Interesting tidbit: it turns out various scenes of this film (french soldier, witch burner..etc. etc.) were sold in audio only format and there for categorized as albums. So when we were uploading the initial.. oh god, dozen versions, we kept getting copyright blocked. Turns out its because the audio of those scenes are considered 'music', and we had hell of a time cutting and recutting them until we got a version of the video that wasnt blocked.
Yeah, you'll probably run into this a lot with Monty Python movie reactions. All the songs from their movies have been released on albums multiple times over the years.
Well, thank you so much for your must have been exhausting diligence in bringing this too us! It is very much appreciated. Life would be less rich without Simone's reaction to Sir Bedevere releasing a bird attached to a coconut. Oh! And for a better explanation of the Holy Grail, watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Thanks for persevering. Now to watch Monty Python’s Life Of Brian. A more structured movie, but still with the absurd and brilliant humour that the Monty Python team is renowned for.
That's not an interesting tidbit.....that's a frustrating tidbit! What bums me out about that is I don't want you to get sick of a particular movie because you have to keep going back to re-edit it! I hope this doesn't keep you away from "Life Of Brian", but if it does, I understand. :( Thanks for going the extra mile to share this with us, I REALLY enjoyed it! I had to watch every scene twice, just to catch each of your reactions!
Interestingly, we know that Arthur and co are innocent of the historian's murder, because the suspect actually had a horse - the only one in the movie.
Literally, the only reason they used those coconuts in the first place was because there wasn't enough in the budget for horses and the one horse that did show up was a rental used for one scene. XD
“Where do they have this many castles?” Scotland. I grew up there, and I had nine castles, two crannogs, several hill forts and a Palaeolithic chambered cairn within a twenty-minute drive. And despite that, almost all the castles in this film are just lots of different angles of Doune Castle… And the sets are amazing because they’re pretty much just the actual castle interiors dressed to look right.
They only can get one castle to film in. So all castle shots are from the same castle. But the Castle of Camelot was indeed a model. I saw this film about seven times between 1975 - 76. I just loved it since I used to watch their British TV series called *"Monty Python Flying Circus"* on Public TV.
Yes, as I mentioned ("almost all the castles ... are just lots of different angles of Doune Castle"). There are a few exceptions, though; individual scenes were also shot at Bodiam Castle, Castle Stalker and Kidwelly Castle.
"I grew up there, and I had nine castles, two crannogs, several hill forts and a Palaeolithic chambered cairn within a twenty-minute drive." I honestly thought that sentence was going to end after "cairn". Like you were listing off the various properties you owned, as though that was a typical Scottish back yard.
By the by, "this many castles"? There's only one. The Pythons had a hell of a time even getting that one. So they had to get creative and film it from different angles to make it seem like it was more than one place. Also, the coconuts were purely because of the low budget. They could only afford one horse, for the knight that attacked the professor, for one day, so... coconuts. Of course, they realized they couldn't just let that stand, so they wrote the coconuts into the script as an absurdist running joke, and made the whole thing even funnier. They were very, very good at that.😂
Nearly all the castle exterior and interior shots were taken at Doune Castle in Perthshire, Scotland. When I was 10 in 1963 I lived 4 miles away from Doune Castle and visited it often.
The cops were wrapping up the investigation into the historian's murder, but it was also a pun, a literal cop out at the end because there was no good ending lined up 😂
The guy who claims he got turned into a newt by the witch, was actually her husband in real life. They did coconuts for horse sound effects because they couldn't afford horses. Tim the Enchanter was because the actor forgot the name when saying the line and just ran with Tim. Also in Magic the Gathering, creatures who can tap to deal 1 damage to things are called Tims after this movie. And lastly, the Holy Grail is supposed to be the cup that Jesus drank out of during the last supper. There's other theories about the Holy Grail, mostly made popular by The Divinci Code, but I won't spoil that here if you guys are interested in that movie/book.
Y'all need to watch some Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes, which is what spawned this movie. Absurdist comedy at its greatest. One episode is named "Wither Canada?" :)
I read somewhere that they originally planed to have actual horse but couldn't fit it into their budget. On the day of the shoot they decided to use sound effects and camera angles to make it look like he was riding a horse. Well they thought the look of the man with the coco nuts was so funny they put him in the movie and framed all the way back so you could see the fake horse back riding. and thus the whole bit about the swallows was completely made up on the spot
Did you two notice that the cave and knight scene that the one knight said he pooped in his armor. We want the holy grail. Please keep in mind when watching Monty one should not think very much. Thanks....
I think the idea of the movie is that some guys were out filming a ridiculous movie and got a little out of control and... it doesn't make any real sense because the guys that made it are the kings of what is called 'absurdist comedy'! It was so fun watching you guys enjoy it.
For the serious version of this story, watch Excalibur. As I'm sure many others have said, don't try to find logic in this. Just revel in the chaos and insanity.
What is a Grail? Well, according to the description in the Bible, the Holy Grail was the very cup given by Christ at the table of the last supper and which later caught his blood during the crucifixion. ;)
Pretty amazing watching two people who not only haven't seen the movie but also had never even heard of Monty Python, having absolutely NO IDEA what to expect!
Too true. I couldn’t believe that Python was unknown to these two. Well, in the end, then being unaware of this comic greatness made watching them react to Holy Grail so much more entertaining.
I still think Dennis the repressed citizen is my favorite gag in the entire movie. “Strange women in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government” gets me every time I hear it
LOL, I know the French taunting sounds silly as hell, but here's the wonderful thing about it: it's absolutely accurate. Men-at-arms would indeed taunt enemies that were outside, daring them with insults to get them to come closer so they could shoot arrows or drop things on them. (Though not usually animals.) And the insults? ALSO accurate. For instance, in medieval times, grapes were for the rich, so poor folk made wine from whatever was available. In England, elderberries were a favorite. And rodents were well known to be extremely prolific. Thus "your mother was a hamster" = "your mama was a 'ho", and "your father smelt of elderberries" = "your daddy was a drunk". 🤣
@@fubar1217 That's not exactly an insult, people bathed during medieval times. Cleanliness was a virtue. It's later on that people started to believe a sort of pseudoscience (hot water dilates the pores, making diseases free to enter the body) and stopped bathing often.
Personally, my favorite bit is the brick joke with the French Taunter. He tells Arthur that his Lord won't be interested in questing for the Holy Grail because he already has one, and it's very nice. Since the French Taunter is also at the Castle Augh, where the Grail is hidden, it turns out that the French DID have a holy grail, and it is very nice.
When I saw this as a college student in 1975 I was on a date with a beautiful girl who had lost a leg much earlier in her life. When the sword fight between Arthur and the Black Knight was going on and the knight lost a leg I was horrified because of my date. I looked over at her and she was laughing so hard that she was crying!! She loved it! It was a good date. Sherry, wherever you are, I will always remember that moment.
That scene opened so many people to cosplay who had missing limbs. There is an absolutely brilliant quadruple amputee cosplayer who shows up at conventions all the time in his black knight outfit.
I have always loved how they handled the fact they they could not afford the budget for actual horses by using the coconut shells, and then made it a bit on the movie by making fun of it. And then they could not afford to actually film a big battle scene at he end, so the finale was a literal cop out.😂
@@Mr.Ekshin Yes...you are correct...it was the only horse in the whole film, if I recall. And while I tend to agree that Arthur and Co were innocent, they could have actually been using the coconuts to make it APPEAR as if they had no horses at all, while they did actually have one horse to use for nosy historians and other emergencies.
They also used only the one castle for the whole film, the ministry that controls and oversees the keep of the castles and estates would not let them have the right to shoot at more than just one castle So what they did is use models for the different exterior shots of castles, and used different rooms and halls in the one castle to make it look like multiple other castles.
My parents said that when they first watched this when it came out - they hated it. It was strange nonsense and they didn't laugh once. Until they went home and tried to explain what they just watched to a friend. They could not explain a *single scene* without breaking down laughing, and since then it's been one of their favorites.
i already knew them from watching the Flying Circus on TV regularly. So I loved the movie, except the end- that pre-battle build-up was the best I'd seen in a movie and then....
I grew up watching Monty Python on TV and I guess their brand of humour takes a while to get into. We used to act out scenes from the TV show in the school yard the next day.
Back in the day, "English humor" was hated by many/most Americans. They didn't bother to try to understand things that were different. I grew up during the '70s, and we were taught differently than those who grew up in the '50s...we understood silly and ridiculous things.
There is sooo much of this movie that was improvised and it is brilliant. Like the thing about Camelot being a cardboard model was because they didn't have the budget to pay for another castle to film in (all the other scenes in castles were in a single castle) so they just decided to make fun of their small budget.
My favorite tidbit from this movie is that John Cleese actually forgot the name of the Enchanter. So his little hesitancy when he says "There are some who call me... Tim?" is totally real. And everyone else in the scene just went with it.
