The Most Holy Grail Part 3 - Fun and Games?

"Yes! Yes! Let him tackle us single-handed!... oh, shit!" - Carol Cleveland as Dingo, the Sultry Temptress

"Mynd you, moose bites Kan be pretti nasti..."
"You've got two empty halves of coconuts..."
"I'm not dead."
"Help! I'm being repressed!"
""Tis but a scratch."
"A duck!"

We're twenty minutes into the movie, and we've already seen about five classic bits, plus a deliriously baroque credit sequence, with tons of quotability. But we've still got an hour and ten minutes to go. Remember, the lads have been working together for years under the auspices of the BBC, and now they have the relative creative freedom that feature films afford. Though they will go further than they ever have before, they are also steeped in patterns of creative thought that we can recognize from their TV show. Let's strap on for the Fun and Games section of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, because all of that was just the set up. And if you haven't done it yet, Buy the Bloody Movie right now!

King Arthur is on the lookout for knights to join his Round Table in Camelot, with nothing more on his side than the loyal Patsy and an empty coconut split in two. He's met pedantic sparrow enthusiasts, a socialist couple in the mud and a murderous Black Knight, and pranced through a plague-ridden village and a literal witch hunt. But after all that, he's finally found his first knight, Sir Bedevere.

By the way, if you all don't have it already, pick up the Soundtrack here-- there is a great bit that follows up the witch trial, involving a professor of logic who critiques Bedevere's proposition, all while revealing the marital difficulties he and his wife are having. It's one of the best "album only" bits they have ever produced. I'll go into it in (more) length in the album breakdown, but if you haven't heard it, give it a listen here.

Look Out for the Gorilla, Fay!

The moment Arthur knights Bedevere freezes, and now we're in a book-- a book that can only have been designed by Terry Gilliam. Although he's left his imprint on every frame of the movie, and been in a number of them as well, this is the first we've seen of Gilliam's trademark visual style. Funny birds and animals cavort amongst Gothic titles as the cast of characters are introduced; Palin, as Galahad, Cleese as Lancelot, and Idle as Robin, (established forthright as a coward in the book's first joke,) as well as Sir Not Appearing in This Film ("Meta-Baby!") This book motif comprises out first attempt at structure, and we will return to it a few times over the course of the film. They've used it in some episodes of Monty Python, but it seems more to hearken back to old movies about even older times-- Check out, for instance, this credit sequence from "When Things Were Rotten" If Mel Brooks was doing it on television in the 70s, you know it had to be a thing.

But just as on the Flying Circus, the lads were not content with one layer of joke. We get a second layer, a detail in the margins. The pages of the book are turned by a feminine hand, which is ripped away by a giant gorilla hand. Fear not, though-- the gorilla continues to turn the pages in subsequent sequences. Like the random sightings of Vikings in early Python, so this love story between King Kong and Fay Wray plays out just off screen.

Ho Downs, Knightly!

The next bit is another stand alone sketch, a musical number about Camelot. Amidst silly discussions about the Medieval scientific view of the world, (not so Medieval actually-- there are people here in the states who probably believe the earth is banana-shaped,) they come upon... Camelot. Clearly, the castle of dreams, the pinnacle of human achievement, until Gilliam reminds them "It's only a model." This is the first wink at the audience, a reminder that all of this is just a movie. It's a shame for a purist such as myself, because it didn't have to be that line. It could have been "I've seen better", or "It doesn't have a spa" or "You still have to crap in a bucket." Something that undercut the grandeur in the same way, without shredding the fourth wall. But it still does the job, and it's kind of a goof that Gilliam gets the line-- after all, he built the model. Without further ado, they head towards Camelot.

Worst Musical Lighting Ever!

Inside the castle walls, dark, dank and "cozy", a poorly lit but obsequiously joyous musical number is taking place. The lads, voiced, one assumes, by the Fred Tomlinson Singers, sing a song that riffs on the word "table" and tries to find rhymes for "Camelot". ("We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot!") This feels like an Idle song, with all the clever rhymes, but the musical itself is all Jones. There's a static barbershop quartet pose, a kick line, and a tap dance sequence, all of it cut together with increasingly frenetic pace. We can barely hear the lyrics, so most of the humor comes from seeing knights in full armor being all musical. Of course, people (and cats) get hurt. They are kicked, stepped on, and coshed on the head, but the manic musical is completely indifferent to suffering. People clap along happily as the residual violence takes another life. (There's a quick cutaway to the dungeon, where Palin hangs by his wrists from a wall, and he claps along happily. Could this be the same dungeon denizen as in "Life of Brian"? "You lucky, lucky bastard.")

