It's strange-- there is almost nothing written about this album. And when this blog is written, that will probably still be true.
Monty Python finally did it-- they made a movie, an actual, honest to God movie with a narrative thru-line, as opposed to the loose collection of sketches that is "And Now For Something Completely Different". The movie would become a cult classic, still quoted almost 50 years later, still as edgy and fresh as the day it was first released. We've discussed this.
But in the wake of this movie, they released a "soundtrack" album that is essentially a collection of some of the greatest (and least visual) sketches in the movie. In addition to those audio clips, they created a lot of new material, most of it connected to the medium of film. Some of my favorite Python material ever is on this album. And apart from the existence of the album, I know almost nothing about it. It's not mentioned in the source books I have (yes, I have source books, I'm not ashamed.) So, I'm calling all cars. If you, or anyone you know, knows how this gem came into being, I want to hear from you. Mr. Palin, Mr. Cleese, Mr. Idle? I'll buy you lunch, with an open bar tab. Within reason.
I imagine it was Idle's idea, with total buy in from Palin and Jones. I imagine it was a hoot getting back together and writing some new sketch material. But I only have one little factoid to share, and I'll share it when the time is right. So without further ado-- BUY THE ALBUM!
We begin with treacly 60s elevator music. Graham Chapman promises us, in his most velvety voice, that we have purchased the "Executive Version" of the album, and parades the perks past us; hand crafted jokes, no foul language (heh) and a Swiss-crafted spindle hole. It ends, predictably, with a fart. This is audio comedy.
A portentiously yelled announcement loses steam, and transitions us to news coverage of a screening of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"-- the 3:10 performance, specifically. Despite the over the top coverage, the screening seems to be no big deal-- it's playing in a double feature with another movie, and Palin, the commentator the first, is broadcasting from the bathroom, emptying his bladder before he has to sit through a movie. We all know the feeling. In fact, excuse me a minute...
Palin references a film, "Bring Me the Head of Don Levy". This is based, I believe, on the film "Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia", a 1974 Peckinpah movie ("Salad Days", anyone?) Don Levy was a British experimental filmmaker that I have never heard of. I don't know why Python mentioned him in such a hostile way. There's a story there, but I don't know it. Have we spent enough time on this throwaway non-gag?
Palin gives a brief history of the theater, specifically the theater lavs, "opened by Gary Cooper in 1957". This is mercifully cut short by Eunice and Maureen Zapper, the intermission salesgirls tag team who start making the rounds in the theater, selling ice creams and broken glass. No albatrosses, however-- they must have run out during "Bring Me the Head of Don Levy". Palin spots audience members, most not famous, some Pakistani Prime Ministers, one of them an armed terrorist. Theater shootings were funny in 1975, apparently.
Then, we get some context-- Palin is part of the B Team, covering a random matinee. This film already premiered at London's West End, and Idle (A Team), playing reporter Bob Gandhi, covered that night, replayed now for our benefit. A grisly Peckinpah-esque massacre follows, (audio only; this is a record, remember?) where stuntmen wannabes Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen start crashing their cars, all in the context of a great gala opening. Idle breathlessly narrates; "And who's this coming through the windscreen?... yes, it's lovely star Barbara Streisand!... yes, all the stars are here tonight!" We fade away from the carnage as Shirley Temple is caught under a spinning wheel, and come back to Palin, who hands off the color commentary to Cleese as the "lights are dimmin'." Please note the "Njorl's Saga" references in both Palin's and Idle's commentary. That's just for you!
Cleese has a difficult job-- to narrate a film as it plays. In a great meta moment, we hear the first few mostly silent moments of the movie. Cleese says little about what's happening on the screen; "...And it's going quite well, for the moment..." When King Arthur bellows "Whoa there!", the audience bursts into laughter. Cleese, laughing along, wonders whether the soundtrack will do justice to that outstanding visual joke. Those of us very familiar with the film will be aware that the visual gag is the coconuts, and we see the gag well before Arthur says "Whoa, there!" but come on. Get a life, my wife says to me.
Having proven useless for the visual comedy, he then talks over the next scene, which is dialogue driven. We can't hear it because of his commentary. "The castle is 120 to 130n feet high, 14th century..." It goes to show you, there's never a commentator when you need one, and when you don't, they won't shut up. (Actually, he does shut up when Palin, now an audience member, tells him to do so.)
We get a solid chunk of the movie now. "Bring Out Your Dead" without commentary or interruption, is hilarious even without the visuals. The "Constitutional Peasants" bit, equally entertaining, and the "Witch Burning" is only a little worse for wear without the sight of all the villagers trying to figure out why witches burn. But after the Witch Burning scene, we get a new gem!
