Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Director:
Terry Gilliam
Terry Jones
Starring:
Graham Chapman
John Cleese
Terry Gilliam
Eric Idle
Terry Jones
Michael Palin
Released: April 3, 1975
Budget: $400,000 ($2.2M in 2022)
Gross $5M ($27.7M in 2022)
Ratings: IMDb 8.2/10 Rotten Tomatoes 98%
Metacritic 91% Google Users 91%
Here cometh thine shiny awards Sire. My Lord Tucker the Wanker second Earl of Wessex. Lord of the Furries. Heir of Lord baldy the one eyed snake wrestler. Protector of Freedom units. Step Sibling with funny feelings down stairs. Entertainer of uncles. Jailor of innocent. Spanker of innocent milk maids and stable boys. The toxic wanker. Big Cheif sitting doughnut. Teepee giver to the great Cornholio. Edgar Allan Poe's shaved muse.
No awards, but garnered high praise when it came out.
First Time you saw the movie?
Plot:
In AD 932, King Arthur and his squire, Patsy, travel Britain searching for men to join the Knights of the Round Table. Along the way, Arthur debates whether swallows could carry coconuts, passes through a town infected with the Black Death, recounts receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake to two anarcho-syndicalist peasants, defeats the Black Knight and observes an impromptu witch trial. He recruits Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure, and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, along with their squires and Robin's minstrels. Arthur leads the knights to Camelot, but, after a musical number, changes his mind, deeming it "a silly place". As they turn away, God appears and orders Arthur to find the Holy Grail.
Arthur and his knights arrive at a castle occupied by French soldiers, who claim to have the Grail and taunt the Britons, driving them back with a barrage of barnyard animals. Bedevere concocts a plan to sneak in using a Trojan Rabbit, but no one hides inside it, and the Britons are forced to flee when it is flung back at them. Arthur decides the knights should go their separate ways to search for the Grail.
A modern-day historian filming a documentary on the Arthurian legends is killed by an unknown knight on horseback, triggering a police investigation.
Arthur and Bedevere are given directions by an old man and attempt to satisfy the strange requests of the dreaded Knights Who Say "Ni!" Sir Robin avoids a fight with a Three-Headed Knight by running away while the heads are arguing amongst themselves. Sir Galahad is led by a grail-shaped beacon to Castle Anthrax, which is occupied exclusively by young women, who wish to be punished for misleading him, but he is unwillingly "rescued" by Lancelot. Lancelot receives an arrow-shot note from Swamp Castle. Believing the note is from a lady being forced to marry against her will, he storms the castle and slaughters several members of the wedding party, only to discover the note is from an effeminate prince.
Arthur and his knights regroup and are joined by three new knights, as well as Brother Maynard and his monk brethren. They meet Tim the Enchanter, who directs them to a cave where the location of the Grail is said to be written. The entrance to the cave is guarded by the Rabbit of Caerbannog. Underestimating it, the knights attack, but the Rabbit easily kills Bors, Gawain and Ector. Arthur uses the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch", provided by Brother Maynard, to destroy the creature. Inside the cave, they find an inscription from Joseph of Arimathea, directing them to Castle Aarrgh.
An animated cave monster devours Brother Maynard, but Arthur and the knights escape after the animator unexpectedly suffers a fatal heart attack. The knights approach the Bridge of Death, where the bridge-keeper demands they answer three questions in order to pass or else be cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. Lancelot easily answers simple questions and crosses. Robin is defeated by an unexpectedly difficult question, and Galahad fails an easy one; both are magically flung into the gorge. When Arthur asks for clarification on an obscure question about swallows, the bridge-keeper cannot answer and is himself thrown into the gorge.
Arthur and Bedevere cannot find Lancelot, unaware that he has been arrested by police investigating the historian's death. The pair reach Castle Aarrgh, but find it occupied by the French soldiers. After being repelled by showers of manure, they summon an army of knights and prepare to assault the castle. As the army charges, the police arrive, arrest Arthur and Bedevere for the murder of the historian and break the camera, ending the film.
TOP 5
1: Done on an incredibly small budget, the Pythons found funding from an unlikely sources—rock bands. Groups like Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd helped get the money up for the production, with a portion of the funds coming from the Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” This is a trend that would continue later with The Life of Brian, when a large portion of the funding came from former Beatle George Harrison. When Harrison was asked why he funded the film, he responded “Because I wanted to see it.”
2: The film also represents the directorial debuts of both Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, who decided that anyone named Terry got to direct the Pythons’ first film. Attempting to co-direct at the same time led to conflicts, so the Terrys split up the responsibilities with Jones handling the actors while Gilliam worked on the cinematography. They’d go on to direct the remaining Python films together and Jones would additionally direct Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, while Gilliam’s lengthy directorial career would include such artistic classics as The Fisher King, Brazil, Time Bandits, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and more.
3: The vicious Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog had parts of its fur dyed red to represent the blood of the knights that it spilt with its large, pointy teeth. Unfortunately, the dye used wouldn’t wash out afterwards and the rabbit’s owner was furious.
4: By the time the Pythons actually got around to doing the credits, they’d run out of money. As a result, the credits were very simple and Palin decided to spice them up a bit by adding the Swedish subtitles and llama references. When the film was shown for the first time at Cannes, firemen rushed in at the end of the credits to evacuate the audience due to a bomb scare. The crowd didn’t leave at first because they thought it was part of the show.
5: n part due to the low budget, Chapman and Cleese did all their own stunts for the Black Knight scene. The two used heavy swords and some acrobatics for added realism. Connie Booth had brought her and Cleese’s young daughter to the filming, who during the fight turned to her mum and said “Daddy doesn’t like that man, does he?”
**TRIPLE LINDY AWARD**
**REVIEW AND RATING**
Trey
Chris
Stephen 1.5
Tucker 3
TOP 5
Stephen:
1 Breakfast club
2 Saving Private Ryan
3 Ghostbusters
4 Sandlot
5 Color out of space
Chris:
1. sandlots
2. T2
3. trick r treat
4. rocky horror picture show
5. hubie halloween
Trey:
1) Boondocks Saints
2) Mail Order Brides
3) Tombstone
4) Very bad things
5) She out of my league
Tucker:
1. T2
2:Saving Private Ryan
3: Tombstone
4: My Cousin Vinny
5: Ghostbusters
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