This number is actually very reminiscent of the Money Programme song, with knights instead of Dutch girls. However, Jones goes crazy in the editing suite, the cuts happening faster than the song can keep up with towards the end. Is this all a dig on the musical "Camelot", relatively current on the mid-70s? I suspect so. After all that lunacy, when the song is over, King Arthur, still outside with his loyal band, decides not to go to Camelot. "It is a silly place."

Now, as with the book, Gilliam returns to give us some structure. Out of the clouds, God appears, thunder rumbling behind him. God looks like a cross between Karl Marx and Rasputin, but the photographic inspiration for God was actually W.G. Grace, the Babe Ruth of cricket. (I can't type that without smiling.) He's beautifully backlit, with yellow eyes, ornate crown and little Kilroy fingers holding the clouds down. In a bit that sounds like Jones,

Separated at Birth?

(although the voice of God was Chapman, I hear), the knights below try to supplicate, and God yells at them. It turns out that God is fed up with all the Hosannas. "It's like those miserable Psalms, they're so depressing." I agree. And the hymns in the states are better than C of E hymns, which are nearly unbearable. (Thank you, Southern Baptists!)

But soon, we get to the real point of this scene-- the Quest. God tasks Arthur and his Knights to find the Holy Grail, and to have their search serve as an example in these dark times. We now have the thru line for the rest of the movie laid out, as we zero in on the quests of each knight. And once God's cloud door slides shut, like the doors in "Get Smart", Gilliam gives us angels blowing horns (some anally, with what I guess would be fart flugelhorns,) with a quick wave from Jesus, all coalescing into the title "The Search for the Holy Grail".

The last couple of bits haven't had the quotability that the first few got us. They've been funny, but not hysterical. But now, via a traveling montage of the full crew prancing across the countryside, with their pages providing the coconut-derived sound effects, we arrive at yet another castle. And behind the battlements lurks-- the French!

Farting in Your General Direction

This is the first multi-scene sequence in the film, and it demonstrates the difficulty of cobbling together a feature with no guiding principles apart from being silly. The stakes have escalated here, because now the knights are on a mission from God. And a goal changes everything. For those of you who aren't writers, here's a quick tutorial on narrative scene construction-- usually, what you want is a character, often called a hero, with a goal. Pursuing the goal leads the character into conflict, and seeing the hero deal with that conflict is where the joy of narrative typically resides. There are lots of exceptions to this, but for the purposes of this examination, let's assume this to be the rule. Now, let's see how this all plays out...

The knights approach the castle, the music getting tense, dramatic, building-- and then deflated by Gilliam's pathetic trumpet blare. Rebuilding the tension with silence, their entreaties are finally met with Cleese, playing a goofball Frenchman with what I assume to be historically accurate pointy head gear that makes him look like a pinhead, and gauntlets that stay perched on the battlement like cat paws. He says the castle belongs to his master, "Guy de Loimbard", a riff on Guy Lombardo, famous bland American band leader, and when King Arthur asks him to join the quest for the Grail, Cleese replies "He's already got one, y'see?" This is the type of thing you say to door-to-door salesmen-- do door-to-door salesmen still exist?-- and in fact whispers to his fellow soldiers "I told him we already got one." and they giggle. But Arthur is understandably confused and suspicious. He asks to see the Grail, but the Frenchman refuses.

Now, in past scenes, this is the point at which Arthur would give up and trot away, like he did at the first castle. But this time, he's got the Quest. He threatens to take the castle by force, and is met in response with the glorious French taunting. This is one of the most quotable sections of the movie, with Cleese peeling off one silly insult after another. "I fffffart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." All in Cleese's "outrageous accent", with raspberries and goofy head-patting thrown in for good measure. The knights are more baffled than offended. "Is there someone else we could talk to?" The answer is no. Actually, the answer is a catapulted cow, followed by other livestock and gross things propelled over the battlements. The knights have no choice but to "Run away!" (In a nice bit of character differentiation, Cleese (as Lancelot) stays behind a moment after the others have retreated, hacking the stone walls with his sword. We'll see more of this behavior in a future sequence.)

Soundly defeated, the knights seek refuge behind a small hillock. But they haven't given up. Bedevere the Wise has a plan. And we fade from this scene to a time lapse, leading us to the second scene of this two scene sequence. 