'Tim' was always his name in the script. Not even 'Tim the Enchanter'. Just 'Tim'. Cleese and Chapman were mainly responsible for this sequence, and Cleese explains in the DVD-commentary that they just thought it funny to have an intimidating character called Tim, more likely making you think of the word 'timid', rather than 'intimidating'. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
John Cleese played Tim the Enchanter and apparently he was supposed to say "there are some who call me..." And then it was supposed to be this long complicated name, but he forgot it in the moment and just ad libbed "Tim". It was so funny that they rolled with it. It's still one of my favorite little parts.
When you do get to Life of Brian, just realize that George Harrison from the Beatles basicly financed the film just because he wanted to see it. Highest price of admission ever for one of the best movies eventually made. The background stories and the fallout from it makes it essential viewing. You will cry laughing.
The ending is actually very Monty Pythonesque in that they would end sketches in the most non-ending sorts of ways. They didn't like "punch lines" so they never had them in their sketches, and they would often end a sketch with someone saying "We should end this because it's just too silly." So for them to end a whole film with a non-ending is just par for the Monty Python course.
On the Netflix doc about them, one of them, I think Eric Idle, said that a sketch was often times only funny as a premise, and not much more, so they would just end a sketch because there was no place to really go with it, outside the concept.
They also ran out of money at the end, which is why they did the cop out which fit right in with their absurdist style. literally adversity breeding creativity.
Also kind of reminiscent of the ending of Blazing Saddles (which was only one year before), where a huge brawl starts spreading to nearby movies' sets.
The impact that the Monty Python crew had on modern comedy cannot be understated. Pythonesque is a real word made to describe comedy that follows their stylings.
The look of open-eyed incredulity on Simone's face for almost all of the film made this reaction worthwhile on its own. Take a trip to Doune Castle in Scotland where the castle scenes (French insults etc) were filmed and you can hire out coconut shells to accompany you on your tour! The "Cop Out" ending, literally, is just perfect.
The girls never got named above the title in these things, but they did a lot of heavy lifting in Python when the guys weren’t in drag. It was nice to see them again in the O2 show. ☺️
(Intermission) Just in case no one has mentioned this already, a little known fact today is that when this first showed in theaters, there were these things called intermissions. The studios didn’t expect American audiences to sit for an hour and a half so they would break the movie about halfway or 2/3 of the way through and have something called an intermission that lasted about five minutes. But this process originally started because the movie theater would have to change reels. During that time a lot of people would get up and get popcorn and go to the bathroom or get a soda. This was how the movie theaters made their money. If you saw the scene that says intermission, it only lasts about 15 seconds. During the intermission when this movie was in theaters, people got up to go to the lobby and then they were caught out of their seats because the intermission was already over. So that was part of the joke and it was a huge joke on the audience itself. But now that movie theaters don’t have an intermission anymore, and watching something on video you can just pause it, this is a joke that really worked in it’s day and it’s kind of sad that such a great prank on the audience that can only be done once will now be forgotten forever.
You seem confused by your own claims, you fist state they did it because some mysterious "they" thought American's didn't have the attention span to sit for an hour and 1/2 even though movies in the 60's and 70's were routinely that long. Then you contradict yourself by saying that it was due to them having to change reels. Which is it?
@@noneya3635 It's neither of the above. Film reels generally contain only about 15 to 20 minutes worth of the movie on each, so reels were routinely switched no matter what the length of the picture. Intermissions were indeed a thing in older, epic films (usually with 2.5+ hour run times), so there mere act of putting an "intermission" into such a short feature was a joke in itself. Said intermissions had nothing to do with American audiences (or audiences of any particular nation), however. Most likely it was just a holdover from the days of live theater, intended to give patrons a chance to stretch their legs, "freshen up", or I guess top off their drinks & snacks at the concession stand.
I wouldn't say it's "little-known"; school plays and other theater productions (and some dance and music performances) have intermissions even today. I suspect the tradition predates film.
We still have intermissions in my country. I love it, I don't have a strong enough bladder to sit through a 2 hour+ movie while having popcorn and soda.
@@AtlasBlizzard I *wish* they still had intermissions! They are a nice break, even if you don't leave your seat, and yeah, with movies going up to 3 hours, it sux having to guess what five (or more) minutes of the movie you (I) will miss. =( I would happily pay to see MP&tHG in a movie theater and watch everyone get fooled by the fake intermission 😅
You have to understand, Monty Python was a British comedy troupe and had a show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. It was, as you can imagine, filled with silly skits but in that very unique British comedic style. The Holy Grail was sort of their first full-length comedy skit. A classic for sure. Everybody grew up quoting this movie for decades!
@@demonicsquid7217 it is a line in the movie the pepple standing in the back of the crowd ibstead of hearing bassed are the peacemaker they hear cheesemakers and they wonder what is special about cheesemakers.
The ending is a literal cop-out, and the coconuts were added since they couldn't afford more than 1 horse (which was used only for the murder of the historian)
The coconuts are one of the most brilliant examples of making a virtue out of a necessity. Also, they were refused permission to film at any publicly owned castles in Scotland, so all the castle scenes were filmed at one privately owned castle, Doone Castle. It is now a tourist attraction, and at the gift shop you can buy coconut shells.
The thing I love the most about this movie is that they keep shouting "Run away!", because 'retreat' is a French word and wasn't introduced to the English language until the Late Middle English period, so it's historically accurate for them to have shouted RUN AWAYYYY
There's a mini documentary on the making of this movie that really shows how brilliantly it was done. The BBC gave them a budget of just $100k, and only 2 castles were used for all the interior scenes because they couldn't get permission from the government to use any others, and privately owned historical manors or castles wouldn't agree either. Both Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam took turns directing it, and it didn't get released in the U.S. for almost 5 years afterwards because no American distributors wanted to take a chance on it. The consensus was that British humor would not be funny to American audiences, another great example of William Goldman's quote about Hollywood: "Nobody knows anything."
Fun fact: if you say to Alexa "I fart in your general direction" she responds with "your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries"!🤣
Idk if it is still, but used to be you could ask Siri "What is the air speed velocity of an unlaiden swallow?" and the response was "African or European?"
Funnily enough an actual historical insult. “Your mother was a hamster” - your mother liked to sleep around a lot “And your father smelled of Elder Berries” - your father was a drunkard
Just think...when they made the movie with the subtitles gag at the beginning they couldn't have anticipated that in the future we would have optional subtitles available for home viewing. And now the subtitles gag is even better! With people fumbling with their remote controls trying to turn them off or set them to the proper language. (It's kind of like the Andy Kaufman TV special where he purposely messed with the vertical hold on the picture so people around the country would get up off of their couches and try to adjust their televisions.) I'm also picturing people in the theater when it first ran, at the end sitting in their seats wondering "Is that it? That can't be it right?" and just sitting there with that music playing waiting for something to happen...
Not many reactors notice the subtitles. They set the movie up rather well, or rather they adjust a viewer’s expectations. Monty Python always had a lot of fun with fourth wall type stuff - the first DVD version of “Holy Grail” starts playing the wrong movie for a few minutes, some random black and white comedy from the ‘60s with no connection to Python at all that nobody remembers. Then Gilliam (I think?) does an ancient-sounding, coughing voice that’s meant to be the projectionist moaning about how he has to deal with switching the film, then the random movie stops and “Holy Grail” begins properly. I’ve often wondered how many people returned their discs as defective?
The witch on the scales is actually Connie Booth, John Cleese's wife at the time - more well known as the co-writer ( with JC ) of the famous and hilarious TV comedy series Fawlty Towers, where she also played the role of the receptionist and hotel maid Polly.
8:55 every shot of a castle is the same castle! Just filmed from different sides! They couldn’t afford more than one horse, they also couldn’t afford to film on more than one location! 🤣 John Cleese actually had a long list of names for the Enchanter but he forgot them and just said “Tim?” The rest of the pythons thought it was way funnier so the character became “Tim the Enchanter”
The funny thing -- these are actual insults. Hamsters are known to uh, have intercourse frequently. Elderberries were used to make elderberry wine - i.e. your father was a drunk. How truly insulting!
One of the guys who co-directed this called Terry Jones (he played Sir Bedivere and the constitutional peasant’s wife) was a medieval scholar apart from Python. He wrote several books and hosted historical TV shows and all sorts of things so the accurate weird insults like these came from him. All the guys had other stuff going on in their lives before they started farting around in comedy at University - Graham Chapman (King Arthur) trained to be a doctor, for example, and in later years John Cleese (the French taunter, Tim the Enchanter, too many others to list) ran an industrial video company that made uniquely silly and very effective training films and stuff. That whole crop of British performers who came out of Oxbridge usually had some other field of study that they worked at. The comedy thing began as something they did in their spare time but several producers at the BBC would routinely harvest the schools for fresh (cheap) talent. Rowan Atkinson had a degree in electrical engineering or something equally brainy but Cleese caught his standup act and put him in a charity show he was running and began what gave us “Blackadder” and “Mr. Bean.” A lot of the great American comedians were the class clowns who goofed around or didn’t fit in but the British guys of this generation were a different breed entirely.
