Episode 23 - Scott of the Antarctic

"...Understandably awed by the magnificence, even the absurdity of this great occasion... [Mr. Praline] has finally gone spare, and there is the going sparal look at the front of his head. " - John Cleese as Voice Over

At this point in their development as a troupe, the lads were looking down the barrel of their first feature film. While the film itself is unremarkable (compared to the series that it cannibalizes,) the promise of the medium must have tickled their collective fancy. In this episode, we begin to witness their cinematic chops, even as they take satirical swipes at other film industries, notably American movies and the French New Wave-- both eminently mockable, in my opinion. Yet even as they satirize ambitious artistic anus-ery, they demonstrate their own weakness for it, delivering a, yes, funny, but far less accessible episode than last week's offering. In this episode, concept is king, and comedy takes a back seat.

As with any classic film, it's not enough to have seen it. Ya gotta own it. Buy the box set! 

We begin without titles, Announcer Cleese, or Palin's "It's" Man. Rather, it's a junkyard. ("Look, ma-- I'm in show business!") You have to admire the commitment of Terry Jones, undoubtedly the mastermind behind this particular bit. He drags poor Carol Cleveland and a cameraman out to what must be the smelliest locale imaginable. I guess the sewage plant was booked? But it's very telling to me personally that no one else was there for this shoot.

It's a slow, ponderous, hand-held pan across the trash, seagulls cawing in the background, finally finding beautiful, wistful Carol Cleveland, seated on a white chair, holding a cabbage and sporting serious locks of looooooong hair. With horrible sound clicks, Jones wanders in and engages in the most banal French conversation ever recorded, as Cleveland responds with monosyllabic politeness. Their dialogue is immortalized with subtitles. The French may make good lovers, but their pick-ups are for merde. Jones, spent, wanders off, then is pushed back into frame (reminiscent of Palin's jig in the low-budget Brigadoon) to state, apropos of nothing, that he is a revolutionary.

Idle mercifully breaks in to explain why this film is so great, with the film critic's snooty explication of the symbolism. The actors are apparently named Brian and Brianette. Cleveland's Brianette is Brianette Zatapathique, which is a French last name we hear a lot with this crew. So, in short, this is a bit about bad French New Wave films and the ostentatious critics who champion them. I'm in. I hate New Wave films, too (sorry, Martin Scorcese.) But having pierced them, we now double down as Idle presents a different clip-- basically the same clip, edited with disparate violent images.

The violent clips are often goofy-- black and white shots of Idle poking Cleese's eye out, a nun kicking a cop, a piano lid smashing Chapman's fingers-- but they're interspersed with real clips of bombs dropping, buildings on fire, cops brutalizing protestors. The audience laughter is sporadic and uneasy. The silence weighs heavily. Finally, Cleveland and Jones declare their love for each other-- only to have the now-ticking lettuce explode. Why? Because it's French. Idle wraps it up with a snooty explanation of the symbolism, and links us to the next bit.

It's funny, conceptually, but it fails to make us laugh. It's almost as if we are admiring the comedy second-hand. The silliness of the lettuce, and the goofier clips of violence, are as close as we come to actual humor. But of course, you had to be there in the late 60s and early 70s, when film critics were lining up to praise rather mediocre French films because of their revolutionary technique, or lack thereof. Even in the early 80s, when I was in college, film professors were still trying to convince us that these films were worth a damn. (Some of them were, to be fair. Go "400 Blows"!) But students by then had been seduced by "Star Wars" and "E.T.", and few were giving much credence to the New Wave scene. Since then, the discussion about what makes for transformative cinema has been drowned like a cat in a bucket of box office stats. Consequently, this whole bit feels incredibly dated, as well as awkward.

Bottom line, the lads have become what they have beheld. While mocking pretension in cinema, they've become a bit pretentious themselves. Instead of going for the laugh, they're going for the knowing nod, the raised eyebrow, and the fop saying "I get it" quietly to himself.

The Pythons have more success as they turn from mocking technically poor but fervent cinema to mocking lavish yet vapid American fair. Idle introduces Chapman, a documentarian chronicling the making of a Hollywood blockbuster-to-be, Scott of the Antarctic-- shot on location in Paignton, a beach town in Great Britain. Why shoot an Arctic movie on the beach? Because they're Hollywood.

"Greet!"

Idle plays American producer Gerry Schlick, who brags about how hard they're working to transform the beach into an arctic wasteland. Palin plays a Kirk Douglas-ish leading man Kirk Vilb, Cleveland plays Vanilla Hoare, but Cleese absolutely steals the show as Director James McRettin. Wearing a sweater and white turtleneck, carrying a styrofoam cup of booze, a light meter around his neck, he speaks in a frantic brogue, passive-agressively agreeing with everything. "Greet! Greet!" (which means "Great! Great!") Great gags are tossed in-- "Kirk read the title and just flipped."-- but the overall bit mocks Hollywood throwing money at these productions, and ruining them. Cleveland's Hoare can't act unless she's in a trench. Palin's Vilb can't act unless he's standing on crates. The movie starts unravelling when Vilb insists "I gotta fight the li-yunnn!" (which means "lion"), even though there aren't any at the South Pole. "Re-write!" announces Cleese, and there are now lions at the South

Careful! The lion's got a chair!

