"Some idiot designed a poster with a happy snake with a funny hat on..." John Cleese, regarding the disastrous American box office of Monty Python's first film.
This chapter is a little outside the mission statement of the overall blog, as it is about a movie and therefore not part of their TV show. Furthermore, the film mercilessly picks the bones of the previous two seasons for sketches, which bones have already been picked in this blog. But I am including it because I think this film marks an important departure for the group as a creative entity. This is where the TV writers/performers turned into film stars, in an era when being a film star was cool in a counter-cultural way. This is also where the lads felt oppressed under the yoke of a "creative" producer who insisted on calling some shots. Finally, it's where they started to really think big, which is ironic, because this film plays it safe and small. The lads had a shot at cinema, and they blew it. They'd be more aggressive with their next film opportunity.
We won't be re-parsing the sketches-- instead, I want to focus on what they did differently, which isn't much.
A brief background to the movie-- Cleese's friend Victor Lownes, head of Playboy in London, (Man, I want John Cleese's friends!) propositioned Cleese with a film production of the Python's greatest hits, distributing the film in America at college art houses around the country and making buckets of money. And who wouldn't say no to that? Lownes put up half the money, found another investor for the other half, to create a total budget of 80,000 pounds, low-budget even back then. His mandate was for the lads to string together the best bits from the shows. He also held veto power. For instance, Palin's character Ken Shabby made an appearance in the original script, and Mr. Lownes was so grossed out, he demanded Shabby be cut from the film. (Mr. Lownes, it would seem, is a regular hothouse flower. "Why, get that Shabby thing away from my mint julip... I have the vapors!") Finally, when Gilliam worked up the credits in a Ben-Hur fashion, he excluded Lownes' credit from the conceit, giving him a different treatment. No good! Victor wanted his name carved in huge blocks of stone, too! But hey-- at least he didn't insist that Carol Cleveland be replaced with a Playboy Bunny. They shot the whole thing on location in London, and at a cold, clammy dairy farm up North London. Ah, the glamor of film!
We start with "How Not To Be Seen," which devolves into the giggling of Cleese's announcer, who takes us to the titles, done in true Gilliam lunacy. His animations lose nothing on the big screen. There are palm trees blossoming with the movie's title, a bouncing head, a parachuting strumpet chopped in two by a mouse trap, and, of course, the foot.
A title now reads "The End", and in a replay of the Season 1 finale, Jones steps out as an awkward theater owner, shown from a distance as if we are in the audience. It was probably a pretty keen effect in a movie theater. Jones announces that, since the A-list movie was shorter than promised, other vintage film clips will be shown. Palin and Chapman do the "tape recorder up the nose" bit, in scratchy vintage film style, and from a distance. The distance dims the comedy a bit.
Then we launch into the Hungarian Phrase Book sketch, oddly edited and plays very slowly. It's interesting to note that this sketch was inserted into the film script before they had recorded it for the TV show. Gilliamination follows, with hands growing like trees, flying like geese, etc. attached to a barber cutting off his own head whilst shaving-- always a great bit.
The Marriage Counselor sketch is next. Cleveland is wearing a different, and if I may say, not as alluring, dress, there are many long and oh-so cinematic pans, and the pacing seems off. Pewtie's adviser at the end is no longer a cowboy, but God himself, (prescient of the next movie, eh?) who tells Pewtie to "Pull your finger out" to summon the 16 ton weight. The music is way too excessive. The sketch is just not as funny or thrilling as it was on the TV show.
Gilliam bits again-- he's kinda rocking the house here. The carnivorous carriage, with a Carol Cleveland voice over at the end, lapses into the statue of David with the fig-leaf. The fig leaf hides a female blue-nosed censor lady (ala Mary Whitehouse?) with yet abother Cleveland vocal contribution. They're using Carol a lot in the movie. And that suits me just fine.
We do the "Nudge, Nudge" sketch in what looks like an actual pub. The scene is done in one long take with a dolly shot. Idle nails it, but... eh. Right into the Fresh Fruit sketch, with Cleese strutting and shooting the rest of the group. There's lots of strange angles in this bit, as they try to capture Cleese's lunacy.
Chapman steps in as the Colonel, complaining. Chapman seems tired, or maybe he's just hung over. He links us to Hell's Grannies, then interrupts that one to show us the Close Order Bad Temper/Swanning About. Gilliam's Cancer Spot follows. In the film version, he gets his way, and it's actually less funny than gangrene. Another dolly shot takes us into the Mountaineering Sketch, with the double-visioned Sir George Head. Again, lots of weird angles and over the shoulder shots.
A line-up of sub-par bikini models leads us to Cleese in his bikini, announcing the next different thing-- Cleese and Palin doing a bit on the street. "Like to come back to my place?" Jones the "Boo" sign-wearing perv links us to the Chinese communist conspiracy animation, which takes us (unfortunately) to Crelm. Dancing Teeth is next, with a 20th Century Frog intro, and that takes us to Jones' Musical Mice. This is where some of their Python magic kicks in a bit-- instead of being dragged off stage, Jones is chased off stage ala the Undertakers Sketch. A little anarchy starts creeping in, linking bits together. Idle comes out to introduce the next number, someone with exploding teeth as opposed to exploding knees. Why the change, I wonder? The crowd chases Jones through the Idle introduction of--
Cleese interviewing Sir Edward Ross. "Teddy Baby." In the film version, Cleese claims that it is Richard Nixon who has a hedgehog named Frank, ("Hey, American college kids! We just made a Nixon joke!") The punchline is punctuated by the crowd, still chasing Jones. There's an interesting bit with Ernest Scribbler and Palin's Milkman both crossing paths (and both played by Palin!) but we leave Scribbler for the nonce and follow the Milkman. Cleveland is the seductress, and betrays none of the uncertainty the TV slattern did.