According to Jerry Shilling, one of Elvis Presley's buddies, Elvis absolutely loved this film, especially the "it's only a flesh wound" scene, and would often sit around at Graceland watching a copy while quoting the dialogue. Eric Idle of the Pythons said in an interview that it blew his mind when he heard about that ...
Many people think the story ends the way it does "just because its Monty python", but beyond that tradicional Arthurian legends/troubadour songs about his quest would always end with them not finding the grail at the last minute. Since reaching the grail would be achieving perfection, the stories would always have knights facing all odds to get to it, with miraculous savings and all (like the animator with the heart attack) and right in the last moment, they wouldn't manage.. So MP used a traditional Arthurian troubadour storyline, and then did their - amazing - thing.
Which funny enough may be historically accurate, since who knows if a Frenchman would have known how to pronounce "Knight". Or maybe they just thought it would be silly, and were correct
That rabbit was actually a medieval thing. If you look at pictures of the pages of manuscripts back then, the copyists would amuse themselves by drawing weird animal doing weird things in the margins, and for some reason rabbits predominated there. Rabbits chasing knights, rabbits killing peasants, rabbits dancing and playing instruments. What the hell, the Middle Ages were weird.
This is one of the films that changed my life growing up. Saw it when it first came out and had no idea who Month Python was (definitely go watch some of their TV show sketches. the movie will make a little more sense once you see their style). Loved every second of it. Oh, and 'Ni' is Scottish for 'No". RIP Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, and Neil Innes, who was the troubadour in Sir Robin's group, and an unofficial member of MP. Oh, and 90 minutes is traditionally the standard length for movies, primarily because it allowed theaters to have more showings per day which meant more $$.
The 'ni' comes from a teacher who Michael Palin had at school who used to say 'ni' every time he had to bend his knees to reach books from the bottom shelf in the library.
"I think it's all three... knights on a journey, breaking the fourth wall, and people in costume play-acting..." Yes. All of the above. One of the things that made the Monty Python show so wild was that if they couldn't come up with a good ending for a skit, they would just cut over to a completely different skit, hence the insane end of this movie. Seek out some of their more famous skits... Dead Parrot, Nudge-Nudge, Minister of Silly Walks, Argument Clinic, Mr. Smokestoomuch, etc. You won't be sorry!
9:37 butt trumpets were actually a thing in ancient art. Usually painted in the borders of works of art, or drawn in the margins of documents and illustrations, they were meant as a not so subtle statement on those referred to in the main work.
George-“I’m not going to try to make sense of this.” [achievement unlocked] Simone-“Are there any other movies where they actually find the Grail? [and so began The Quest for the Movie Detailing (finally)the Retrieval of the Holy Grail]
It's good to see people genuinely laughing at the absurbity of the humour in Holy Grail, just as the Pythons wanted it. My personal favourite bit is where they're being chased by the animated monster and the animator has a fatal heart attack - cut to Terry Gilliam comically making faces and falling back off his chair...
Much of this is filmed at Doune Castle in Scotland, I had the pleasure of re-enacting several scenes, unfortunately we couldn't get on the wall to taunt each other. One funny bit was when I went to the spot the knights were being taunted to get a picture someone came up to me to watch for flying cows. The final castle is about an hour away.
Fun fact: during sieges, dead cows and animals were catapulted over the walls into the fortifications as an early form of biological and psychological warfare.
Yep the gang were only given the right by the government to shoot at Doune Castle alone the ministry in charge of the keep and governance of the castles and estates etc. were worried the monty python boys would not treat their historical castles and properties with respect as such, the crew used models for outer shots of the other castles, and would use the interior halls and rooms of Doune to represent the halls and rooms of those other castles. And yes the ramparts even then were in disrepair and it was dangerous John cleese (the frenchmen) was actually quite pissed off every time they made him go up there, cause it was so dangerous and the stairs were falling apart. So he would force them to shoot all of his scenes first, so he cold sod off the wall as soon as he was done.
There was only Doune Castle. It was the only place that would let them shoot on site. The last one they could only film from a distance. When they get up close, they're back at Doune. They got very creative about filming it from different angles and spots so it looked like different places.
@@seraiharper5553 I saw where someone bought Castle Stalker & occasionally does tours. We had a great time recreating scenes, like the Camelot song, "What, the curtains", we even tried to recreate Launcelot storming the castle. Great castle, interesting commentary from the Monty Python boys, lots of fun.
The interesting thing about the ending is, while a satire, also happened for Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail in terms of that he never got the Grail in the end. I think it was quite brilliant in that sense.
All the members of Monty Python are highly intelligent and well-educated. They did a gret deal of research to get the details correct in Holy Grail and Life of Brian.
@@roonilwazlib9877 There is no *actual* King Arthur and Holy grail quest to be researched. It's all legend, and the existence and/or identity of Arthur cannot be definitively confirmed.
The Holy Grail has some roots in Christian teaching (being claimed to be the cup that held Christ’s blood during the Last Supper), but otherwise it is purely an Arthurian addition. It’s originally from the story of The Fischer King, where a grail is presented before the impotent king to cure him. Then it is retconned into being THE grail of Christ and the knights/Arthur have to find it.
Just randomly found your reaction, I loved it! I've never seen people react to this movie so blind before, it was wonderful seeing people who knew absolutely nothing about Python going in
'Is it for kids?' and the Castle Anthrax scene just pops into my mind...'We are but three score virgins between the ages of...' Sure kids can face the Peril, just like the rest of us.
Glad you enjoyed that wonderfully crazy movie! Did you know that Monty Python's Flying Circus was a comedy TV series starring an ensemble of six (five British and one American, who was also the animator) comedians, who are better known, collectively, as Monty Python? After several seasons of the TV series were finished, the guys decided to make a movie, based around the myths of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. This is a very established myth story from the Medieval period of Western Europe (Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" from 1485 is one example). Their next movie, Life of Brian, makes fun of a better known set of myths... Python humour builds on the foundation of British wit and humour evident in The Goon Show (Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe), Beyond The Fringe (Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore), Marty Feldman, etc. And since the Pythons, the next generation included Not The Nine O'Clock News and others. Btw, a member of Beyond the Fringe (Peter Cook) and a member of Not The Nine O'Clock News (Mel Smith) were both part of the cast in The Princess Bride. So there is a (rather tenuous) connection. Don't want to give any spoilers, but if you want to see another movie built around a similar myth, try Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Indy III in the franchise). Plus, there are plenty of other books, movies, and TV shows about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
"Did they ever find the Holy Grail?" Yes, but in another movie: "Excalibur" (1981) directed by John Boorman. It's the serious version of the King Arthur story.
There was a movie theater in Philly which often ran double features which were thematically linked. One pairing was Borman’s Excalibur and Python’s Holy Grail. One to build up the legend, the other to tear it down.
Two interesting facts: All of the castles in the movie (except one) were actually shot at the same castle - Doune Castle - in Scotland. The only exception is the final castle in the movie is Castle Stalker, which is basically someone's house. Also in the scene with Tim the Enchanter, he was supposed to have a really long and complicated name, but John Cleese forgot the line and ad-libbed "Tim?" as a joke, which stuck.
25:25 Their second movie is, in a sense, more of a prequel :). (well worth sticking 'Life of Brian' on your list - even funnier than 'Holy Grail' IMO. And certainly more banned)
"Excalibur" from the late 70s is also about Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail, and about a lot more, too. "Excalibur" started the entire Swords & Sandals trend in movies that prevailed in the 1980s. It was also the first movie for four of today's biggest male acting stars: Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Ciaran Hinds. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was the very first movie about the Dark Ages to show dirt and excrement on people's clothes and bodies. and so changed forever the look of movies. Monty Python's animator was one of this movie's directors: Terry Gilliam, the only U.S. member of the troupe. He went on to be one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of the Sound Era of Cinema. Gilliam's films include "Brazil", "Time Bandits", "Twelve Monkeys" and "The Fisher King". "Holy Grail" is the cup from which Jesus and his twelve disciples drank, at the Last Supper. Since the wine that they drank is supposed to represent the blood of the Christ, in French/Latin the cup is called the Sangreal, "sang" being French for blood. The third "Indiana Jones" movie is about indy's searcg for the grail. Thus endeth the lesson.
I wasn't aware of the "swords and sandals" trend to which you refer, and I haven't seen a ton of 80's movies. The only ones I could think of that would fit that description are Conan the Barbarian and Willow. And maybe Highlander, which I don't think I've seen for about 30 years. What else is there?