It's later. Cleese silently mans the battlements, licking his chops. He hears strange sounds coming from surrounding forest. Sawing, hammering, clanging, a cat yelp. (Cats are having a rough time in this movie.) In addition to being a movie, this sequence is a master class in reactions, as Cleese pulls every trick in the book to indicate that he hears something strange out there. Finally, the sounds resolve into a squeaky wheel, and we cut away to an impressive wheel rolling over trees and bushes, back to Cleese reacting, cutting between them, until Cleese does an over the top doubletake, and we see... the Trojan Bunny, which rolls up to the castle, its ears flopping and buck teeth sticking out. The French soldiers accept it as a gift and take it in.

Back at the hillock, Arthur asks Bedevere what happens next, and it soon becomes apparent that Bedevere forgot a crucial part of the plan. There was supposed to be somebody in the Trojan Bunny. This resolution makes for a disappointing sequence. The plan wasn't that original to begin with, nor very likely to succeed. But being too incompetent to carry it out makes our heroes seem unworthy. They have dealt with the conflict, in accordance with the rules of narrative, but they have dealt poorly with it, and they spent so much time building it up. The bunny is silly, true, but overall, this sequence ends without living up to its promise. The French catapult the Trojan bunny at them, and it crashes on Neil Innes. Nothing for us to do but cut to the next scene.

We are saved by a Famous Historian who provides the momentum into the next bunch of sequences. The Historian tells us that the French taunting convinced Arthur to adopt a new strategy, wherein the knights would separate and have their own individual adventures. The Famous Historian is awesome-- old and natty, with disheveled hair and a lopsided red bow tie, but with such infectious enthusiasm and stilted hand gestures-- you can't help but love the guy.

Gratuitous Spurting

But the Pythons have a trick up their sleeve. A knight gallops out of nowhere and slices the neck of the Famous Historian with a swing of his sword before galloping off.  A woman, Mrs. Famous Historian? runs out, distraught, looking for help. This nice little bit of anachronism is more unsettling than funny. The blood is copious, and the Famous Historian seemed like an innocent child then the usual pomposity the Pythons usually attack. But this bit will give us the ending of the movie-- we just don't know it yet. It's less a joke than a conceptual bit of juxtaposition.

And now, we're employing the loopholes that the Arthurian tales allow us, getting out of the narrative (sort of) and back to the sketches, but the sketches serve the narrative (sort of).

His liver removed and his bowels unplugged...

First, the Tale of Sir Robin, as titled by Gilliam with a fire-breathing snake-bird for an "R". Palin's portentious voice over repeats what the Famous Historian already told us-- the knights have separated, and we're with Sir Robin, played by Idle, with a chicken on his shield crest. Idle rides through a forest, accompanied by his minstrels, who sing a ballad about his bravery. It's a great song-- did Idle write it, or Palin, or Cleese?-- but its descriptions of what Sir Robin isn't afraid of are so bizarre and graphic, they frighten Idle. They would frighten me, too. My nostrils raped? No thank you!

Neil Innes is back, as the minstrel, doubling as Idle's conscience. When Idle shuts him down, the forest suddenly gets much more frightening. They pass a bunch of signs warning of danger and certain death, a la "The Wizard of Oz". We get a call back to the anarcho-syndicists as they pass Robin going the other way, and we spy three dead knights impaled on a large lance. Something scary is up ahead, and Robin isn't too afraid to show he's afraid. Until, finally-- "Halt!"

Robin faces a gigantic three-headed knight, with (left to right) Jones, Chapman and Palin, all bearded and armored up. They ask Robin who he is and what he wants, and the minstrel keeps trying to answer in song. The minstrel thinks Robin is much braver than he is, so the songs are more bellicose than Robin would like, and he keeps shutting him up. But the damage is done-- the knight(s) want to kill him.

But who says three heads are better than one? The three heads bicker like three ill-tempered queens over nothing in particular, just sniping at each other. "Chop your own head off!" "Yes, do us all a favor." And when they finally come together on a course of action-- Robin is gone. "He's scampered." Cutting to Robin, the minstrels sing, this time about Robin's immense cowardice. "Brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out." Robin insists he didn't. "All lies!" Or as we say now about inconvenient truths, "Fake news!"