We then move on to Scribbler and the Deadly Joke. Palin is wonderful, as always, and we get a great shot of Scribbler dead which is almost worth the price of admission itself. After Idle (Mrs. Scribbler) dies, we cut straight to the WW2 footage, bypassing the cops who moan lamentations-- one of my favorite parts of the sketch! The joke test sequence is recreated shot for shot. You don't mess with the gold.
A new animated bit follows, with an apology for the previous sketch interrupted by lewd pursuits. The old lady tripping the bus takes us into the Killer Cars. Gilliam interrupts this bit to show us the narrator (Idle) as an old man, who promises that the fight is "a scene of such spectacular proportions that it could never in your life be seen in a low budget film like this... And notice how my lips aren't moving?" The mutant cat is put into a meat grinder, which connects us to Venus doing her clam shell boogie, which takes us to the Parrot Sketch.
Cleese and Palin are at the top of their game, and the sketch suffers no transitional impairments-- until Palin suddenly blurts out "I never really wanted to do this in the first place!" And off we go to the (real) woods for the Lumberjack Song. (For the record, they jettisoned the whole "Notlob" business, as well as the Maniac Barber sketch. You don't mess with the gold and you don't mint the mess.) As Palin marches off, we hear Cleese inquire about his parrot. The Lumberjack Song is beautifully shot, and loses nothing by being in the woods, versus in front of a Vaudevillian backdrop. It is pretty poorly dubbed, but that adds to the charm. Connie Booth reprises her role as the demure/disappointed belle. Instead of "rugged", she whines "I thought you were butch." I guess they thought this was more American? I hate to break it to you, 40 years later, but in the States, the only thing gayer than being gay is using the word "butch" to describe manliness. The singing Mounties (all of the other lads in the chorus) pelt Palin with fruit.
This takes us to the Dirty Fork sketch. It begins, strangely, with an apology for being late. (?) There's a great tracking pan of Palin's entrance into the scene, as Ian McNaughton flexes his muscles a bit. Finally, the punchline, delivered without the groans of the audience, directly to a low angle camera, which somehow makes it less funny.
The classic "Kiss as Musical Instrument" plays as an interlude, followed by a new bit, "How to Build Certain Interesting Things." A pile of trash turns into a robber with a gun, which links us to the Lingerie Robbery Sketch, done without the asides to the camera, and somehow the less for that. Cleese reappears, the show's MC, walking on water as he brings us the next bit-- Cleese and Idle, doing their "People Falling Past the Window" sketch. The complaining letter follows, with a nice shot of the dummy falling out of the window.
Back to animation-- there's a lot of it in this movie-- of the pervert caterpillar transforming into the TV show host butterfly, and then a new bit where people in the snow sing "Vocational Guidance Counselor..." Guess what comes next? Cleese and Palin do their bit, with a few line changes, ("I can't stand it anymore! I want to live!" blurts Palin) and a nice over the shoulder shot. The close-ups work really well. For instance, instead of a picture of a lion, they splice in footage of a lion charging, and we get a C.U. of Palin screaming in terror. They cut the infomercial aspect of the sketch short, and Palin says he only wanted to see his name in lights. Idle, as a Hitler moustachioed fairy, grants his wish--
And it's "Blackmail". Palin plays it confused at first, but he recovers quickly. This bit doesn't create the energy of the televised version. Finally, the last "contestant" is Colonel Chapman, who links us to the Pearl Harbor sketch. Believe it or not, they actually reshot this! There's a whole dolly shot, and the pig wandering in is absent. Now, that's dedication!
We cut to the Romantic Interlude-- Jones and Cleveland making out and showing suggestive film clips. Jones promises "Just one more, dear," and we get the last sketch, The Upper Class Twit of the Year. The sketch is cut, and not for the better, completely throwing off the pacing and build. It was during the re-shoot for this bit that Cleese discovered a half-empty bottle of vodka in Chapman's briefcase, the first clear sign that Chapman had a drinking problem. I suppose Chapman made the decision to cut the sketch, because of all the sketches that should not have been cut, that didn't need to be cut, this is the one. What were they thinking?
Finally, the closing credits, with the stony names (except for the cursive flourish of Ian McNaughton's title.)
For all the credit that Monty Python gets for revolutionizing television, it's insane how safe they played it when they didn't have censors to worry about. To be fair, Mr. Lownes certainly had a lot to do with that, but this film is a testament to how madcap the lads weren't. They would never let anyone else make editorial decisions on their cinematic material again, and when they came back to the BBC studios to record their third season, they would push the envelope in ways that they didn't in this fairly substandard (for them) film.
Ironically, American college audiences did not flock to this movie when it was released in the States, with a hideous ad campaign and little or no awareness raised. But in England, where the material had already been seen on telly, the film did very well, which may or may not say something about British film audiences. It still makes money to this day for the Playboy Corporation, as Monty Python's other films and the television show has built a constant demand for all their work. Meanwhile, another more ambitious project funded by Playboy at the same time, Polanski's Macbeth, has failed to make a dime. So maybe the lads were right to make such a limpid film.
Next week; Another Monty Python Record
No comments:
Post a Comment