Excuse the awkward music at the very end 😬 The copyright gods would have smitten us otherwise, so we chose to replace the audio with silly music from the TH-cam audio library. Thanks for watching!!
This was one of the best reactions to this movie I've seen so far. 😄 Cool to see that you've had such a fun time, because that's what this movie is all about. It's just pure comedy, silly situations and ideas and a lot of laughs. Entertaining form beginning to end. Also great to spontaneously watch with some friends (and optionally some beers :P ) on a chill movie night, especially if they don't know what's coming. 😁
"This movie is shot really well!" You should see what directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones can do with a budget. Monty Python goes on to make several more movies, and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie. But it's when the Terry's came to Hollywood when they started creating their most iconic and epic work. Terry Jones directed the hysterical "Erik The Viking," with Tim Robbins and various Python members. Terry Gilliam's "Dream Trilogy" will melt your brain. "Time Bandits" "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is full of Pythonesque humor but will explode your mind with their brilliant visuals. He went on to make the popular hits "12 Monkeys" "The Fisher King" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
The crazy thing is the guy who killed the historian was on horseback. The Knights of the Round Table were using coconuts. Meaning an outside party framed them.
I've watched this movie countless times since I was a teen... I can practically quote the entire movie. This comment literally had me awestruck that I'd never noticed that and I stared at it for five minutes.
i also love they decided to make it as grimy and gross as the real middle ages since they didn't have the budget to do a more traditional arthurian movie look
The ending is literally a “Cop Out”. In their TV show they would often not have an ending for their sketches so they would have the police barge in to end the sketch. Also, King Arthur and his knights couldn’t have been the one to kill the historian because the knight who killed him was on horseback.
Literally the ONLY horse that was in the film and only because they could only afford to rent it for like, an hour. That's literally the whole reason why the other knights didn't have horses, there wasn't enough in the budget. XD
So, some of the weird things explained about the movie: -The police arresting them at the end is a running Monty Python gag from Flying Circus. A lot of their sketches abruptly ended with the police arresting everyone for being “too silly” - The black screen at the end is a relic of its theatrical run. Since all the credits are at the beginning, the black screen and music are at the end for when they turn up the theatre lights and everyone leaves.
The part where he's running but not getting closer, only to suddenly be within striking range and start stabbing the guards, "haHA!!" Gets me every time
The first time I saw that scene, I laughed so hard & so long repeating it over & over again, I couldn't breathe & I thought I was actually going to die. Never laughed like that again.
That's the greatest joke in the whole movie for me. I can watch it however many times and still it makes me laugh every single time. The timing and music is just impeccable.
I think the weirdest thing about the entire movie is that they were randomly accurate to history in some points. The flagellants, the animal lobbing, it’s so random and honestly shows how intelligent the writers are beyond just jokes.
it wasn't random at all, it was very intentional, there's tons of stuff in there that are highly obscure refferences that you wouldn't notice unless you were a historian or extremely well read on the subject matter.
This has been called the most accurate film representation of the arms, arrnor, and clothing of the period, as well. These guys really did know their stuff.
So a few points on the jokes. The reason they didn't have horses is because they couldn't afford to buy and use horses for any of the shots, thus the whole thing with coconuts. The reason the sorcerer is called Tim is because Cleese was supposed to say this really long and elaborate name, but on the day of the shoot, he forgot his line and instead said the Tim line, and everyone just rolled with it as they couldn't afford to re-shoot the scenes due to the pyro taking up so much budget (and they didn't have any spare film for the camera) The ending, where they all get arrested, is quite literally a "cop out" ending. And finally, the reason the screen is just black at the end of the movie... is because the people responsible for the credits were all fired at the start of the movie! XD
@@ImadSul12 You're welcome. Funnily enough, that last one... I never actually knew about it until about a month ago, despite having watched the movie loads of times throughout my life. It never clicked until I saw someone reviewing it recently, and they pointed out the joke that there's no credits because those people were fired at the start of the movie XD
I'm so old, I saw this in the theatre, on it's first run. The audience were in hysterics. It messed with the audience, because this was a time when movies actually had intermissions, so that intermission break really did have people getting up to go to the toilet, then seconds later hurrying back their seats, because the movie had started again. Happy times.
Thanks for pointing that out, because that joke is kind of ruined by the modern day experience of watching the film on a streaming service, where you can see the whole runtime at any point so you know the movie is almost over when the fake “intermission” screen comes up.
The joys of the intermission, having the ice cream lady or man enter, you could even buy cigarettes!! We nicknamed our local cinema the flea pit and it was a hole but it was our hole, sadly they bulldozed it to build a co op funeral place! The pa pa pa's we all used to sing when the movie started brings happy memories!!
My favorite is the peasant rant: "You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
One note on the Tale of Sir Lancelot: For the repeated shots of Lancelot running in from the distance, he wasn't running in place or getting farther away; they just kept replaying the same footage of him running over and over. Incidentally, one of my favorite moments in the movie lol
@@schnubbel76 At least, that's certainly the impression I got, if I'm remembering correctly. I don't generally assume that scene needs explaining, mind you, so something had to make me think someone wasn't getting it lol
They didn’t get the riding the horses with the coconut sounds where it’s supposed to sound like someone riding a horse. They were taking it too seriously and saying that they looked silly. That was the point 😂
Here's some fun facts for you: This movie is considered such a classic that many game developers have put references of this movie in their games. The game Worms W.M.D has the holy hand grenade as a useable weapon and in the game Minecraft you have a chance to come across a white, red eyed bunny that attacks you. Edit: Also it's implied the historian that died during the filming was killed by someone not part of the movie as the killer was the only one with an actual horse while no one else during the film did. Which means he could still be out there...
There's a special encounter in Fallout 2 where King Arthur and his knights appear (in Brotherhood of Steel powered armor), and they're searching for the Holy Hand Grenade. There's also an encounter with the Bridge Keeper at the Bridge of Death. He'll ask you three questions, and if you answer wrong, you die. Get them all correct, and you are allowed to pass. Turn the last question around into a question for the Bridge Keeper, and HE'LL die, allowing you to take his robes as loot (they're as strong as combat armor).