Cleese (I think), playing a "professional logician" with a high-pitched nasal twang, explains the logical fallacies that were on bold display in the prior scene. "All wood burns, states Sir Bedevere, therefore he concludes, all that burns is wood. This is, of course, pure bullshit." In the strangest accent, Logician lays out all the (I assume) philosophical terms-- "invalid propositional constructions and syllogistic forms." "Universal affirmatives can only partially be converted." But he throws in "bullshit" as well, a nice paradox. It turns out that his hostility is motivated. His libidinous wife who regularly screws the milkman (a better fate than the Milkman sketch in season 1!) uses "cloth-eared syllogisms". There's a nice moment wherein he displays a bit of inadvertent vulnerability; "My wife does not understand this necessary limitation of conversion of a proposition. Consequently, she does not understand me. (gulp.)" In playing out why these syllogisms don't work, Logician replays for the audience a tempestuous argument, with a bit of logic commentary thrown in, that resolves into a Happy Ending, both literal and figurative. The conclusion, because logicians need conclusions, is that "Sex is more fun than logic." For all those people who make their friends cackle by reciting the parrot monologue, please consider this as a worthy back up. When the conversation turns to "The Holy Grail", trot out this not-as-well-traveled gem, and they will howl!
Next, we get the arrival at Camelot and the accompanying song, not quite as funny as in the movie-- there's no cruelty to cats represented in this song. But still, a solid ear treat. The conversation with God follows. Cleese returns as the film narrator, handing us off to Palin during a visual bit, and Palin gives us the deets on the parking lot at the Classic Silbury Hill theater; It's self-draining! Back to Cleese, who again is told to shut up, and we get the limp horn that announces the arrival at the French Castle. The funny scene plays out very funnily, right up until the French soldier's threat to "taunt you a second time" when the soundtrack slows and stops.
Terry Jones, his first appearance in the new album material, announces that there may be a bomb in the theater. (I'm looking at you, Bhutto!) He urges everyone to leave, but to stop off at the concession stand first. As he describes what's for sale, the bomb explodes, killing everyone-- except Terry jones, who keeps pitching, pushing the broken glass, of which there must be more. An "Executive Version" announcement promises us that this announcement is only available on the Executive Version. And that's Side 1.
So far, it seems to be the Palin/Cleese show, with Idle as guest star. Chapman has only done the Executive Version" bits, and Terry Jones only had the one announcement. And I haven't heard Gilliam at all! Of course, Gilliam is on full display on the album cover, bold yellow letters which spell out the longest album title ever erupting from a orange sun, while Arthur and his Knights float around in a giant grail carried by the Holy Headwaiter, with the banner "Executive Version" pasted on the lower left corner. On the back, it looks like the front was just wrapping paper, and the poorly taped rear exposes a black and white credits card, with a warning that the record can only be played once. The fake reviews that accompany most Holy Grail merchandized product are there; "I laughed until I stopped." etc. Good job, Terry!
Side 2 gives us a callback to the "Executive Version" gag. Palin shouts at the listener "This is Side 2!" Then, the lush cheery music pops up, and Chapman (!) apologizes for the brusque tone, which "was meant for buyers of the cheaper version."
Idle gives us a quick "The Story So Far" bit, with a story we haven't seen. It turns into a dizzying display of weird names, situations and locales that loops back on itself not once but twice. Idle reads it all very well, but what do you expect from the man who cowrote the Travel Agent's sketch? Overall, it's just silliness for it's own sake, but it's fun to try to follow.
Back without preamble to the movie, and now we're at "The Tale of Sir Robin", which means we get that hilarious song! His nostrils raped. His bowels unplugged. This takes us straight into the three-headed Knight. Not one of my favorite bits in the movie, and as it turns out, not one of the Pythons' favorites. Though mostly dialogue, it is not included in this comedy album. Terry Jones steps in and, in a dramatic voice over, recounts how the fight went. (Spoiler Alert; He ran away.) We follow up with the funny "Sir Robin Ran Away" follow up.
The Knights who say "Ni" are next-- again, not my favorite part of the movie, but it is reproduced here in all its mediocrity. The bit in the middle, where they meet Idle's Shrubber, is left out. We cut right back to the delivery of the shrubbery, When they get to the part about chopping down the tree with the herring, the film unspools again. In a moment reminiscent of Terry Jones fighting off a bear while trying to manage the train track switches, the projectionist must fight off some wild beast while getting the reel back on the spool.
And it's the wrong reel. The film plays a domestic dispute between husband Palin and tearful wife Jones. But the film turns out to be just a clip introducing an interview with the director, Carl Frinch. Here we get an actual sketch, co-written by Douglas Adams of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fame. (Here's that factoid I promised you at the top.) The sketch itself is pretty good, in the dark vein that Chapman tended to go. The premise is simple; Chapman (Frinch) claims that his latest movie stars the long late Marilyn Monroe. Palin, the interviewer, keeps pressing him on this obvious lie by asking him questions like "Was decomposition a problem?" Finally, Palin gets an admission that this is a lie, calls Chapman a gay pedophile in very confrontational language, and then asks for contacts. We fade out as Chapman tries to get the interview back on track. "We've got James Dean in it, in a box."
