting
through swamp, castle, hacking people to pieces.
He runs up a staircase, pauses for a moment, goes back, lops
the head off some flowers and then keeps charging up a
staircase. Which is just brilliant and may
very well be something they've figured out on vacation.
I don't know. I love it when he when he
finally reaches the Prince. 'S room and of course he thinks
it's a Princess of damsel in distress and he's and he rushes
in, sort of kneels and then he realizes, oh, I'm terribly
sorry. Behold, your humble servant.
So that's a lot of Camelot I've come to take it on.
Terry, sorry, you've got my note.
Well I I got to a note. Shout out for.
Extremely minor. Extremely minor character, but
it just had me howling. Eric Idle as Roger the Shrubber.
Roger the Shrubber, yes. And again, that line about times
of severe economic stress, it would have resonated more
strongly with in the 1970s audience.
Speaking of which, again, you probably know this, but maybe
for the benefit of your listeners, a joke whose time is
definitely come and gone. And the joke I wouldn't have got
even watching it in the early 80s is the identity of God.
Do you know? What?
Whose picture that is that? Gilliam's.
Animating. Is it WG grace?
WG grace? Yes.
Famous cricketer who? Was known, among other things,
for his voluminous bushy beard and that would have been
incredibly funny to a cricketing audience in 1974.
A bit less Fanny for a a YouTube audience in 2025, Arthur King of
the. Britons, your Knights of the
Round Table shall have a task to make them an example in these
dark times. Good idea, O Lord.
Of course it's a good idea, Spamalot, which I haven't seen,
have you? Yes, I have some time ago.
It's all right. The aforementioned playing
around with what it means to watch a film is sort of
duplicated because there's a lot of 4th wall stuff.
So highlight is the Lady of the Lake, played by Hannah
Waddingham, who has a big entrance and a big bit early on.
I think it's from memory, I think maybe does she give Arthur
his quest? I don't remember.
But then she disappears from the narrative and then she has a big
song in the second-half called Whatever Happens to My Part.
So it's quite a lot of that kind of thing.
But it's for me, it kind of fell between.
Two stools, because on the one hand you have people who aren't
quite as funny as the original Pythons reciting lines of
dialogue I know very well. And then so that's when.
It's when. It's duplicating the film.
Then when it stops duplicating the film, it's a less good bit
of comedy. So it there's there's
entertaining stuff in it, but it never resolves that problem of
how to remind me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail without
either duplicating it or coming off second best.
Do you go and see Doctor Strangelove in the West End?
No, I haven't, but I think it might be.
Out of time or really out of time, they were filming.
It for it to be screened. In cinemas, I believe, so I'm
I'm holding out for that. That's a that's a similar thing.
It it felt a little. Bit, I mean, you could probably
do a whole episode on this, but it felt a little bit to me like
someone had gone through the script of Doctor Strangelove and
written extra undergraduate or even juvenile jokes of the
margins and then made that the stage script.
Really. Yeah.
Oh, OK. So, and of course Coogan is
saying that he's he's he's bested Sellers because he plays
the the 4th role that sellers was meant to play and didn't.
So that's a little bit as an as an example of that.
You as a Sellers fan, you presumably know Doctor
Strangelove fairly well, yes. Yeah.
So I I love his interaction. With.
Keenan Wynn and he clocks his his name tag on his uniform and
says Colonel Bat Guano, That really is your name.
In the stage version, that character introduced himself as
Bat Guano and Coogan as Mandrake says what, like bird shit?
Well, it has to spoon feed the audience, you see.
Yeah, and this is but you know when.
I went to see it. Yeah.
There's an argument that if you're going to do that on
stage, you need the comedy to be broader as you need the gag rate
to be faster. And you can't trust that a
little flicker in someone's eye is going to deliver the joke.
So you need to make it more obvious.
And if the whole audience had been rocking with laughter and
I'd be the only one there sitting thinking to myself, I
wish this was more subtle, like the film, then I would have to
say I was simply the wrong person and the wrong audience.