The rabbit and the cave was also in the Witcher 3. There was a lot of bones outside a cave with a white rabbit sitting on them. The rabbit was invulnerable to sword attacks but could be killed by throwing a grenade at it.
i once interned at a funeral home (long story lol) but the employees always quoted the “bring out yer dead” part from this movie and it killed me every time😭
I used to transport patients around the hospital and sometimes that included bringing bodies to the morgue. The first step was going down to the basement and getting a special gurney nicknamed the "Cadillac". I never said it out loud, but it was impossible not to think about Monty Python when I was pushing that thing to the deceased patient's room...
The end is not only a "Cop out"... it is given its own backstory within the movie as its own subplot. The GENIUS of this film is still yet to be fully recognized.
When I was in high school my school did a production of Spamalot (this movie but with musical numbers and a few more characters). Right after the scene where Arthur fought The Black Knight the kid playing the latter looked down at what was left of his body and improvised the line “I wonder if Obamacare covers this.” I’ve never heard an audience laugh that hard 😂
It's actually an extremely esoteric movie. The boys really did their research. Everybody always asks why a rabbit? Apart from being funny the white rabbit is the guardian of the cave that leads to the river Styx. The movie is peppered with them, little old world nods to pre Christian beliefs. Even the coconut gag.
Also shouting “run away!”. Back then the language was pre-Saxon so French words were not in common usage, they would not have known/used “retreat” as it’s French. “Run away” would have been more linguistically accurate.
I'm super glad you guys enjoyed this. A lot of people complain about the ending but I think it's perfect. I always interpreted the ending as revealing that the entire film takes place in modern day by a large LARPing crew that's way too into their roles.
PSA: catapulting deceased (several days or weeks old) animals was sort of an "area denial" tactic during castle defense. The rotting corpses would split open upon landing, spreading foul odors, bodily ephemera, and disease.
And a nice way to show some creativity during a sometimes long slog of a siege. Maybe spice it up with a half dozen piglets on a chain or someting similarly festive
@@NecramoniumVideo this is the youtube comment section, fool! If you think my comment was that bad maybe YOU should get some help. You certainly need some perspective. Lighten up!
Monty Python is a masterclass of “Never Let Them Guess Your Next Move”. You like to think you’re gonna see the punchline, but then it pulls something COMPLETELY different and completely unhinged out of their ass.
I love how when they met Tim the enchanter that was a blooper, the actor was meant to say some long crazy sounding name but when they went to film it he forgot and just adlibbed the name Tim that is part of why the pause before saying his name is so long lol
"As long as it's funny, you can get away with anything in a movie" That is so well put. If The Holy Grail wasn't funny, like if they tried to make it historical or a period drama, or even a bad comedy, it would be a disaster. And yet, it's regarded as a masterpiece in comedy. A true classic in every sense of the word.
Always loved how despite lancelot massacring the dancers doing that circle, the ones that survive are continuously trying to reform and continue the dance regardless.
As a note, coconut halves actually sound like horses' hoofs. Every time my mom would buy us coconuts, we would do this around the house because of this movie!!
They were used for sound effects for that reason since way before the movie and it's the reason they went with the coconuts when they couldn't afford the horses. That gag has so many layers while still being so basic that anyone can laugh at it. Truly brilliant.
Every time you mentioned how much the cut back to the murder investigation was your favourite joke, I got more excited about the ending. It’s so left field
I saw this when it first came out back in the '70s ... in a double bill with Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles! I could barely walk out of the cinema afterwards, my stomach ached so much from laughing 😂
Me too, it was also the very first time I took a girl out on a date and learned that laughter makes us closer. At one point she was crying on my shoulder from the agony of laughing so much.
Due to both budget constraints and the fact that most castle owners didn't want anything to do with it, the various castles are mostly all the same castle shot from different angles. If you go to that castle now, it's a tourist location. At the gift shop, if you feel so inclined, you can rent a pair of coconut half-shells so that you can go riding around the castle grounds.
This was a great reaction, you both explained the ending the same way I do. They love adding a "fuck you" moment for the audience and will just change the narrative on a whim.
I saw this movie for the first time when I was 14 years old and the ending passed me off. It wasn't until I started watching the reruns of their TV show that I understood: They would do the skit for as long as it was funny. If the bit was starting to become tired, they'd transition into Terry Gilliam's animation, which would be the bridge to the next skit. I believe the Python's couldn't come up with an ending that they found funny enough, so they created this murder investigation and this "cop out" ending. The coconut 🥥 bit was created out of necessity. They were operating on a shoestring budget and thus couldn't afford horses for the entire cast of characters. One of the Python's came up with the inspired concept and the crazy swallow routine.
@@philrob1978 "cop out" is used to refer to ridiculous or lazy reasoning for events to go a certain way in a story. The reason the movie suddenly ends can be seen as ridiculous as King Arthur is suddenly arrested by Cops (police/law enforcement) and makes the word play of "Cop Out"
My favorite of the Python cop-out endings was in the Flying Circus episode which ends in the Argument Clinic sketch. In that episode, every sketch ends with some special agent from a “film fraud” division of Scotland Yard showing up to arrest the fake director of that scene… until at the end of the Argument Clinic, another detective shows up and reads off a litany of charges against them. This includes the charge of not ending scenes with a proper punchline, citing that they’ve just been ending every scene by having the police show up… and then the cop realizing that he’s also a cop who arrived to end a sketch without a proper punchline, which causes a cop to appear to arrest him and then triggers what we assume to be an infinite stream of cops arresting other cops as the episode ends. Brilliant stuff… 🤣
For context, a shrubbery was an old reference to a prostitute. Thus Roger the Shrubber was a pimp and the hilarity of them getting a literal shrubbery is just classic.
I saw this movie in the 70's at a drive-in theater. I was laughing so hard I could hardly breath and had to turn around to catch my breath. I turned back around at the point when the monks were chanting and hitting themselves and immediately had to turn back around. I've never laughed so hard before or since. A true classic. So many quotable lines.
I originally saw this in the theater around 1976, and during the scene with the monks slapping their foreheads with wooden tablets ("ee--ay-es-u-dor-mi-nayyyy"), I found myself down on all fours on the sticky theater floor laughing so hard that I literally could not breathe. As funny as the movie is, it's even better with a large audience. You guys talked-through and missed a great line at 3:02. When still in the plague riddled town the king and Patsy "ride" by and the fella pushing the cart full of dead bodies (Eric Idle) says "That must be the king". When he is asked how does he know he replied "He hasn't got shit all over him".