Fun fact: Excalibur was the film John Boorman went off and did in a huff after Tolkien told him NO WAY NO HOW HELL NO when Boorman approached him with his ideas for adapting The Lord of the Rings. If you want to know what he proposed, you just have to look at Excalibur, because most of it was shifted over to that film. I don't blame the Professor for freaking out.
Excalibur is great but hardly a 'swords and sandals' movie. Excalibur is set in medieval Britain, where swords and sandals movies are mostly Greco-Roman and about the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Etruscans.
They were allowed to film in just one Scottish castle and so had to be inventive with props and film angles - which is just proof that what matters are good ideas and a clever script.
Monty Python were (one of?) the first postmodern comedians. Quite a few movie tropes were also invented by them - or at least made popular. So much, that they now appear mundane and "ah, well, seen it before..."
When I saw this for the 1st time at the theater I remember sitting listening to that the music at the end and waiting for something else to happen. My friends and I sat there for 15 minutes listening to the same 15 seconds of music until the manager came down and told us it really was over. One last joke from the Python Circus.
Love this movie! Interesting factoid : A 2021 tweet by Eric Idle revealed that the film was financed by eight investors: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Holy Grail's co-producer Michael White, Heartaches (a cricket team founded by lyricist Tim Rice), and three record companies including Charisma Records, the record label that released.
Monty Python was a comedy troupe. They had a television show and then a handful of movies. Your reaction was exactly as it should be. This came out when I was a sophomore in high school. This movie was so quotable with a quote for every occasion. It was a great time to be a teenager!
1. What about the moose? 2. In the credits they talk about the moose. 3. Perfect Monty Python where you can just get sucked into something where you don't have to think about anything and just let yourself go. 4. "What ya gonna do? Bleed on me." 🤣 5. That said, The ending sucked. It was a cop out. 6. The only horse in the film is ridden by the guy that killed the historian. Two suggestions for silly: "Airplane" and "Blazing Saddles"
Well....... I like that you paid attention William Jones. And yes, wonderful silly on number 6 my friend. These "reviewers" were just not up to par. I guess I got old. But they were just sad.
"What is The Grail?" - is actually a very good question. No one really knows the origin. Is it Celtic, pre-Christian? Or is it High-Medieval Christian? The Grail probably began as a mystical cup or bowl, pagan in origin, and eventually became the very cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Until the various fighting scholars sort it out, just call it a magic cup, I guess
Merovingian (early French) script didn't have space breaks between words because the Franks learned how to write from Latin. So talking about royal lineage "sang real" (royal blood) looked the same as "san greal" (holy cup). Writings claiming that descendants of Jesus existed in their time were misinterpreted by later monks as referring to a physical object.
Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea, who buried Jesus, captured Jesus’ blood in the Grail while on the cross. Or maybe I just got that from an Indiana Jones movie. :) There’s a whole lot of legend concerning The Holy Grail, much involving King Arthur.
Honestly wish I could hit the like button more than once. Watching people discovering this with no clue what they're in for helps me recapture the experience of seeing this for the first time many years ago
God it amazes me how much this movie still resonates today. I still remember watching this for the first time with my friends at IU around 87. I had seen the tv show in the 70s, but had never seen their movies. It hasn’t aged a day in my mind and has never left my top 5 comedy’s of all time. But what would you expect from Oxford educated comedians.
Interesting tidbit: it turns out various scenes of this film (french soldier, witch burner..etc. etc.) were sold in audio only format and there for categorized as albums. So when we were uploading the initial.. oh god, dozen versions, we kept getting copyright blocked.
Turns out its because the audio of those scenes are considered 'music', and we had hell of a time cutting and recutting them until we got a version of the video that wasnt blocked.
Yeah, you'll probably run into this a lot with Monty Python movie reactions. All the songs from their movies have been released on albums multiple times over the years.
Explanation of the plot?
= it's Monty python ☺
Well, thank you so much for your must have been exhausting diligence in bringing this too us! It is very much appreciated. Life would be less rich without Simone's reaction to Sir Bedevere releasing a bird attached to a coconut. Oh! And for a better explanation of the Holy Grail, watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Thanks for persevering.
Now to watch Monty Python’s Life Of Brian. A more structured movie, but still with the absurd and brilliant humour that the Monty Python team is renowned for.
That's not an interesting tidbit.....that's a frustrating tidbit! What bums me out about that is I don't want you to get sick of a particular movie because you have to keep going back to re-edit it! I hope this doesn't keep you away from "Life Of Brian", but if it does, I understand. :( Thanks for going the extra mile to share this with us, I REALLY enjoyed it! I had to watch every scene twice, just to catch each of your reactions!
Interestingly, we know that Arthur and co are innocent of the historian's murder, because the suspect actually had a horse - the only one in the movie.
Damn... 47 years after the fact, and I never realized that until you said (typed) it!
@@spinynorman887 Damb dude me too !:)
It was actually one of the knights from the singing in Camelot scene lol Guess he was mad they decided Camelot was too silly a place 😂
Literally, the only reason they used those coconuts in the first place was because there wasn't enough in the budget for horses and the one horse that did show up was a rental used for one scene. XD
🤯
“Where do they have this many castles?”
Scotland. I grew up there, and I had nine castles, two crannogs, several hill forts and a Palaeolithic chambered cairn within a twenty-minute drive. And despite that, almost all the castles in this film are just lots of different angles of Doune Castle…
And the sets are amazing because they’re pretty much just the actual castle interiors dressed to look right.
They only can get one castle to film in. So all castle shots are from the same castle. But the Castle of Camelot was indeed a model.
I saw this film about seven times between 1975 - 76. I just loved it since I used to watch their British TV series called *"Monty Python Flying Circus"* on Public TV.
Yes, as I mentioned ("almost all the castles ... are just lots of different angles of Doune Castle"). There are a few exceptions, though; individual scenes were also shot at Bodiam Castle, Castle Stalker and Kidwelly Castle.
"I grew up there, and I had nine castles, two crannogs, several hill forts and a Palaeolithic chambered cairn within a twenty-minute drive."
I honestly thought that sentence was going to end after "cairn". Like you were listing off the various properties you owned, as though that was a typical Scottish back yard.
@@MWSin1 To be fair, there are still people who do have all sorts of things on their land.
Doune was the only castle they could get filming rights to so they made the most of it.
To answer your question, "Are there any other movies where they find The Holy Grail?" Yes, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.
And Excalibur.
@@LeChaunce And 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'The Fisher King' I guess.
I've only watched two of their reactions so far, this and Raiders. They need to continue watching the Indiana Jones movies.
Excalibur (1981).
...only the penitent man will pass ...penitent man ...penitent
By the by, "this many castles"? There's only one. The Pythons had a hell of a time even getting that one. So they had to get creative and film it from different angles to make it seem like it was more than one place. Also, the coconuts were purely because of the low budget. They could only afford one horse, for the knight that attacked the professor, for one day, so... coconuts. Of course, they realized they couldn't just let that stand, so they wrote the coconuts into the script as an absurdist running joke, and made the whole thing even funnier. They were very, very good at that.😂
Nearly all the castle exterior and interior shots were taken at Doune Castle in Perthshire, Scotland.
When I was 10 in 1963 I lived 4 miles away from Doune Castle and visited it often.
Remember the closing credits were at the start. Lol.
The cops were wrapping up the investigation into the historian's murder, but it was also a pun, a literal cop out at the end because there was no good ending lined up 😂
the Holy Grail is mostly famous from the King Arthur legends; it was the most famous of his quests.
The guy who claims he got turned into a newt by the witch, was actually her husband in real life.
They did coconuts for horse sound effects because they couldn't afford horses.
Tim the Enchanter was because the actor forgot the name when saying the line and just ran with Tim.
Also in Magic the Gathering, creatures who can tap to deal 1 damage to things are called Tims after this movie.
And lastly, the Holy Grail is supposed to be the cup that Jesus drank out of during the last supper. There's other theories about the Holy Grail, mostly made popular by The Divinci Code, but I won't spoil that here if you guys are interested in that movie/book.
@@essexginge9167 oh whoops!!! Lol thanks for the correction.
If you have the DVD you get the documentary on the making of it, answers a few of of your questions
Y'all need to watch some Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes, which is what spawned this movie. Absurdist comedy at its greatest. One episode is named "Wither Canada?" :)
The ending was a literal "cop out"
In authorian legend sir galahad does find the Holy grail and then imidiatly dies and assends
I read somewhere that they originally planed to have actual horse but couldn't fit it into their budget. On the day of the shoot they decided to use sound effects and camera angles to make it look like he was riding a horse. Well they thought the look of the man with the coco nuts was so funny they put him in the movie and framed all the way back so you could see the fake horse back riding. and thus the whole bit about the swallows was completely made up on the spot
It was bonkers in 1975 and it's bonkers now!
Everyone gets arrested. Total cop out ending.
Did you two notice that the cave and knight scene that the one knight said he pooped in his armor. We want the holy grail. Please keep in mind when watching Monty one should not think very much. Thanks....