The projectionist now gets the correct movie back on the spindle, and we get the Swamp Castle sequence, without the more visual Lancelot scenes. The scene with Idle and the hiccupping Chapman as the easily confused guards works best in this exclusively audio context. You can feel Palin's frustration better than in the movie, which plays in one long wide shot. Here, though, you feel closer to the action.
Next we get a truncated version of the scene with Tim the Enchanter, again breathlessly narrated by Terry Jones. Truncated, it seems, to make room for a review of the performance. John Cleese, a drama critic, starts to compare his own performance as Tim the Enchanter to other great performances, such as "Burt Lancaster's extraordinary Tinkerbell...at the Globe in '65..." He focuses on Gielgud's Lear, but then grafts the play on to a soccer match, with characters blinded near the penalty box, etc. As Gloucester supporters boo and chant, Gielgud gives the "Every Inch a King" monologue. It's pretty funny, if a bit hard to listen to. Then Ralph Richardson (played again by Cleese) chimes in idiotically. Finally, Zhou Enlai gives a militarized version of the Knife monologue from Macbeth. Richardson takes us back to the movie, just after the Killer Rabbit sequence, to the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch scene.
There weren't many spoofs on church sermons in the TV show, but post "Flying Circus", Michael Palin gives us a couple of classics. This, the litany of the Holy Hand Grenade, is one of them. It wanders, as Palin is wont to do, through unimportant detail of the feast, before finally getting to the instructions, which are simple enough until the Bible gets through with them. As Pythonic afterthoughts go, Palin's take on pompous religiosity is right up there with Fawlty Towers.
Chapman returns with another "Executive Version" gag, promising that the cheaper records are already over, while this version has three more minutes of content! Introduced by Kenneth Clark! I can't tell who voices Kenneth Clark, but he's very funny! It sounds like a post-adolescent, post-lobotomy British Yoda. "This is a very nice record, this is." Chapman has to reassure a skeptical caller that it was indeed Kenneth Clark (an historian and TV host) before throwing us back into the movie.
The last scene they play is the reveal that the Castle Argh is already occupied by the French Taunters, who apparently did indeed already have the grail. We hear the second round of taunts, and as Arthur goes off to regroup, Jones intercedes. "That's about it," he says. "The film ends mainly visually." Ah, Jones-- the master of anti-climax!
That is where the album that I had also ends. But in a newly remixed version, there is some additional content! Did I just blow your mind?!
First, "Arthur's Song," a very silly Idle-esque creation probably written for Spamalot. "Arthur, King Arthur! The legendary King!" What follows is a list of where Arthur wasn't from (Belgium), and what he never did (ride a moped.) And at last, another silly song, the "Run Away" song. "You can always borrow from the dream called tomorrow if you can't win today-- Run Away!" The songs are cute, sure, but nowhere near the level of the Holy Grail-- they're just silly clever songs.
If I may...
I'm not a huge fan of Spamalot et. al. I support Eric Idle entirely, and admire the hell out of him for so thoroughly devouring the corpse of Monty Python, creating a cash cow for the whole team that has sustained them through career droughts and divorces. When we speak of artistic integrity, it's not just about doing what you want when you're young, but making serious bank when you're old! However, in terms of the actual content, it is amazing to me how far below the bar these songs crawl. They lack any inspirational fire, and seem suffused with a need to comfort and delight an audience of the well-heeled tourists and bougies that stroll the West End and Vegas. This was never a trademark of the Monty Python TV show and movies. Intrinsic to the spirit of Monty Python was the urge to challenge and provoke, even confuse. Nothing brings this point home more that listening to this album. Hearing the Lads riff so kinetically on all the tropes that accompany these film rollouts, folded in with the first rate material from the film, makes these later canned songs feel empty and soulless. I really hope the money was good.
In between these two songs, we get excerpts from a documentary interview with Jones and Palin, at the location of Castle Anthrax circa 2000. It's fun to hear them reminisce and joke. The friendship that they clearly had for one another is evident in every inflection, every pause. Jones enthusiastically recounts all the frustrations they ran into, while Palin tosses in frequent self-deprecating remarks about the glamor of shooting a movie. One of their stories involve the indignities that they thrust upon Chapman during shooting, making him walk through the bog that surrounds the castle, complete with armor and all that heavy muslin. Very little guilt, just school-boy delight in their inadvertent prank in their dead friend. It's kind of sweet.
Overall, a nice classic comedy album, featuring some of the best bits from the movie blended with a meditation on the extreme silliness of film fandom and promotion. The real highlight for me is the Professional Logician bit, but even Palin's rhapsodic descriptions of the ultra-ordinary are funny, with the Executive Version gags tying most of it together, and an album ending that strangely echoes the movie ending without repeating it. Well worth a frequent listen.
Next time; "Live!" at New York's City Center!
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