In 1982, at the Southern California Renaissance Faire, a group of customers came in doing what we would now call cosplay as the monks, processing through the Faire chanting and bapping themselves. The cast was talking about them backstage all day. I'd say they were a big hit, but that would be a terrible pun, so I won't. One of them became a regular cast member, and still participates as of 2022.
The animator who was at his desk, and keeled over with a heart attack, was indeed Terry Gilliam, who did all of Python's animation in the TV show, as well as their films. He also played Patsy the first coconut clapper, as well as the bridgekeeper.
Fun fact: Tim the enchanter got his name because John Cleese forgot the line giving his name and said "Tim" instead, and the rest of the cast just rolled with it and never broke character. I think the name was supposed to be some long, ridiculous sounding name. Personally, I like "Tim" better, because the delivery is so much better. The hesitation before he says it, the slight questioning tone in his voice (is he even sure what people call him?), and the perfect punchline of a mundane name for an eccentric character.
“My face hurts!” So happy to see you have this experience now and still enjoy it so much, I watched this movie so many times growing up and it never gets old
It's such a joy seeing people react to the Monty Python stuff and it still works exactly as it did in the 70s/80s, back when it was new. :D It IS some of the best comedy out there in movie form. ONly surpassed, perhaps, by Monty Python's Life of Brian.
I personally prefer this one, but it really is a toss-up between Grail and Life of Brian. Everyone likes both, some people just prefer one over the other.
I guess the difference between this movie and Life Of Brian is that Life Of Brian more has a story to it. It’s a good story. It makes fun of how Christianity started. It also had an ending.
PS: I've seen this movie ten thousand times. I NEVER noticed that the sun on Arthur's chest has a mustache on it. THANK YOU! This is why I love reaction videos. I never, ever noticed that. You guys are great!!!! I'm a happy subscriber!
The part where it takes a billion cuts for Lancelot to just suddenly come up and start stabbing everyone kills me everytime, the first time I saw it I laughed for a solid 10 minutes cos it just took me off guard completely.
"This movie is shot really well!" You should see what directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones can do with a budget. Monty Python goes on to make several more movies, and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie. But it's when the Terry's came to Hollywood when they started creating their most iconic and epic work. Terry Jones directed the hysterical "Erik The Viking," with Tim Robbins and various Python members. Terry Gilliam's "Dream Trilogy" will melt your brain. "Time Bandits" "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is full of Pythonesque humor but will explode your mind with their brilliant visuals. He went on to make the popular hits "12 Monkeys" "The Fisher King" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Another forgotten Gilliam film is Jabberwocky. Though not an "official" Python project, it does feature a few of the Pythons including Michael Palin in the leasing role as Dennis.
"and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie." Without looking it up and I'm not sure if Life of Brian is the next movie (but I guess it is), is it the alien one? xD
I still have yet to get through adventures of baron munchausen. Doctor Parnassus was a stellar film Fear and loathing proved how well he can make a film adaptation of a literary work
@@kevinmi42 That's a good one and almost nobody remembers it despite being Heath Ledger's last movie and the star power that came together to finish it. Give Baron M another shot. Maybe burn some mood-altering herbs first...
The fun thing about the witch scene, is her saying "There's a fair cop" which basically is "Yeah, alright. You got me." Meaning that she really was a witch.
My husband showed me this movie the moment we subscribed on Netflix. I had never laughed so much in my entire life and I was so confused by the end until I realised that they fired the entire credits team so they can’t do the credits! Very clever humour.
Dudes....I was OBSESSED with Monthy Python as a teenager! Holy Grail, The meaning of Life and Life of Brian are 3 of my top tier comedy flicks of all time! there are scenes in each movie that still crack me up to this day like the sheer chaos of that intro scene, the whole discussion about coconuts, the citizens who are OPPRESSED!!!, the Black Knight fight or the sorcerer they call..................Tim I also love the idea of "Here is a historian telling the story AND NOW HE´S GONE!" and how that essentially leads to the abrupt ending of the movie Those just scream to me "What if we just go nuts and see what sticks in the editing room?"
My history teacher in highschool showed us this movie, wasn't even part of our lesson he just wanted us to see it. I'm so glad for it though he introduced me to something that I would reference to this day, I genuinely say "I fart in your general direction" with a stupid french accent anytime I can.
Hey guys! Another great reaction! Python is always an interesting test of a person's sense of humour because Python is a particular brand of humour that is unique to them, and it is certainly not for all tastes. The way that they mix heady, intellectual humor with just plain silliness is unmatched. By the bye, the idea of the "French Taunter" (I wave my private parts at your aunties!) is actually based on historical fact. Armies often would taunt each other in this way as a part of warfare in the middle ages. Indeed, a lot of the brilliance of this film is how they use historical research as the core of what they are doing and then twist that in a hundred different ways. As a preview for Life of Brian (my favourite of their films, and their best film), it first came to them when a reported asked Eric Idle what the title of their next film would be, and he replied, "Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory." Also, the film was banned in several American cities and in several countries around the world. So you have that to look forward to!!
I love that the Battle of Badon Hill is mentioned. The name Arthur didn't pop up in history until after that battle, so it's theorized that he was a British warlord that pushed back the Saxons (for a little while at least) and gained enough fame that people started naming their children after him.
@@chairmanofthebored6860 There is quite a few theories to who he was (Or based on) The two main ones being a Brythonic Warlord or that or this Roman general fella
I love how layered their humor is. One example: I didn't know until years later that "your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries" was a much more elegant way of calling his mother a slut and his father a drunk.
The singing and dancing knights in Camelot were intended to spoof the musical "Camelot," which was also a movie, and gave the name to the Kennedy Administration. Also, the opening credits were a direct spoof of the opening credits of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," which were in Swedish with English subtitles at the bottom.
I remember a random fact about the musical score in the movie. "Serious" or classical type music had never been used before (or was known to have been) in comedy movies before, so that part is highly experimental. It worked out well! (The animation stuff of course also being a staple of Monty Python)
7:19 - The cartoons that are in the film were done by one of the main members of the Monty Python group, Terry Gilliam. In fact, Terry was responsible for all animation work throughout the Monty Python show and films. Terry was also the co-director for the film as well.