I think the idea of the movie is that some guys were out filming a ridiculous movie and got a little out of control and... it doesn't make any real sense because the guys that made it are the kings of what is called 'absurdist comedy'! It was so fun watching you guys enjoy it.
Fourth Wall, these guys broke through the Seventh Wall!!!! Watch Fawlty Towers on TV.
In my opinion the best King Arthur movie is Excalibur in 1981.
For the serious version of this story, watch Excalibur.
As I'm sure many others have said, don't try to find logic in this. Just revel in the chaos and insanity.
You need to watch the life of Brian. Bigger budget. Brilliant film
What is a Grail? Well, according to the description in the Bible, the Holy Grail was the very cup given by Christ at the table of the last supper and which later caught his blood during the crucifixion. ;)
Pretty amazing watching two people who not only haven't seen the movie but also had never even heard of Monty Python, having absolutely NO IDEA what to expect!
Let alone never having heard of the Holy Grail!
Too true. I couldn’t believe that Python was unknown to these two. Well, in the end, then being unaware of this comic greatness made watching them react to Holy Grail so much more entertaining.
Kids man.
This is the gold of reaction watching. When you see someone that has no idea what the movie is about and you get a genuine reaction.
@@MrAdamloring1985 checking for grey hair now.....also British humor falls off on many
I still think Dennis the repressed citizen is my favorite gag in the entire movie. “Strange women in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government” gets me every time I hear it
;)
"just because some watery tart threw a sword at you."
A moistened bint...
@@SmolFenFen my favorite quote in the movie
@@johnrodgers8457 "If some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me..."
LOL, I know the French taunting sounds silly as hell, but here's the wonderful thing about it: it's absolutely accurate. Men-at-arms would indeed taunt enemies that were outside, daring them with insults to get them to come closer so they could shoot arrows or drop things on them. (Though not usually animals.) And the insults? ALSO accurate. For instance, in medieval times, grapes were for the rich, so poor folk made wine from whatever was available. In England, elderberries were a favorite. And rodents were well known to be extremely prolific. Thus "your mother was a hamster" = "your mama was a 'ho", and "your father smelt of elderberries" = "your daddy was a drunk". 🤣
I especially like "go boil your bottoms".....ie: taking a bath.
Saying someone smelled of elderberries was slang for someone who smelled of alcohol or was a drunk. cheers
@@keysersoze4658 Yeah, that's what I said.
@@fubar1217 That's not exactly an insult, people bathed during medieval times. Cleanliness was a virtue. It's later on that people started to believe a sort of pseudoscience (hot water dilates the pores, making diseases free to enter the body) and stopped bathing often.
Thanks for the historical insight, I never knew what that meant I just thought it was a hilarious random insult when I first saw this as a kid.
Personally, my favorite bit is the brick joke with the French Taunter. He tells Arthur that his Lord won't be interested in questing for the Holy Grail because he already has one, and it's very nice. Since the French Taunter is also at the Castle Augh, where the Grail is hidden, it turns out that the French DID have a holy grail, and it is very nice.
I told him we already got one
What is he doing in England?
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Mind your own business!
@@Mr.Dobalina_Mr.BobDobalina What a strange person!
When I saw this as a college student in 1975 I was on a date with a beautiful girl who had lost a leg much earlier in her life. When the sword fight between Arthur and the Black Knight was going on and the knight lost a leg I was horrified because of my date. I looked over at her and she was laughing so hard that she was crying!! She loved it! It was a good date.
Sherry, wherever you are, I will always remember that moment.
That scene opened so many people to cosplay who had missing limbs. There is an absolutely brilliant quadruple amputee cosplayer who shows up at conventions all the time in his black knight outfit.
What a fantastic, beautiful memory, Farbar! Thank you so much for sharing it with us! So cool. Awww, I love that!
Is it bad I was thinking her name was going to be Eileen? :-p
@@vincentlyon7448 That's brilliant!!
She probably knew that it was just a fleshwound.
I have always loved how they handled the fact they they could not afford the budget for actual horses by using the coconut shells, and then made it a bit on the movie by making fun of it. And then they could not afford to actually film a big battle scene at he end, so the finale was a literal cop out.😂
It was pure genius to have the guard in the opening get completely hung up on that
@@Mr.Ekshin Yes...you are correct...it was the only horse in the whole film, if I recall. And while I tend to agree that Arthur and Co were innocent, they could have actually been using the coconuts to make it APPEAR as if they had no horses at all, while they did actually have one horse to use for nosy historians and other emergencies.
they couldn't afford a lot and used absurdist comedy to remove them
And the coconuts became one of the most famous gags from the movie
They also used only the one castle for the whole film,
the ministry that controls and oversees the keep of the castles and estates would not let them have the right to shoot at more than just one castle
So what they did is use models for the different exterior shots of castles, and used different rooms and halls in the one castle to make it look like multiple other castles.
That's my ringtone: Arrow slicing the air, FWHOOMP! "Message for you sir."
How many squires per month in your plan?
"I don't know what to say about this movie" is the single most accurate thing anyone has ever said about this movie.
My parents said that when they first watched this when it came out - they hated it. It was strange nonsense and they didn't laugh once. Until they went home and tried to explain what they just watched to a friend. They could not explain a *single scene* without breaking down laughing, and since then it's been one of their favorites.
That's hilarious.
i already knew them from watching the Flying Circus on TV regularly. So I loved the movie, except the end- that pre-battle build-up was the best I'd seen in a movie and then....
I grew up watching Monty Python on TV and I guess their brand of humour takes a while to get into. We used to act out scenes from the TV show in the school yard the next day.
Back in the day, "English humor" was hated by many/most Americans. They didn't bother to try to understand things that were different. I grew up during the '70s, and we were taught differently than those who grew up in the '50s...we understood silly and ridiculous things.
Their initial response was the same as my father's when I insisted he go see it. But, he never did get to the laughing part.
_"He must be a King."_
_"How'd you know?"_
_"He hasn't got shit all over him."_
Eric Idle ad-libbed that, out of nowhere. Genius.
"Tim the enchanter" was ad-libbed too. John Cleese was supposed to say a complicated name but couldnt remember it, so he said Tim^^
@@Wellch that’s okay, you can’t spell it either. 😝
@@Wellch I suspect only a few people in the history of this species could have. Did you have a point, apart from to make up a completely new word?
@@thomasnieswandt8805 I love how he makes it into a question out of confusion and it just ends up weirder and funnier.
There is sooo much of this movie that was improvised and it is brilliant. Like the thing about Camelot being a cardboard model was because they didn't have the budget to pay for another castle to film in (all the other scenes in castles were in a single castle) so they just decided to make fun of their small budget.
My favorite tidbit from this movie is that John Cleese actually forgot the name of the Enchanter. So his little hesitancy when he says "There are some who call me... Tim?" is totally real. And everyone else in the scene just went with it.
John, who is a shrubbier, they call him John the shrubbier.
In an interview John Cleese claims he didn’t forget his name. The pause was for comedic effect.
And the rest is magic the gathering lore
'Tim' was always his name in the script. Not even 'Tim the Enchanter'. Just 'Tim'. Cleese and Chapman were mainly responsible for this sequence, and Cleese explains in the DVD-commentary that they just thought it funny to have an intimidating character called Tim, more likely making you think of the word 'timid', rather than 'intimidating'.
I'm paraphrasing, of course.
@@bbaff8622 Roger the shrubber
John Cleese played Tim the Enchanter and apparently he was supposed to say "there are some who call me..." And then it was supposed to be this long complicated name, but he forgot it in the moment and just ad libbed "Tim". It was so funny that they rolled with it. It's still one of my favorite little parts.
I think that was debunked by one of the actors. Tim was in the original script.
@@Othman1992on okay, great to know. Thanks!
@@Othman1992on John Cleese debunked it actually. He said there was no improvisation in the finished product at all.
I think my favorite thing about "Tim" is how he says it sort of questioningly. Like "There are some who call me... Tim..?"
What an eccentric performance!
"Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government" has to be my alltime favorite Monty Python quote
It's pretty much the basis for the Royal Family though.
You can't expect to wield Supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!
When you do get to Life of Brian, just realize that George Harrison from the Beatles basicly financed the film just because he wanted to see it. Highest price of admission ever for one of the best movies eventually made. The background stories and the fallout from it makes it essential viewing. You will cry laughing.
After seeing it, look for the John Clees Michael Palin debate on the BBC with a member of parliament concerning the film.
George is also in the movie.
George Harrison also financed
the 1981 movie Time Bandits
@@James_Loveless Time Bandits is one of my favourite movies of all time.
@@ronweber1402 Best Time travelling dwarf movie ever
The ending is actually very Monty Pythonesque in that they would end sketches in the most non-ending sorts of ways. They didn't like "punch lines" so they never had them in their sketches, and they would often end a sketch with someone saying "We should end this because it's just too silly." So for them to end a whole film with a non-ending is just par for the Monty Python course.