While it's tempting to think that this was just another Python sketch mocking gay subculture (and they had a lot of them,) perhaps this was also a depiction of the frustration the lads increasingly felt with collaborative effort? Cleese was already off on his own, and Idle and Palin/Jones were pursuing their own projects. Who can say? Actually, Palin can say. Palin! Answer us! But overall, a nice sketch for Idle, showing off his Vietnam-era cowardice.

The next sketch, introduced by a reprise from the chanting monks, diving this time, in a Gilliamination of "The Tale of Sir Galahad". This bit is nice, very cinematic, and very well-written. It feels like a Palin sketch, and has a simple and powerful hook-- Sir Galahad the Chaste meets his Match. Matches, actually. Matches on his Mattress, to be blunt. Marches to a Mattress to Meat his Matches. Anyway...

We begin in a horrific storm, a veritable Tempest. Thunder and lightning and driving rains assault Palin, as Galahad, as he stumbles through the forbidding forest. Wolves howl in the distance, and all seems lost. But there, in the distance, shines a vision of the Holy Grail just over a castle. Palin straggles to the castle and gains entry, only to find himself surrounded by-- the French!

No, it's Carol Cleveland in a long, white gown, along with other (less) beautiful women, all carrying torches and beguiling expressions. "Welcome to the Castle Anthrax," she smiles. Palin asks about the Grail, and they seem to know nothing about it. But they all seem to want to sleep with him. Cleveland orders two of them (Midget and Crapper) to prepare a bed for Palin. "Thank you!" they say as they leave. "Thank you!"

Now this sounds like great news to me, but it's terrible news for Galahad the Chaste. He wants out of there, to save his vows, but Zoot reprimands him that it would be ungallant to refuse their generosity. She leads him upstairs, complaining about the dull life in Castle Anthrax-- "bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear." There's a nice scene, full of tension, where he allows them to lay him down and examine a wound he has received... but these women can't be trusted. "There's nothing wrong with that!"

Finally, he escapes from the bed, demanding to see the grail-- and he sees more grail than he wanted. He finds himself in the bathing room of the castle, surrounded by beautiful women in sheer white gowns, one of them damp and see through. As he runs out of the room, he finds Zoot again-- or Zoot's twin sister, Dingo, who suddenly remembers that that the castle beacon is grail-shaped--

And then, in a weird, unscripted and completely unnecessary aside (the sketch was gong just fine,)

Cleveland turns to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and asks if the scene should have been cut. "We were so worried when the boys were writing it, but now I'm glad. It's better than some of the previous scenes, I think." Then we cut to characters from the previous scenes-- the three headed knight, who claims that his scene was "better visually," and Dennis the anarcho-syndicist, who claims that "At least ours was committed, and wasn't just a string of pussy jokes." (I missed the pussy jokes, but I assume names like Midget, Crapper, Zoot and Dingo, as well as maybe Anthrax, might have something to do with them. A google search turns up nothing. If I find anything, a future blog post is coming your way!) Then characters from future scenes-- Tim, the Enchanter and the attacking Mob, all scream "Get on with it!" When that doesn't work, God adds his Word-- "Get on with it!"

With a "You're no fun anymore" shrug, Cleveland continues the scene, insisting that, to make up for how naughty Zoot was by lighting the beacon, Palin should give them all a good spanking. "And after the spanking-- the oral sex!" That's apparently the kind of chastity that Galahad can stand. "Perhaps I could stay a bit longer..." But Lancelot shows up and rescues Galahad from the imminent peril, dragging the reluctant-to-leave knight away-- chased, but still chaste.

In my early viewings of the film, the long aside from Carol Cleveland was not in the cut, nor is it mentioned in the Holy Grail script/book, and it is such a misstep as to be one of the few times I prefer the shorter version. But it does raise the issue of the pussy jokes, and that intrigues me-- is Dingo really a word for vagina in London's swinging sixties? As in "A dingo regurgitated my baby!"

Apart from the aside, this is a solid bit-- not hysterical like the Black Knight sequence, but filled with an exquisite tension and conflict. Palin is great, the realization of the whole sequence is wonderful, and it ends with the third profane word in the movie, a second "Shit!" from Carol Cleveland, disgusted, frustrated and petulant. Great change of pace sketch, and unlike anything we've seen from Monty Python before.