Gilliam is also the lone American in the troupe. He turned out to be absolutely integral to the look and style of the original TV program. But he didn’t get much in the way of speaking parts. I wager he was fine with that since his talents lay in art and directing. He also turned out to be quite the talented producer and director. His films range from the Python Films to completely original and well acclaimed works like 12 Monkeys and Brazil.
It’s amazing how much comedy today is inspired from Monty Python. Deadpool’s credits and the fight with colossus was clearly inspired from this movie and that’s just one example. Unlike many comedies that came after they used more comedic techniques than just dialogue such as the Lancelot running scene, however techniques like that are mostly used in animation now. It’s amazing how much of comedy was shaped by this movie.
I was new in the office and the secretary had this laptop just sitting closed on a nearby chair. I asked her what was the matter with it? She said "It's dead." I don't know why but I replied "No, it's just pining." She immediately shot back "It's pining for the fjords of Norway!" We Found we both have brothers....
Fun fact about the monks, they're chanting “Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem,” which translates to "Merciful Lord Jesus Christ, grant them rest". Or in other words "Jesus Christ make it stop,".
Fun fact: the “Bring out your dead” bit is a real thing that happened during the Black Plague. Not sure if there were people saying “I’m not dead” and subsequently killed, but hey, it’s possible.
The animated bits were already a big thing in the TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus - they're created by the one American member of the Pythons, famous director Terry Gilliam. (Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, Münchhausen...)
Like the rest of the movie, some of the animations are historical references. The men bending over with trumpets against their anus were found as marginalia in medieval manuscripts; the monks and nuns who worked as copyists amused themselves by drawing often-scatological cartoons on the edges of the parchment, but the drawings also served as a commentary on the adjacent text. A fart joke might indicate criticism of a bad character.
The movie was directed by two members of the Python team; Terry Gilliam is the one who went on to acclaim, and you can tell when he's directing, due to atmospheric use of smoke, lots of set dressing in shot, unusual angles and use of wide angle lenses. Gilliam also did the animations. His first solo movie, Jabberwocky, also had a medieval setting, and is definitely worth watching. Also, did you notice that all six Python members were playing multiple parts throughout the film? Comedy albums were big in the 1970s, and Monty Python put out a number of them, including a "soundtrack" of Holy Grail. The gimmick is that it is supposedly a live recording of a showing of the movie; it includes scenes from the film but also additional sketches. You can find playlists of the complete record on TH-cam. And another thing! Technically the first Monty Python movie is "And now for something completely different", for which they redid some of the best sketches from their TV show, but this time in widescreen and on film.
Terry Jones was the co-director. He became known in his post-Python career as the creator and host of history documentaries, mostly in the medieval period. He had gotten his master’s degree in English literature with a dissertation on Chaucer’s knight (which he published and I’ve read-it’s quite good!). I especially like his miniseries on the Crusades.
I remember going to a local movie theater for a rerun in the late 1980s with a girl I had a crush on, and we also took her younger sister along. And, while I was laughing SO hard, the girls were just totally confused with what was going on onscreen... Taught me that the woman I wanted to spend my life with needed to have a sense of humour similar to mine!
What you said at the end is exactly right - this is the perfect movie to watch when you don't want to have to think about a plot, you just want to laugh and have a good time.
I watched this movie as a 14yo kid in the 80s. I didn't get half of it but laughed just as much as you guys did. Watching it again with you, now, as a 56yo kid who gets it, I'm laughing even more. Thanks guys
"that is the dumbest fight i have ever seen" honestly that can be used for pretty much anything in monty python like monthy pyton is just one big scramble of "that is the dumbest" insert situation "thing i have ever seen " XD and i love it
I was 8 or 9 when my parents showed me this movie for the first time. I remember being SO pissed off at the ending, haha, i was so invested in the battle i wanted to see him get that damn Grail! And my parents were just laughing haha. Can't count how many times I've rewatched this movie since, it's always a joy to see someone else experience it for the first time!
This is absolutely my favourite Monty Python reaction ever. I got a box set of the MP films for my 12th birthday (17 years ago!) and I remember crying laughing at those moose jokes in the opening credits!
Had to return to the theater over and over to get the jokes because of the continuous laughter. Can you imagine full grown Army soldiers having this entire running dialogue memorized? True Story. The animals and heavy objects were flung by Trebuchets, a type of catapult.
I played "Worms: Armageddon" on the N64 with my friends in high school (the same ones who introduced me to this movie, now that I think about it), and before a player selected the holy handgrenade to use, someone would either quote some of the instructions or try to throw off the player by going "1, 2, 5" "Three, sir!" while they aimed. Now I wanna go play again... hmm...
18:53 His name was improvised. His character was originally supposed to have a long, complicated name, but the actor forgot, so he just called himself Tim. The director thought it was so funny, they changed the script to call him Tim.
My parents introduced me to Monty Python and I instantly feel in love with the group and their movies, they're actually pretty deep at times even though they seem extremly shallow at first. Glad to see you also did the life of brian :) Edit: I would have loved to experience these in theatre, unfortunately the movie is as twice as old
Monty Python just goes to show what five British transvestites and one American illustrator can accomplish when they really put their minds to it. Filmed on location in Scotland.
"I just don't know what to expect." And that's when the choir shoved trumpets up their butts. The accidental, utterly stupid comedic timing on that is perfectly Monty Python.
The whole movie was shot with a shoestring budget, thus coconuts instead of horses, knitted sweaters with paint rather then real chainmail and the ending were all got arrested was because they had run out of money for a big battle. Imho, that makes it even funnier.
A fun thing about the Black Knight is he's played by two actors. In the scene where's he's down to one leg, he is actually played by a one legged man! For all the other scenes he's played by John Cleese. This is cause Cleese just could not balance well on one leg. So they got a one legged local man. Also on the DVD there's a subtitle track you can turn on for shits and giggles called "Subtitles For People Who Don’t Like The Film" and, it's just lines from Henry IV Part 2(the Shakespeare play), but cherry picked to mostly match what is on screen.
Fun fact. The movie was financed by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the movie's co-producer Michael White, a cricket team, and three record companies.
As a huge Python fan who’s seen both the film and the musical numerous times, it is such a delight to see your first reactions to this. It’s such a fun journey.