On the Netflix doc about them, one of them, I think Eric Idle, said that a sketch was often times only funny as a premise, and not much more, so they would just end a sketch because there was no place to really go with it, outside the concept.
They also ran out of money at the end, which is why they did the cop out
which fit right in with their absurdist style.
literally adversity breeding creativity.
I liked the one where the armored knight would slap someone over the head with a rubber chicken.
End it with " you want to come back to my place "
Also kind of reminiscent of the ending of Blazing Saddles (which was only one year before), where a huge brawl starts spreading to nearby movies' sets.
The ending is a literal “cop out”.
Also kinda fun - if you watch closely, you'll see people in the charging army wearing bluejeans.
Thank you 4 saying it.
Like the whole Jesus crucifixion thing,total cop out.
@@Trebor74 - This ending was LITERALLY a "cop out". That's the joke the Pythons said was the film's punch line.
I also love that amongst all the swords and spears and heavy artillery, that cop grabs a shield and says "That's an offensive weapon!"
The impact that the Monty Python crew had on modern comedy cannot be understated. Pythonesque is a real word made to describe comedy that follows their stylings.
The look of open-eyed incredulity on Simone's face for almost all of the film made this reaction worthwhile on its own. Take a trip to Doune Castle in Scotland where the castle scenes (French insults etc) were filmed and you can hire out coconut shells to accompany you on your tour! The "Cop Out" ending, literally, is just perfect.
Carol Cleveland's frustrated "Oh, Shit!" still cracks me up everytime.
The girls never got named above the title in these things, but they did a lot of heavy lifting in Python when the guys weren’t in drag. It was nice to see them again in the O2 show. ☺️
_"Ooh, I am enjoying this scene!"_
_"Get on with it!"_
There’s only 150 of them; they haven’t a chance!
It's a fair cop
(Intermission) Just in case no one has mentioned this already, a little known fact today is that when this first showed in theaters, there were these things called intermissions. The studios didn’t expect American audiences to sit for an hour and a half so they would break the movie about halfway or 2/3 of the way through and have something called an intermission that lasted about five minutes. But this process originally started because the movie theater would have to change reels. During that time a lot of people would get up and get popcorn and go to the bathroom or get a soda. This was how the movie theaters made their money. If you saw the scene that says intermission, it only lasts about 15 seconds. During the intermission when this movie was in theaters, people got up to go to the lobby and then they were caught out of their seats because the intermission was already over. So that was part of the joke and it was a huge joke on the audience itself. But now that movie theaters don’t have an intermission anymore, and watching something on video you can just pause it, this is a joke that really worked in it’s day and it’s kind of sad that such a great prank on the audience that can only be done once will now be forgotten forever.
You seem confused by your own claims, you fist state they did it because some mysterious "they" thought American's didn't have the attention span to sit for an hour and 1/2 even though movies in the 60's and 70's were routinely that long. Then you contradict yourself by saying that it was due to them having to change reels. Which is it?
@@noneya3635 It's neither of the above. Film reels generally contain only about 15 to 20 minutes worth of the movie on each, so reels were routinely switched no matter what the length of the picture. Intermissions were indeed a thing in older, epic films (usually with 2.5+ hour run times), so there mere act of putting an "intermission" into such a short feature was a joke in itself. Said intermissions had nothing to do with American audiences (or audiences of any particular nation), however. Most likely it was just a holdover from the days of live theater, intended to give patrons a chance to stretch their legs, "freshen up", or I guess top off their drinks & snacks at the concession stand.
I wouldn't say it's "little-known"; school plays and other theater productions (and some dance and music performances) have intermissions even today. I suspect the tradition predates film.
We still have intermissions in my country. I love it, I don't have a strong enough bladder to sit through a 2 hour+ movie while having popcorn and soda.
@@AtlasBlizzard I *wish* they still had intermissions! They are a nice break, even if you don't leave your seat, and yeah, with movies going up to 3 hours, it sux having to guess what five (or more) minutes of the movie you (I) will miss. =(
I would happily pay to see MP&tHG in a movie theater and watch everyone get fooled by the fake intermission
😅
You have to understand, Monty Python was a British comedy troupe and had a show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. It was, as you can imagine, filled with silly skits but in that very unique British comedic style. The Holy Grail was sort of their first full-length comedy skit. A classic for sure. Everybody grew up quoting this movie for decades!
ok so you definitely have to do Monty Python: Life of Brian. They had a bigger budget and more coherent story. It's my favorite.
And the ending has the best song in the franchise.
Bless the cheesemakers. Loved that movie
@@aurelian7831 "Blessed are the cheese makers."
@@demonicsquid7217 it is a line in the movie the pepple standing in the back of the crowd ibstead of hearing bassed are the peacemaker they hear cheesemakers and they wonder what is special about cheesemakers.
@@aurelian7831 He corrected your misquote, pretty sure he knows that!
The ending is a literal cop-out, and the coconuts were added since they couldn't afford more than 1 horse (which was used only for the murder of the historian)
The coconuts are one of the most brilliant examples of making a virtue out of a necessity. Also, they were refused permission to film at any publicly owned castles in Scotland, so all the castle scenes were filmed at one privately owned castle, Doone Castle. It is now a tourist attraction, and at the gift shop you can buy coconut shells.
The ending is not a cop-out - it's because they were on an incredibly low budget.
@@DavePigott2000 It is a cop out dude, I don't mean that as a criticism. The cops are literally the ones ending the movie hahaha
@@grawxxor2820 It sucks as an ending. The real climax is the death of the bridge-keeper, which pays off for the whole original discussion.
@@OroborusFMA It doesn't suck just because you don't get it
The thing I love the most about this movie is that they keep shouting "Run away!", because 'retreat' is a French word and wasn't introduced to the English language until the Late Middle English period, so it's historically accurate for them to have shouted RUN AWAYYYY
When a co worker clocks out I tell them to ‘run away’. The younger generation just give a strange look but those in the know chuckle ‘run awayyy’
Finding out Cleese was a Latin teacher explains that scene in Life of Brian.
LOL, Tolkien would have approved.
Much of this is parody of the concept of knightly chivalry
My favourite part is the minstrel singing the Brave Sir Robin song, it never fails to make me laugh, the lyrics are hilarious. “He bravely ran away…”
There's a mini documentary on the making of this movie that really shows how brilliantly it was done. The BBC gave them a budget of just $100k, and only 2 castles were used for all the interior scenes because they couldn't get permission from the government to use any others, and privately owned historical manors or castles wouldn't agree either. Both Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam took turns directing it, and it didn't get released in the U.S. for almost 5 years afterwards because no American distributors wanted to take a chance on it. The consensus was that British humor would not be funny to American audiences, another great example of William Goldman's quote about Hollywood: "Nobody knows anything."
(like, 'what is a grail'…)
Fun fact: if you say to Alexa "I fart in your general direction" she responds with "your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries"!🤣
Idk if it is still, but used to be you could ask Siri "What is the air speed velocity of an unlaiden swallow?" and the response was "African or European?"
@@MetisRose95 My says "that depends if it is an African or European swallow"
It's true! She still says it!
Funnily enough an actual historical insult.
“Your mother was a hamster” - your mother liked to sleep around a lot
“And your father smelled of Elder Berries” - your father was a drunkard
@@joyfulzero853 mine said “The last person that asked me that ended up in a crevasse.” 🤣🤣🤣
Just think...when they made the movie with the subtitles gag at the beginning they couldn't have anticipated that in the future we would have optional subtitles available for home viewing. And now the subtitles gag is even better! With people fumbling with their remote controls trying to turn them off or set them to the proper language.
(It's kind of like the Andy Kaufman TV special where he purposely messed with the vertical hold on the picture so people around the country would get up off of their couches and try to adjust their televisions.)
I'm also picturing people in the theater when it first ran, at the end sitting in their seats wondering "Is that it? That can't be it right?" and just sitting there with that music playing waiting for something to happen...
It was more a matter of suspecting that there wasn't any more content but having to stay just in case there actually was!
Not many reactors notice the subtitles. They set the movie up rather well, or rather they adjust a viewer’s expectations. Monty Python always had a lot of fun with fourth wall type stuff - the first DVD version of “Holy Grail” starts playing the wrong movie for a few minutes, some random black and white comedy from the ‘60s with no connection to Python at all that nobody remembers. Then Gilliam (I think?) does an ancient-sounding, coughing voice that’s meant to be the projectionist moaning about how he has to deal with switching the film, then the random movie stops and “Holy Grail” begins properly. I’ve often wondered how many people returned their discs as defective?
@Krister L One of the few reasons I regret blowing off vinyl as a sound reproduction medium. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Krister L Ÿęš, rēællÿ! 😄
There's only one way to explain this film: it's Monty Python.
True, if you watch the TV comedy series, it's on brand for Monty Python.