But I was getting chuckles. But people weren't going crazy
for it the night I was there. So yeah, a bit of at this point,
I think Coogan is very good as Strangelove himself.
I think that's the time when they were able to find a
different way of being funny that still worked for the story,
and that played to Coogan's strengths.
But he's quite bad as Mandrake. How do they?
Sorry, how do they? Get away with because in the
film, obviously you got the President Muffley addressing
Strangelove on a number of occasions.
How do they get away with that badly for the most?
So one of the things I admired about the film, and actually
this goes back to Holy Grail when I rewatched the film
recently, is Kubrick never even tries to have two Peter Sellers
in the same shot. He only ever does it with over
the shoulder shots and cutaways. So there's a there's a a
Strangelove double who's seen out of focus around the table
early on when Mandrake and no Mandrake, when Muffley and
Strangelove are talking to each other, it's all done with
editing and a few over the shoulder shots.
There's no process shots at all. Same for for Holy Grail, when
you've got please talking to a group that includes please and
so on. But for the stage show.
So the first time Strangelove appears, he's on a screen like
it's a sort of 1960s Zoom call. And Strangelove on the Zoom call
says maybe I should I should come down to the war room and
Coogan. As Muffley says, yes, that would
be easier in some ways. Which is quite a good joke.
But then. Every other time they need to
get one seller, 1 Coogan on where another one already is.
It's covered with a very laborious, back to the audience
body double. And I sort of think if you're
going to have this conceit where you've got 1 actor playing four
parts, you need the costume changes to be in the order of
about 10 or 15 seconds and not the order of two or three
minutes, which is what they are here.
So it always it. Always kills the pace.
It always slows things down. My pitch for the ending of the
stage show, but I wasn't consulted.
You almost certainly will know that originally the film ended
with a custard pie fight. And you can in fact, you can see
table trestle tables of desserts in the background of some of the
shots in the war room. Because that was the plan, and
Kubrick filmed at least some of that, maybe even all of it, and
then cut it because he felt, probably correctly, that it
didn't work to accelerate from nuclear Armageddon to custard
pies. I wonder.
If it would have played differently.
On stage, because there's a visceral reality to custard pies
in faces when you're sitting in an audience actually watching
this happen on the stage. And that kind of real messiness,
I think would have really given the stage show a tremendous
ending. Because we can't believe in all
the bombs going off the way we can when we see footage of real
test explosions at the end of the film.
But we would believe in the carnage that was being enacted
on stage if a real custard pie fight was taking place.
The ending they got isn't bad, but that's the ending.
I would have gone because I always thought that the custard.
Pie ending would have been terrible in the film.
And of course, the story is that the actual ending that they used
was suggested by Spike Milligan to sell us.
Oh, is that right? I haven't heard that before.
Yeah. Like to think?
It's true. It may not be though, but that's
the that's the story. OK, So is there is there
anything else that you wanted to talk about before we wrap up?
Yeah, I think I've covered pretty much everything.
This is a. Film I absolutely adore.
I really enjoyed watching it again, probably for something
like the 20th time. And I think if you've taken on
board the cultural narrative that Life for Brian is the one
where it all comes together, give Holy Grail another go
because there's a kind of punk we have no idea this is.
Going to work Let's. Just try it quality to Grail,
which I think is incredibly engaging.
And although I wouldn't really call Life for Brian Slick, it
does feel like they know what they're doing more in Life for
Brian, and that has benefits and drawbacks.
Whereas everything in Holy Grail is held together with chewing
gum and string and hope. And I think that gives it a
spirit that the other films lack, even I don't think.
And how something completely different has that same spirit
of will this work that Holy Grail has.
And I just think in terms of jokes, it's just one good joke
after another, whether it's a visual gag, whether it's a one
liner, whether it's a relationship, whether it's the
way something is shot, it just keeps on delivering.
And I think it's tremendous. Absolutely, Absolutely.
We. I did.
A recent show goon Pod listeners top 20 British comedy films of
all time and invited people to nominate their favourites.
Now this film, where do you think it came?