The spamalot musical reference reminded me that the term spam comes from a monty python TV sketch where the only thing on the cafe menu is spam. Not just once but spam with spam or spam with spam and more spam and it just goes on and on.
4:00 The heraldic symbol on the black knights tunic is a wild boar which is a very fitting symbol as its an animal famous for ignoring lethal injuries and fighting on regardless of how badly hurt it is, it's that tenacious that in medieval times they developed a special spear for hunting wild boar, the aptly named Boar Spear had horizontal lugs just below the spearhead to stop an impaled boar from running up the length of the spear and continuing to attack.
One of, if not the, funniest movies all time. I watched it for the first time with my dad back in the early 90's. He was a fan of dry British humor, as was his father. Both of them are sadly no longer with us, but I think they both would have appreciated your genuine joy watching this fantastic movie. For me this was like watching it for the first time again. Thank you very much for your channel, and please keep it up.
Its genuinely nice to see someone experience this film for the first time and the joy it brings, it's kinda like seeing someone's first time watching Fight Club cuz they don't know the twist yet.
So happy you did this, I love watching fresh victims fall prey to Holy Grail's ending! DEFINITELY check out Life of Brian if you haven't already - it's a bit more of a coherent movie but it's just as funny!
It's so hard to find anyone in the English speaking world who doesn't already know this film and can recite half of it from memory. Oh no, I said IT again....
Love that they use coconuts because they couldnt actually afford Horses, it really adds to the movie so much, same with the fact that they just get arrested in the end. They really just didnt have the budget for horses, and just ended the movie like that for the same reason, or so Ive read.
I love pretty much every joke in this movie, but I love how it ends as a literal cop-out the most. It's why they did all of the credits at the start instead of at the end like most movies.
Historically, movies usually (almost always) had the credits at the beginning, as in this film. You can see this in The Wizard of Oz, for example. It wasn't until the 70s into the 80s that movies switched to putting the credits at the end.
Gauging by your taste in movies from past reactions I suspect you guys would really enjoy one of my favorites of all time: The Dish (2000) is an Australian comedy drama that didn’t see a huge worldwide release but is an absolutely great little gem of a film. It’s very loosely based on real events surrounding a satellite dish crew that played a key role in the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, but the real fun is all the zany characters and fictional plot that it’s wrapped in.
@@siraea89 I recognized Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton as actors from other worldwide A-list films, but I don’t watch enough local Australian stuff to have recognized any of the rest of the actors.
2:06 According to Eric Idle, he stated that the film had a very low budget meaning that they couldn’t afford any horses at all for the entire film, so they thought it would be funny to have the coconuts clapping while the characters pretend that they’re riding a horse.
The story of the coconuts is that hiring a horse trainer, renting acting horses, and having feed and shelter for horses for filming is incredibly expensive, so they said "Fuck that, just clank some coconuts together to make it sound like hooves."
Excuse the awkward music at the very end 😬 The copyright gods would have smitten us otherwise, so we chose to replace the audio with silly music from the TH-cam audio library. Thanks for watching!!
Life of Brian is best monty python movie funny as hell I recommend it
This was one of the best reactions to this movie I've seen so far. 😄 Cool to see that you've had such a fun time, because that's what this movie is all about. It's just pure comedy, silly situations and ideas and a lot of laughs. Entertaining form beginning to end. Also great to spontaneously watch with some friends (and optionally some beers :P ) on a chill movie night, especially if they don't know what's coming. 😁
*smote
Sorry, I had to
@@brabbit736 Ya know, I actually googled it while writing this and saw really mixed results 😂 y'all get the picture either way
"This movie is shot really well!"
You should see what directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones can do with a budget. Monty Python goes on to make several more movies, and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie.
But it's when the Terry's came to Hollywood when they started creating their most iconic and epic work. Terry Jones directed the hysterical "Erik The Viking," with Tim Robbins and various Python members. Terry Gilliam's "Dream Trilogy" will melt your brain. "Time Bandits" "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is full of Pythonesque humor but will explode your mind with their brilliant visuals. He went on to make the popular hits "12 Monkeys" "The Fisher King" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
The crazy thing is the guy who killed the historian was on horseback. The Knights of the Round Table were using coconuts. Meaning an outside party framed them.
All these years and I never thought of that!
Wait, WHAT
It was those damn French, I tell ya!!
I've watched this movie countless times since I was a teen... I can practically quote the entire movie. This comment literally had me awestruck that I'd never noticed that and I stared at it for five minutes.
Great observation
Some of the best jokes in this movie were because they couldn’t get the budget to do what they wanted to do.
i also love they decided to make it as grimy and gross as the real middle ages since they didn't have the budget to do a more traditional arthurian movie look
They published the budget. It totaled about 250,000 pounds.
The best one in my opinion being the would have been final battle
Making the whole film basically a LARP session is on point then.
@@danadnauseam *and funded or backed by some pretty well known bands at the time which included Pink Floyd*
The ending is literally a “Cop Out”.
In their TV show they would often not have an ending for their sketches so they would have the police barge in to end the sketch.
Also, King Arthur and his knights couldn’t have been the one to kill the historian because the knight who killed him was on horseback.
Right? It's such a meta way to end the movie
Also, the screen is just black at the end because all the people who did the credits got sacked... 😂
@@SadPeterPan1977 of course 🤣🤣🤣
Literally the ONLY horse that was in the film and only because they could only afford to rent it for like, an hour. That's literally the whole reason why the other knights didn't have horses, there wasn't enough in the budget. XD
@@philrob1978 Then why did the witch admit "It's a fair cop."
So, some of the weird things explained about the movie:
-The police arresting them at the end is a running Monty Python gag from Flying Circus. A lot of their sketches abruptly ended with the police arresting everyone for being “too silly”
- The black screen at the end is a relic of its theatrical run. Since all the credits are at the beginning, the black screen and music are at the end for when they turn up the theatre lights and everyone leaves.
Isn't the black screen there because the people responsible for credits were fired?
@@walfip_ also a valid reason lol
It was a cop-out!
Also should be pointed out here.. an African and European Swallow.. are the same bird at different points in their seasonal migration.
You should definitely watch The Life of Brian. Epic
The part where he's running but not getting closer, only to suddenly be within striking range and start stabbing the guards, "haHA!!"