The witch on the scales is actually Connie Booth, John Cleese's wife at the time - more well known as the co-writer ( with JC ) of the famous and hilarious TV comedy series Fawlty Towers, where she also played the role of the receptionist and hotel maid Polly.
Oh Monty Python are a category of movies all by themselves, but can’t wait to see your reaction to this one. Pressing play!
8:55 every shot of a castle is the same castle! Just filmed from different sides! They couldn’t afford more than one horse, they also couldn’t afford to film on more than one location! 🤣
John Cleese actually had a long list of names for the Enchanter but he forgot them and just said “Tim?” The rest of the pythons thought it was way funnier so the character became “Tim the Enchanter”
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!: one of the best lines in this movie lol
Can't forget "I fart in your general direction!" Lol
The funny thing -- these are actual insults. Hamsters are known to uh, have intercourse frequently. Elderberries were used to make elderberry wine - i.e. your father was a drunk. How truly insulting!
@@edwardthorne9875 Oh I know! To be fair Williams Bros Brewing Company Elderberry beer is quite good lol
@@edwardthorne9875 Elderberries are also known for smelling extremely pungent.
One of the guys who co-directed this called Terry Jones (he played Sir Bedivere and the constitutional peasant’s wife) was a medieval scholar apart from Python. He wrote several books and hosted historical TV shows and all sorts of things so the accurate weird insults like these came from him. All the guys had other stuff going on in their lives before they started farting around in comedy at University - Graham Chapman (King Arthur) trained to be a doctor, for example, and in later years John Cleese (the French taunter, Tim the Enchanter, too many others to list) ran an industrial video company that made uniquely silly and very effective training films and stuff. That whole crop of British performers who came out of Oxbridge usually had some other field of study that they worked at. The comedy thing began as something they did in their spare time but several producers at the BBC would routinely harvest the schools for fresh (cheap) talent. Rowan Atkinson had a degree in electrical engineering or something equally brainy but Cleese caught his standup act and put him in a charity show he was running and began what gave us “Blackadder” and “Mr. Bean.” A lot of the great American comedians were the class clowns who goofed around or didn’t fit in but the British guys of this generation were a different breed entirely.
According to Jerry Shilling, one of Elvis Presley's buddies, Elvis absolutely loved this film, especially the "it's only a flesh wound" scene, and would often sit around at Graceland watching a copy while quoting the dialogue. Eric Idle of the Pythons said in an interview that it blew his mind when he heard about that ...
Many people think the story ends the way it does "just because its Monty python", but beyond that tradicional Arthurian legends/troubadour songs about his quest would always end with them not finding the grail at the last minute.
Since reaching the grail would be achieving perfection, the stories would always have knights facing all odds to get to it, with miraculous savings and all (like the animator with the heart attack) and right in the last moment, they wouldn't manage.. So MP used a traditional Arthurian troubadour storyline, and then did their - amazing - thing.
In my opinion "Life of Brian" is the best Monty Pythons movie.
"The Meaning of Life" is partially good.
Meaning of life is excellent but the pacing is so slow…. Life of Brian is just a masterpiece
Agree. Life of Brian is a masterpiece.
I agree life of Brian is a better movie. It has a more coherent story. But I think the dialogue in this one is just a little bit better.
Absolutely agree with both statements. (And of course the original TV show itself was brilliant.)
Agreed.
TheMeaning of Life has some good scenes (every sperm is sacred, eg), but is inferior to my fave, Life of Brian) and The Holy Grail.
In case no one's said it, and you haven't figured it out...."Kuhhhhniggit!" is the phonetic pronunciation of "knight".
It was only when showing it to my kids for the first time that it clicked for me, so its not just you. This was a PSA. lol!
Which funny enough may be historically accurate, since who knows if a Frenchman would have known how to pronounce "Knight". Or maybe they just thought it would be silly, and were correct
This movie is why so many games, specifically RPGs love to sneak in a harmless little animal that is insanely overpowered.
"Looki' th' BONES!"
If i recall Fallout 2 had a TON of holy grail references.
That rabbit was actually a medieval thing. If you look at pictures of the pages of manuscripts back then, the copyists would amuse themselves by drawing weird animal doing weird things in the margins, and for some reason rabbits predominated there. Rabbits chasing knights, rabbits killing peasants, rabbits dancing and playing instruments. What the hell, the Middle Ages were weird.
Manky Scots git
It's the little details that Python get so right, like Cleese's Lancelot attacking the decorated torch holder on the stairs during his rampage.
Not grail-shaped
This is one of the films that changed my life growing up. Saw it when it first came out and had no idea who Month Python was (definitely go watch some of their TV show sketches. the movie will make a little more sense once you see their style). Loved every second of it. Oh, and 'Ni' is Scottish for 'No". RIP Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, and Neil Innes, who was the troubadour in Sir Robin's group, and an unofficial member of MP. Oh, and 90 minutes is traditionally the standard length for movies, primarily because it allowed theaters to have more showings per day which meant more $$.
The 'ni' comes from a teacher who Michael Palin had at school who used to say 'ni' every time he had to bend his knees to reach books from the bottom shelf in the library.
"I think it's all three... knights on a journey, breaking the fourth wall, and people in costume play-acting..." Yes. All of the above. One of the things that made the Monty Python show so wild was that if they couldn't come up with a good ending for a skit, they would just cut over to a completely different skit, hence the insane end of this movie. Seek out some of their more famous skits... Dead Parrot, Nudge-Nudge, Minister of Silly Walks, Argument Clinic, Mr. Smokestoomuch, etc. You won't be sorry!
Song of the Lumberjack, Fish Slapping, and the "retard Olympics"!!!
@@prollins6443 gangs of vicious grannies running the streets!
@@vandergrad Spam! "Bloody Vikings!"
Or definitely How Not To Be Seen
9:37 butt trumpets were actually a thing in ancient art. Usually painted in the borders of works of art, or drawn in the margins of documents and illustrations, they were meant as a not so subtle statement on those referred to in the main work.
This is one of those movies that is so hilariously silly you can't help but watch it over and over and memorize every line of every sketch.
No It Isn't!
@@jamesalexander5623 I've told you once ...
@@RideAcrossTheRiver That was never Five Minutes just now!
Had an old army buddy who could recite the ENTIRE movie 😮😁
George-“I’m not going to try to make sense of this.”
[achievement unlocked]
Simone-“Are there any other movies where they actually find the Grail?
[and so began The Quest for the Movie Detailing (finally)the Retrieval of the Holy Grail]
It's good to see people genuinely laughing at the absurbity of the humour in Holy Grail, just as the Pythons wanted it. My personal favourite bit is where they're being chased by the animated monster and the animator has a fatal heart attack - cut to Terry Gilliam comically making faces and falling back off his chair...
Yeah. So many people expect it to make sense, which misses the whole point. These two get it and just come along for the ride.
My favorite line is the man who was turned into a newt saying "I got better."
I envy anyone watching this for the first time! Welcome to the club!
Much of this is filmed at Doune Castle in Scotland, I had the pleasure of re-enacting several scenes, unfortunately we couldn't get on the wall to taunt each other. One funny bit was when I went to the spot the knights were being taunted to get a picture someone came up to me to watch for flying cows. The final castle is about an hour away.
Fun fact: during sieges, dead cows and animals were catapulted over the walls into the fortifications as an early form of biological and psychological warfare.
Yep the gang were only given the right by the government to shoot at Doune Castle alone
the ministry in charge of the keep and governance of the castles and estates etc. were worried the monty python boys would not treat their historical castles and properties with respect
as such, the crew used models for outer shots of the other castles, and would use the interior halls and rooms of Doune to represent the halls and rooms of those other castles.
And yes the ramparts even then were in disrepair and it was dangerous
John cleese (the frenchmen) was actually quite pissed off every time they made him go up there, cause it was so dangerous and the stairs were falling apart.
So he would force them to shoot all of his scenes first, so he cold sod off the wall as soon as he was done.
same
There was only Doune Castle. It was the only place that would let them shoot on site. The last one they could only film from a distance. When they get up close, they're back at Doune. They got very creative about filming it from different angles and spots so it looked like different places.
@@seraiharper5553 I saw where someone bought Castle Stalker & occasionally does tours. We had a great time recreating scenes, like the Camelot song, "What, the curtains", we even tried to recreate Launcelot storming the castle. Great castle, interesting commentary from the Monty Python boys, lots of fun.
The interesting thing about the ending is, while a satire, also happened for Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail in terms of that he never got the Grail in the end. I think it was quite brilliant in that sense.
All the members of Monty Python are highly intelligent and well-educated. They did a gret deal of research to get the details correct in Holy Grail and Life of Brian.
@@roonilwazlib9877 There is no *actual* King Arthur and Holy grail quest to be researched. It's all legend, and the existence and/or identity of Arthur cannot be definitively confirmed.
The end of the movie is a literal "Cop Out". Took me years to catch that joke.