We return to the book device, with the gorilla contritely turning the pages, and along with it, Palin's voice over pointing out a slight problem-- we are no closer to the Grail. The film isn't going anywhere. But the book shows us that next on the plate is... Scene 24! A scene wherein King Arthur and Bedevere meets with Gilliam as the Soothsayer, and according to Palin's V.O., "not more than a swallow's flight away... an unladen swallow, obviously..." in a digression that could only have been written by Palin, before the mob cuts in with yet another "Get on with it!' (Jones might have thrown in a reference to how good the acting is in the scene.)

The scene itself is nothing to write a blog about. It's played straight, with the bearded, cataracted, filth-smeared Gilliam cackling to Arthur and Bedevere about where to go to find the Grail. "Seek ye the Bridge of Death..." and then, he and the hut they're in disappear, in a weird Twilight Zone moment. And it is a well-acted scene, with Gilliam playing the inscrutable lunatic while Chapman earnestly tries to get the information from him. The tension is palpable. But before we continue...

We have a couple of threads that the lads are batting about like cats and string. There's the book device, the swallows argument, and "Get on with it!", all woven together into a one minute transitional bit. Though the story's not going anywhere, the lads are creating momentum with the increasing rate of call backs.

Now we get to the Knights who say "Ni" in what I suspect will be the most controversial part of this entire blog-- I don't like, and have never liked, the Knights who say "Ni". I say "No" to "Ni."

Compare this to the 3-Headed Knight shot above

Following the disappearance of the Soothsayer and his hut, Arthur and Bedevere wander through a scary forest, with strange figures creeping beyond the surrounding trees. It's almost exactly like the build up to Sir Robin's encounter with the three headed knight, only without the campy signs and three knights impaled on the lance. We're meant to take this more seriously. But, the sequence resolves the same way as before, with practically the same shot-- Arthur and Bedevere cowering and small on screen left, with a giant knight dominating screen right. This time, it's a very tall and black knight, played by Palin, who keeps screaming "Ni!"

Somehow, this word has a deleterious effect on Arthur and Bedevere, as Palin and his minions keep shouting it. They are the keepers of the sacred words "Ni", "Peng" and "Niiiii-wom." Palin tells us all this, sounding like a cross between a five-year-old Julia Child and a PTA president. Instead of building an impressive character, he went with demented fop, complete with massive facial tics reminiscent of Cleese's French soldier on the battlements, and twisting around inside his helmet so that his nose peeks out of the mouth aperture. He demands of Arthur and Bedevere-- a shrubbery. Orchestral bangs accompany this whole scene. Arthur agrees to get the shrubbery, and, well, that's pretty much it, for now. This is the first of this three scene sequence.

This is one of the most quoted bits in the whole movie, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. It is silly, true, but it feels more random than inspired. The idea that there are mystical words that can cause discomfort or death is not particularly capitalized upon, now or later in the story. This whole thing feels like another unnecessary digression. They built it all up so dramatically, they costumed Palin and his minions, and I think that underneath Palin, Cleese may be standing, so as to give Palin some real height, ala the Archaeology Sketch. The lighting, the fog, the music, the extras, and all for this? However, others seem to really enjoy it, so, perhaps it's just me. I think that they could have done better, much better.

Yes... On a Horse... 

Now a quick cut to the dead Famous Historian, the woman standing over his corpse, and two bobbies investigating the death. Someone will pay for this foul deed.

So, how are they doing? Mixed bag, to be frank. They are still hitting with some excellent bits, and some scenes are showing tremendous cinematic promise. Camelot and Sir Galahad's Quest stand out as particularly bold cinematic flourishes, and then there's the Soothsayer scene, played entirely straight. They're running the risk of repeating themselves, as the three-headed knight and the Knights of Ni scenes indicate, but they're managing enough differentiation to keep it from feeling too stale. Plus, they're telling longer stories than just the stand-alone sketches they started out with. Their narratives are getting deeper. Though I wouldn't say that this section was as funny as the prior section, it has become clear that, at last, the lads have embraced the fact that they are making a movie, and they are trying to step it up.

There is some imminent peril here, beyond Galahad's peril of getting screwed to death. One of the trademarks of comedy is not being able to anticipate what will happen next, yet with dramatic structure, one needs to anticipate somewhat. But so far, the lads are managing to keep us guessing and surprised, and when the energy starts to flag, they start calling back prior jokes, creating little Easter eggs to keep us all alert, engaged, and laughing. The Knights who say "Ni" was a misstep, in my opinion, but it was relatively short. And at just over 40 minutes, we're almost halfway through the show.

And next comes one of my favorite, least quoted and ambitious sequences.

Next week; Part Three-- Bad Guys?