Pole. (I'm glad Vilb won-- the lion fight scene is hysterical, with a variety of film tricks, including fisticuffs with a guy in a lion suit.) The final film involves lions, giant penguins, and a man-eating roll-top desk. As Hoare runs from the desk, her clothes catch on various bits of wild life until she is almost naked.

The penguin and roll-top desk are early triumphs of Gilliam's, who proves that he can work his hallucinogenic magic on the set as well as in a room with a bunch of pictures. The penguin (who has
tentacles, by the way) is particularly effective, looking every bit like a giant penguin until a rock knocks him over and he falls back way too fast. I imagine Gilliam also figured out a way to strip Cleveland bare, which makes him not only a visionary, but the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Only now, as Cleveland scampers past, do we see Cleese's announcer. (The show is halfway over.) Palin follows with his word, and the titles roll. The foot we've come to fetishize squishes Chicken-man, which is followed by a string of familiar Gilliam cut-outs that get squished by feet, most of them with shoes and pants. A voice over asks if you're tired of dancing feet, offering instead Conrad Pooh's Dancing Teeth! This is a now famous Gilliamination. giving us Gilliam himself as Mr. Pooh, his face washed purple, in a garish, air-brushed carny suit and bowtie, grimacing maniacally, all of his teeth showing. And after a long organ build-up (sounds like my love life,) those teeth indeed start to dance, popping in and out of the gums, leaning to one side, falling like dominoes... pretty cool

and freaky stuff.

This tour-de-farce not enough? Conrad can link sketches, as well. He proudly holds a letter (not a telegram, we are told, but a letter,) only to have a postman take it from him. We follow the letter backwards in time as it's undelivered (through the craziest route ever!) unstamped and un-taken to the post office by Jones. We're on film again now as Jones backwards walks out of the post office, only to pass Cleese walking forward. We are officially linked as Cleese considers who is going backwards in time.

This is the Fish License sketch, a long, long... too long follow up to the Parrot sketch. Cleese, in his rain slicker, approaches license agent Palin and asks to buy a license for his fish. The rest is just the two of them batting the concept back and forth, as Palin insists you don't have to buy such a thing. Cleese is silly as ever with this character, Mr. Praline in the script, but it's the same guy from Whizzo, the Parrot Sketch, and that linking bit earlier in this season. That's sort of what makes this sketch so disappointing-- the same elements are in play as in the Parrot Sketch, (including fun with animals; Cleese, re: his pet halibut; "I picked him out of thousands. I didn't like the others. They were all too flat.") but the sketch just lays there like... well, a dead parrot. Part of the problem is, it's on

film, not in the studio. They shot the sketch in an actual post-office, and the room echoes in that irritating way post offices do. It's adequately lit, but the colors are a bit on the muted side. Speaking of muted, there's Palin, who never seems to find the joke in his character, playing it straight and low energy. I think he does better in front of an audience. This sketch is the origin of a rare John Cleese original song, Eric the Half-a-Bee, which apparently Cleese preferred to perform instead of the Silly Walk sketch for the live shows. All in all, it's a strange little bit, made even stranger by how it ends--

Praline, assured he doesn't need a fish license, asks for a statement to that effect signed by the Lord Mayor. With medieval trumpets tooting a fanfare, in walks the Lord Mayor (Idle, I think?), nine feet tall. Why is the Mayor so tall? Because they're Monty Python. Amidst pomp and reverent voice over, the giant Lord Mayor signs the proffered statement. But the voice over suggests there's more going on here, throwing in references to a rugby game already in progress. Sure enough, the Lord Mayor and his entourage head out onto a rugby field to finish the game. Derby Council versus a rugby team, which match climaxes in a goal by Cleveland as the Lady Mayoress. It's a blow out! The administrators have won. Sportscasters Palin and Chapman comment on the match and other odd matches, and get scarcely a laugh. It's all just gotten too weird.

Finally, Palin announces edited highlights of another mis-match-- Bournemouth Gynecologists versus Long John Silver impersonators. There's a funny anecdote about this sketch-- Palin, Cleese and Chapman, all in pirate costume, drive to the bank in Palin's Mini during shooting-- but the bit alone is hilarious. It's a soccer game, and of course, Long John Silver impersonators are all missing a leg, making it impossible to run or kick. You'd think the gynecologists, in hospital gowns and caps, would have no trouble. And you'd be right! Instead of twisting the joke to defy expectations, the lads fulfill expectations beyond your wildest dreams, showing rapid fire clips of gynecologists running joyful circles around the static gimps, all with a constant soundtrack of pirate grumbling. We may not really understand how we got here, but now that we're here, it's hilarious! The final goal is kicked right into the pirate goalie, who can only fall over.

Back in the studio, Palin catches a soccer ball and gives us a cheesy showbiz farewell-- only to be squashed by the infamous 16-ton weight. A montage of violent images plays us out, but at least this time, we hear the Monty Python march, and our hearts are lighter.

Brave. Bold. Revolutionary. Indifferent to audience reaction. Jokes for their own sake. And not always particularly funny. Only Cleese, with his ridiculous Praline character, seems to keep the group out of the strictly conceptual realm. His performance reminds us that this is still a sketch comedy show, not the avante-garde cinema the group mocks at the start. Yet, it feels almost quaint. Just as in the Fish License sketch, Jones walks one way, Cleese the other.

Next week; How Not To Be Seen!