"I fffffffffart in your general direction!"
"This is a happy occasion, let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...."
The Holy Grail has some roots in Christian teaching (being claimed to be the cup that held Christ’s blood during the Last Supper), but otherwise it is purely an Arthurian addition.
It’s originally from the story of The Fischer King, where a grail is presented before the impotent king to cure him. Then it is retconned into being THE grail of Christ and the knights/Arthur have to find it.
which Terry Gilliam later went on to make with Robin Williams
Just randomly found your reaction, I loved it! I've never seen people react to this movie so blind before, it was wonderful seeing people who knew absolutely nothing about Python going in
'Is it for kids?' and the Castle Anthrax scene just pops into my mind...'We are but three score virgins between the ages of...' Sure kids can face the Peril, just like the rest of us.
Glad you enjoyed that wonderfully crazy movie! Did you know that Monty Python's Flying Circus was a comedy TV series starring an ensemble of six (five British and one American, who was also the animator) comedians, who are better known, collectively, as Monty Python? After several seasons of the TV series were finished, the guys decided to make a movie, based around the myths of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. This is a very established myth story from the Medieval period of Western Europe (Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" from 1485 is one example). Their next movie, Life of Brian, makes fun of a better known set of myths...
Python humour builds on the foundation of British wit and humour evident in The Goon Show (Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe), Beyond The Fringe (Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore), Marty Feldman, etc. And since the Pythons, the next generation included Not The Nine O'Clock News and others. Btw, a member of Beyond the Fringe (Peter Cook) and a member of Not The Nine O'Clock News (Mel Smith) were both part of the cast in The Princess Bride. So there is a (rather tenuous) connection.
Don't want to give any spoilers, but if you want to see another movie built around a similar myth, try Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Indy III in the franchise). Plus, there are plenty of other books, movies, and TV shows about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
"Did they ever find the Holy Grail?"
Yes, but in another movie: "Excalibur" (1981) directed by John Boorman. It's the serious version of the King Arthur story.
There was a movie theater in Philly which often ran double features which were thematically linked. One pairing was Borman’s Excalibur and Python’s Holy Grail. One to build up the legend, the other to tear it down.
I love when people realize, that every movie they have ever considered crazy, are all actually rather lame.
Airplane! might be about as crazy as this.
@@Nightcrawlerfive “Oh stewardess… I speak jive.” This is my favorite comedy line not in a Monty Python movie.
I used to do mediaeval re-enactment many years ago, and it became fashionable on the battlefield to shout "Run Away!"
Two interesting facts: All of the castles in the movie (except one) were actually shot at the same castle - Doune Castle - in Scotland. The only exception is the final castle in the movie is Castle Stalker, which is basically someone's house.
Also in the scene with Tim the Enchanter, he was supposed to have a really long and complicated name, but John Cleese forgot the line and ad-libbed "Tim?" as a joke, which stuck.
25:25 Their second movie is, in a sense, more of a prequel :).
(well worth sticking 'Life of Brian' on your list - even funnier than 'Holy Grail' IMO. And certainly more banned)
"Excalibur" from the late 70s is also about Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail, and about a lot more, too.
"Excalibur" started the entire Swords & Sandals trend in movies that prevailed in the 1980s. It was also the first movie for four of today's biggest male acting stars: Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Ciaran Hinds.
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was the very first movie about the Dark Ages to show dirt and excrement on people's clothes and bodies. and so changed forever the look of movies.
Monty Python's animator was one of this movie's directors: Terry Gilliam, the only U.S. member of the troupe. He went on to be one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of the Sound Era of Cinema. Gilliam's films include "Brazil", "Time Bandits", "Twelve Monkeys" and "The Fisher King".
"Holy Grail" is the cup from which Jesus and his twelve disciples drank, at the Last Supper. Since the wine that they drank is supposed to represent the blood of the Christ, in French/Latin the cup is called the Sangreal, "sang" being French for blood. The third "Indiana Jones" movie is about indy's searcg for the grail.
Thus endeth the lesson.
I wasn't aware of the "swords and sandals" trend to which you refer, and I haven't seen a ton of 80's movies. The only ones I could think of that would fit that description are Conan the Barbarian and Willow. And maybe Highlander, which I don't think I've seen for about 30 years. What else is there?
Excalibur came out in 1981.
It floored me to learn that Terry Gilliam is American as he has such a British-sounding name.
Fun fact: Excalibur was the film John Boorman went off and did in a huff after Tolkien told him NO WAY NO HOW HELL NO when Boorman approached him with his ideas for adapting The Lord of the Rings. If you want to know what he proposed, you just have to look at Excalibur, because most of it was shifted over to that film. I don't blame the Professor for freaking out.
Excalibur is great but hardly a 'swords and sandals' movie. Excalibur is set in medieval Britain, where swords and sandals movies are mostly Greco-Roman and about the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Etruscans.
Highly recommend watching "A Fish Called Wanda" Starring Python alumn John Cleese and Michael Palin, it's easily one of the best comedies of the 1980s
"Now we see the violence inherent in the system..." maybe the single greatest line of dialogue ever penned.
They were allowed to film in just one Scottish castle and so had to be inventive with props and film angles - which is just proof that what matters are good ideas and a clever script.
Monty Python were (one of?) the first postmodern comedians. Quite a few movie tropes were also invented by them - or at least made popular. So much, that they now appear mundane and "ah, well, seen it before..."
Perhaps the most rewatchable movie of all time...I've lost count how many times I've seen this movie,and I laugh my ass off every time
This, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles for me.
When I saw this for the 1st time at the theater I remember sitting listening to that the music at the end and waiting for something else to happen. My friends and I sat there for 15 minutes listening to the same 15 seconds of music until the manager came down and told us it really was over. One last joke from the Python Circus.
Love this movie! Interesting factoid : A 2021 tweet by Eric Idle revealed that the film was financed by eight investors: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Holy Grail's co-producer Michael White, Heartaches (a cricket team founded by lyricist Tim Rice), and three record companies including Charisma Records, the record label that released.
"Help Help! Im being repressed!"
This movie had some gems
You gotta love Dennis’ tirade against the monarchy
Monty Python was a comedy troupe. They had a television show and then a handful of movies. Your reaction was exactly as it should be. This came out when I was a sophomore in high school. This movie was so quotable with a quote for every occasion. It was a great time to be a teenager!
1. What about the moose?
2. In the credits they talk about the moose.
3. Perfect Monty Python where you can just get sucked into something where you don't have to think about anything and just let yourself go.
4. "What ya gonna do? Bleed on me." 🤣
5. That said, The ending sucked. It was a cop out.
6. The only horse in the film is ridden by the guy that killed the historian.
Two suggestions for silly: "Airplane" and "Blazing Saddles"
Well....... I like that you paid attention William Jones. And yes, wonderful silly on number 6 my friend.
These "reviewers" were just not up to par. I guess I got old. But they were just sad.
"What is The Grail?" - is actually a very good question. No one really knows the origin. Is it Celtic, pre-Christian? Or is it High-Medieval Christian? The Grail probably began as a mystical cup or bowl, pagan in origin, and eventually became the very cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Until the various fighting scholars sort it out, just call it a magic cup, I guess
I thought it was a cup that contained the blood of Jesus after he was lanced.
@@ronmaximilian6953 That also, yes. What's interesting to me is the idea of sacred or magic containers.
Merovingian (early French) script didn't have space breaks between words because the Franks learned how to write from Latin. So talking about royal lineage "sang real" (royal blood) looked the same as "san greal" (holy cup). Writings claiming that descendants of Jesus existed in their time were misinterpreted by later monks as referring to a physical object.
@@dudermcdudeface3674 sorry, but it was Graal Sant in French. Nouns precede adjectives in French.
Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea, who buried Jesus, captured Jesus’ blood in the Grail while on the cross. Or maybe I just got that from an Indiana Jones movie. :)
There’s a whole lot of legend concerning The Holy Grail, much involving King Arthur.
Honestly wish I could hit the like button more than once. Watching people discovering this with no clue what they're in for helps me recapture the experience of seeing this for the first time many years ago
I reccomend airplane, naked gun, and police academy for more really funny movies
Oh yes, so much!
Also Top Secret ;)
God it amazes me how much this movie still resonates today. I still remember watching this for the first time with my friends at IU around 87. I had seen the tv show in the 70s, but had never seen their movies. It hasn’t aged a day in my mind and has never left my top 5 comedy’s of all time. But what would you expect from Oxford educated comedians.
My Mum took a 9 year old me to see this when it came out at the cinema.
Life changing!
Thanks Mum 😁
"Where did they film this where there are so many castles?"
There's hundreds of castles in the UK :)
And yet most of the castles were a single castle shot from different angles.
@@SandJosieph There is that. I just mean they have a ton of choices :D
@@Warlock_UK According to some of the comments it seems like the vast majority of those choices were off limits.