I would like to think it's top five.
At least hopefully top three again.
There is this, there is this, the narrative that Brian is the
better one, but I think it's the funnier one, even if it is a
better film. No, I agree, I think this is
funny. I think Holy Grail's.
Funnier #8 would you believe? Yeah, sandwich between what have
we got Two way stretch Sellers film and and Hot Fuzz, which I
still haven't seen and Life of Brian came in at #3 Yeah, yeah.
I mean, listen, people like what?
They like and you can't argue someone into agreeing with your
opinions but and and it depends what.
What are you coming to the film for?
It is absolutely unarguable that Life of Brian has more to say.
Definitely has more to say. Holy Grail is only interested in
making you laugh, but it makes me laugh an awful lot even on
the 20th or 21st or 22nd time through.
And also it's one that more or. Less you can kind of watch it in
with the whole family because there's no full front.
Or Graham Chapman. Yeah, or.
Absurd Playboy bunnies racing after him, chasing him off the
Cliff to his death. Which is, I mean, the
gratuitousness is the joke, sure, but it's still gratuitous
and, and, and funny that it's, that it's Chapman.
As well. Yes, exactly.
This is something I remember from I.
Think this is from the the life. Of Python book, which was my
gateway to finding out who these people were that were making
this incredible comedy. And I'm pretty sure I got this
from from there that when Graham Chapman came out to the fellow
Pythons, Barry Took, who was something in BBC comedy at that
point, was very stern and said to them, now this changes
nothing. This does not mean you can't do
poof jokes anymore, which is one way of dealing with this
revelation. Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Is full of references to pooves, yes.
Isn't it pooves which? I believe is the.
Is the comes up in in Meaning of Lift as well by Douglas Adams
and. John Lloyd does it.
Yeah, a couple of times proves, but no.
Absolutely brilliant film and and thank you so much Tom for
coming along to talk about it and your love for it.
Thanks for inviting me. No problem.
So what have you got coming up in the next?
Few. Months.
In terms of activity, well, I've been writing nerdy books.
I spent two years watching every episode of Star Trek from Kirk
to Archer, and I've documented that laboriously in what has
turned out to be 3 books. So the first was out last year,
the second will be out I think in March.
And then I've given Red Dwarf a similar treatment.
But because there are fewer Red Dwarf episodes, the Red Dwarf
book also has lots of behind the scenes stuff, and that was also
split into two volumes at the insistence of my publisher.
So Volume 1 was out. In the summer and volume 2 will
be out next year. And then if the politics of the
1970s which so informed this film are your kind of thing and
you live or you can get to Islington in North London, then
you will want to be at the King's Head Theatre in the month
of May. Because they're a play written
by me and my Co writer Robert Kahn about 3 leading lights of
the British Labour Party, Tony Crossland, Roy Jenkins and Denis
Healy. That will be on at the The
King's Head. It's called The Gang of Three
and I highly recommend that to all of your listeners.
Have you got dramatic and funny? Have you got specially built?
Eyebrows for the person. We haven't cast our Denis Healy
yet. So I don't know whether the
actor will come with eyebrows already installed or whether
they'll have to be specially purchased.
Pity David. Hemmings isn't with us anymore
because he he, it's some pretty impressive ones.
OK, Tom. Well, listen, that's brilliant.
Thank you once again. And hopefully we can, we can
meet up again sometime in the future and talk about perhaps
another film. That'll be lovely.
Thank you very much. Cheers bravely bold Sir, Robin
brought forth. From Camelot he was not afraid
to die for Braves, Sir Robin. He was not at all afraid to be
killed in nasty ways. Brave, brave, brave, brave.
So Robin. He was not in the least but
scare to be mashed into a pole, or to have his eyes goused out
and his elbows broken, To have his kneecap split and his body
burned away and his limbs all hacked and mangled.
Brace or Robin, his head smashed in and his.
Heart cut out and his liver. Removed and his bowels and
plugged and his nostrils raped and his bottom burnt off and
his. That's the that's enough music
for now lads.