Gets me every time
The first time I saw that scene, I laughed so hard & so long repeating it over & over again, I couldn't breathe & I thought I was actually going to die. Never laughed like that again.
And the poofter guard just being like "...Hey!?"
For me it's the other guard's half-hearted "Hey!"
Everytime
That's the greatest joke in the whole movie for me. I can watch it however many times and still it makes me laugh every single time. The timing and music is just impeccable.
I think the weirdest thing about the entire movie is that they were randomly accurate to history in some points. The flagellants, the animal lobbing, it’s so random and honestly shows how intelligent the writers are beyond just jokes.
I know a guy who had to do a paper in college pointing out all the references to the OG tales.
It's even deeper. Yes extremely intelligent but also in the know.
It's crazy that so much amount of research was put into this. What an amazing gift of a movie 😂
it wasn't random at all, it was very intentional, there's tons of stuff in there that are highly obscure refferences that you wouldn't notice unless you were a historian or extremely well read on the subject matter.
This has been called the most accurate film representation of the arms, arrnor, and clothing of the period, as well. These guys really did know their stuff.
So a few points on the jokes.
The reason they didn't have horses is because they couldn't afford to buy and use horses for any of the shots, thus the whole thing with coconuts.
The reason the sorcerer is called Tim is because Cleese was supposed to say this really long and elaborate name, but on the day of the shoot, he forgot his line and instead said the Tim line, and everyone just rolled with it as they couldn't afford to re-shoot the scenes due to the pyro taking up so much budget (and they didn't have any spare film for the camera)
The ending, where they all get arrested, is quite literally a "cop out" ending.
And finally, the reason the screen is just black at the end of the movie... is because the people responsible for the credits were all fired at the start of the movie! XD
Interesting information, thank you.
@@ImadSul12 You're welcome. Funnily enough, that last one... I never actually knew about it until about a month ago, despite having watched the movie loads of times throughout my life. It never clicked until I saw someone reviewing it recently, and they pointed out the joke that there's no credits because those people were fired at the start of the movie XD
I'm pretty sure they left the "Tim" line in there because it was just funnier.
According to surviving scripts, "Tim" was always the enchanter's name. Cleese has publicly stated that they didn't improvise.
@@BYERE ...don't forget that those responsible for the sacking have been sacked & received nasti moose bites...from Ralph the wonder llama😁
I'm so old, I saw this in the theatre, on it's first run. The audience were in hysterics. It messed with the audience, because this was a time when movies actually had intermissions, so that intermission break really did have people getting up to go to the toilet, then seconds later hurrying back their seats, because the movie had started again. Happy times.
Thanks for pointing that out, because that joke is kind of ruined by the modern day experience of watching the film on a streaming service, where you can see the whole runtime at any point so you know the movie is almost over when the fake “intermission” screen comes up.
Man, I wish I could have been there. XD
That's funny 😂😂 I'm past 30 now but I've never experienced an intermission or knew about it like you explain
The joys of the intermission, having the ice cream lady or man enter, you could even buy cigarettes!! We nicknamed our local cinema the flea pit and it was a hole but it was our hole, sadly they bulldozed it to build a co op funeral place! The pa pa pa's we all used to sing when the movie started brings happy memories!!
I was born just a bit too late to see such legendary masterpiece in theaters, that must have been so crazy xD
"I fart in your general direction" IS one of the hardest lines in a movie
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries" which comes right after it is also perfection 😗👌
My favorite is the peasant rant: "You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
One note on the Tale of Sir Lancelot: For the repeated shots of Lancelot running in from the distance, he wasn't running in place or getting farther away; they just kept replaying the same footage of him running over and over. Incidentally, one of my favorite moments in the movie lol
"Lets not worry about who killed who ..."
I love how you think this needs actually to be explained, as if every human being on earth is stupid beyond belief
@@schnubbel76 I was explaining it because they seemed to be confused by whether or not he was actually supposed to be getting closer.
@@DavidEllis94 Not sure about that. They cant be that naive.
@@schnubbel76 At least, that's certainly the impression I got, if I'm remembering correctly. I don't generally assume that scene needs explaining, mind you, so something had to make me think someone wasn't getting it lol
For non-Python fans, you guys honestly got it.
If you know what I mean, ya know, ya know, say no more?
They didn’t get the riding the horses with the coconut sounds where it’s supposed to sound like someone riding a horse. They were taking it too seriously and saying that they looked silly. That was the point 😂
I prefer Javascript but this is gooood
@@MatchTerm nudge nudge, wink wink
@@PZMaTTy It's not too BASIC for you?
I love how the joke of the horse coconuts stemed from the fact that they actually couldn't afford horses
yeah apparently the pyrotechnics scene was too expensive so they ditched the horses. Legendary decision!
but they did afford a horse in the historian death scene
@@maulvimuhammadTo be fair, being able to afford just one horse is different from being able to afford five
@@maddieS117not to mention time is often a big factor too, you can only rent a horse for so many days with so much money
It didn't.
Here's some fun facts for you:
This movie is considered such a classic that many game developers have put references of this movie in their games. The game Worms W.M.D has the holy hand grenade as a useable weapon and in the game Minecraft you have a chance to come across a white, red eyed bunny that attacks you.
Edit: Also it's implied the historian that died during the filming was killed by someone not part of the movie as the killer was the only one with an actual horse while no one else during the film did. Which means he could still be out there...
The knight on the horse was the black knight's cousin called Reginald
Holy Hand Grenade was also a weapon option in the PS1 Duke Nukem game, A Time To Kill
In The Sims Medieval, one of the NPCs is Roger the Shrubber, and if you get wounded you can get a debuff called "'Tis but a flesh wound."
There's a special encounter in Fallout 2 where King Arthur and his knights appear (in Brotherhood of Steel powered armor), and they're searching for the Holy Hand Grenade.
There's also an encounter with the Bridge Keeper at the Bridge of Death. He'll ask you three questions, and if you answer wrong, you die. Get them all correct, and you are allowed to pass. Turn the last question around into a question for the Bridge Keeper, and HE'LL die, allowing you to take his robes as loot (they're as strong as combat armor).
The rabbit and the cave was also in the Witcher 3. There was a lot of bones outside a cave with a white rabbit sitting on them. The rabbit was invulnerable to sword attacks but could be killed by throwing a grenade at it.
i once interned at a funeral home (long story lol) but the employees always quoted the “bring out yer dead” part from this movie and it killed me every time😭
That's one way to liven things up around a funeral home.
@@WingZero172ba dum tss
That's so darkly humorous, yet poignant? 😆
I used to transport patients around the hospital and sometimes that included bringing bodies to the morgue. The first step was going down to the basement and getting a special gurney nicknamed the "Cadillac". I never said it out loud, but it was impossible not to think about Monty Python when I was pushing that thing to the deceased patient's room...
Putting the FUN back in funeral! 😂
I love the ending because it's like they were a bunch of crazy cosplayers who eventually got shut down at the end lol
The end is not only a "Cop out"... it is given its own backstory within the movie as its own subplot. The GENIUS of this film is still yet to be fully recognized.
It's such an underrated part of the movie frfr
Actually. The ending with them getting arrested wasn’t planned. They were actually getting arrested. They didn’t have the rights to film there. Haha
@@Alyssa-t Umm this IS sarcasm right? haha
@@filmsnat3428 actually no. From what I was told they were arrested cause they didn’t have the rights
@@Alyssa-t Yeah, and then they released that footage with the movie...
You're not very smart are you?
"i got better" is one of my favorite quick deadpan lines in a comedy, up there with "my father went the same way" in the naked gun.
When I was in high school my school did a production of Spamalot (this movie but with musical numbers and a few more characters). Right after the scene where Arthur fought The Black Knight the kid playing the latter looked down at what was left of his body and improvised the line “I wonder if Obamacare covers this.” I’ve never heard an audience laugh that hard 😂
That's fuckjng funny LMAO
*brilliant*
I think even the pythons would have been proud of that one.
This sounds like a r/thathappened
You're telling me an ENTIRE AUDIENCE went berserk over a sub-par joke?
@@BananaHoovyJ.Rabbit Translation: I have nothing better to do than krap all over someone's comment for no reason.
Watching Americans laugh so hard and appreciate classic British humour fills me with so much pride
This movie’s super popular in the US too, it’s quoted all the time
I was raised on British humor like Are you being served,Keeping up appearances, etc, and a little Irish with Father Ted .
@@YellowLantern18 Great shows! Have you seen As Time Goes By?
Holy Grail is my favorite comedy of all time. Probably my favorite movie of all time period
British humor is the best! Love from across the pond!
“Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?!”
To this day, my favourite line on any movie ever.
Even funnier in that coconuts do, in fact, migrate quite a lot. It's the reason the coconut tree is present pretty much everywhere.
I love the mild outrage in his voice on the word 'migrate.' As though the audacity of the suggestion is personally offensive.
It's actually an extremely esoteric movie. The boys really did their research.
Everybody always asks why a rabbit? Apart from being funny the white rabbit is the guardian of the cave that leads to the river Styx.
The movie is peppered with them, little old world nods to pre Christian beliefs.
Even the coconut gag.
Well basically all the main cast are Harvard and Yale graduates.
So it's not just dumb comedy, it extremely smart dumb comedy.
@@rayanderson5797 Camouflaged extremely well.
@@rayanderson5797 Oxford and Cambridge actually.
Also shouting “run away!”. Back then the language was pre-Saxon so French words were not in common usage, they would not have known/used “retreat” as it’s French. “Run away” would have been more linguistically accurate.
@@rayanderson5797 extremely smart dumb comedy is the best description of Monty Python I've ever heard!
I'm super glad you guys enjoyed this. A lot of people complain about the ending but I think it's perfect. I always interpreted the ending as revealing that the entire film takes place in modern day by a large LARPing crew that's way too into their roles.
It's a cop out.
@@Nabekukka some might say "a fair cop"
I'm pretty sure it's been said that they wanted to do a battle scene at the end but the cop thing was cheaper to film.
I think it's a creative way to end a troublesome movie production by making it funny, random and "f you" moments
@@NabekukkaI came here to say the same thing and I'm very disturbed by your pfp. This was not planned. This has been my pfp for 7 years
PSA: catapulting deceased (several days or weeks old) animals was sort of an "area denial" tactic during castle defense. The rotting corpses would split open upon landing, spreading foul odors, bodily ephemera, and disease.
It was also a way to get sources of disease out of the besieged castle.
And a nice way to show some creativity during a sometimes long slog of a siege. Maybe spice it up with a half dozen piglets on a chain or someting similarly festive
@@bencaspar Get help
@@NecramoniumVideo this is the youtube comment section, fool! If you think my comment was that bad maybe YOU should get some help. You certainly need some perspective. Lighten up!
@@bencaspar get help
Monty Python is a masterclass of “Never Let Them Guess Your Next Move”. You like to think you’re gonna see the punchline, but then it pulls something COMPLETELY different and completely unhinged out of their ass.
Like old style cartoons cause when you think you know punchlines a to c they pull punchline d out of nowhere
And now for something completely different
I love how when they met Tim the enchanter that was a blooper, the actor was meant to say some long crazy sounding name but when they went to film it he forgot and just adlibbed the name Tim that is part of why the pause before saying his name is so long lol
If you look in his eyes, you can see him thinking about it before deciding to go for it
Actually, that’s just a myth. John Cleese himself debunked it. He said that nothing on the screen was improvised, it was all in the script.
@@kathyastrom1315
Then again, the man knows how to cover his own ass 😂
"As long as it's funny, you can get away with anything in a movie"
That is so well put. If The Holy Grail wasn't funny, like if they tried to make it historical or a period drama, or even a bad comedy, it would be a disaster. And yet, it's regarded as a masterpiece in comedy. A true classic in every sense of the word.
Always loved how despite lancelot massacring the dancers doing that circle, the ones that survive are continuously trying to reform and continue the dance regardless.
As a note, coconut halves actually sound like horses' hoofs. Every time my mom would buy us coconuts, we would do this around the house because of this movie!!
God bless your mother. She raised you well. 🙏
They were used for sound effects for that reason since way before the movie and it's the reason they went with the coconuts when they couldn't afford the horses. That gag has so many layers while still being so basic that anyone can laugh at it. Truly brilliant.
Yep, and before television, coconuts were used for horse sound effects on radio shows, so hence running joke.
Every time you mentioned how much the cut back to the murder investigation was your favourite joke, I got more excited about the ending. It’s so left field
I saw this when it first came out back in the '70s ... in a double bill with Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles!
I could barely walk out of the cinema afterwards, my stomach ached so much from laughing 😂
So jealous. That had to be awesome
Me too, it was also the very first time I took a girl out on a date and learned that laughter makes us closer. At one point she was crying on my shoulder from the agony of laughing so much.
I feel like that combo would be deadlier than the Killer Joke! (Speaking of Monty Python!)
Due to both budget constraints and the fact that most castle owners didn't want anything to do with it, the various castles are mostly all the same castle shot from different angles.
If you go to that castle now, it's a tourist location. At the gift shop, if you feel so inclined, you can rent a pair of coconut half-shells so that you can go riding around the castle grounds.
OMG, what?! Which castle is it?
@@goingDutchn0n13 Doune Castle, Stirling, Scotland.
Castle Argggh is actually Castle Stalker on the west coast not Doune.
This was a great reaction, you both explained the ending the same way I do. They love adding a "fuck you" moment for the audience and will just change the narrative on a whim.
Thank you! It was a truly bizarre ending in the best way possible
@@NiceDudeMovieNight You're going to love Life of Brian, the next film they made
@@NiceDudeMovieNight You could say that the ending was a....😎 cop out.
@@NiceDudeMovieNight a " fuck you" ending is one way to call it, you could also see that as a literal copout ending.
I saw this movie for the first time when I was 14 years old and the ending passed me off. It wasn't until I started watching the reruns of their TV show that I understood: They would do the skit for as long as it was funny. If the bit was starting to become tired, they'd transition into Terry Gilliam's animation, which would be the bridge to the next skit.
I believe the Python's couldn't come up with an ending that they found funny enough, so they created this murder investigation and this "cop out" ending.
The coconut 🥥 bit was created out of necessity. They were operating on a shoestring budget and thus couldn't afford horses for the entire cast of characters. One of the Python's came up with the inspired concept and the crazy swallow routine.
The ending is literally a cop out which makes it my personal favourite joke payoff of all time 🤣
Most people miss that little fact!
OMFG its a COP out
I....don't have words........help.....
@@philrob1978 "cop out" is used to refer to ridiculous or lazy reasoning for events to go a certain way in a story.
The reason the movie suddenly ends can be seen as ridiculous as King Arthur is suddenly arrested by Cops (police/law enforcement) and makes the word play of "Cop Out"
My favorite of the Python cop-out endings was in the Flying Circus episode which ends in the Argument Clinic sketch. In that episode, every sketch ends with some special agent from a “film fraud” division of Scotland Yard showing up to arrest the fake director of that scene… until at the end of the Argument Clinic, another detective shows up and reads off a litany of charges against them. This includes the charge of not ending scenes with a proper punchline, citing that they’ve just been ending every scene by having the police show up… and then the cop realizing that he’s also a cop who arrived to end a sketch without a proper punchline, which causes a cop to appear to arrest him and then triggers what we assume to be an infinite stream of cops arresting other cops as the episode ends.
Brilliant stuff… 🤣
They also arrested the wrong people. The knight who kills the famous historian was riding on a horse, which is very much not a coconut.
For context, a shrubbery was an old reference to a prostitute. Thus Roger the Shrubber was a pimp and the hilarity of them getting a literal shrubbery is just classic.
I saw this movie in the 70's at a drive-in theater. I was laughing so hard I could hardly breath and had to turn around to catch my breath. I turned back around at the point when the monks were chanting and hitting themselves and immediately had to turn back around. I've never laughed so hard before or since. A true classic. So many quotable lines.
I originally saw this in the theater around 1976, and during the scene with the monks slapping their foreheads with wooden tablets ("ee--ay-es-u-dor-mi-nayyyy"), I found myself down on all fours on the sticky theater floor laughing so hard that I literally could not breathe.
As funny as the movie is, it's even better with a large audience.
You guys talked-through and missed a great line at 3:02. When still in the plague riddled town the king and Patsy "ride" by and the fella pushing the cart full of dead bodies (Eric Idle) says "That must be the king". When he is asked how does he know he replied "He hasn't got shit all over him".
In an overhead shot of the monks, you can see one of them hit himself out of unison with the others.
Actually, the monks are chanting "Pie Iesu Domine, Dona Eis Requiem", from a 13th century hymn. It translates to "Holy Jesus, Lord, grant them rest".
That line always gets me
In 1982, at the Southern California Renaissance Faire, a group of customers came in doing what we would now call cosplay as the monks, processing through the Faire chanting and bapping themselves. The cast was talking about them backstage all day. I'd say they were a big hit, but that would be a terrible pun, so I won't.
One of them became a regular cast member, and still participates as of 2022.
@@majkus That would have been a sight to see!
The animator who was at his desk, and keeled over with a heart attack, was indeed Terry Gilliam, who did all of Python's animation in the TV show, as well as their films. He also played Patsy the first coconut clapper, as well as the bridgekeeper.
As well as the Green Knight who got killed by the Black Knight and Sir Bors, the first knight who got killed by the rabbit.
Also co directed it with Terry Jones
And then directed Brazil, wrote the screen play for Fear and Loathing and quite a few other things. Terry is a very complicated man.
Fun fact: Tim the enchanter got his name because John Cleese forgot the line giving his name and said "Tim" instead, and the rest of the cast just rolled with it and never broke character. I think the name was supposed to be some long, ridiculous sounding name. Personally, I like "Tim" better, because the delivery is so much better. The hesitation before he says it, the slight questioning tone in his voice (is he even sure what people call him?), and the perfect punchline of a mundane name for an eccentric character.
I've read that this is just a rumor. Early scripts appear to show the enchanter named as "Tim," and Cleese has said there was no improvisation at all.
@@Chasmodius Yep. A lot of "fun facts" that you find in reaction comments are just myths that no one's bothered to think about.
"Tim the Enchanter" is my favorite character.
Another myth. The character is named Tim in the final draft of the script. It's one quick google away.
Fun Fact: his name being Tim IS the joke, because you expect some long unique name
I've seen this movie so many times, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it with you guys!
“My face hurts!” So happy to see you have this experience now and still enjoy it so much, I watched this movie so many times growing up and it never gets old
It's such a joy seeing people react to the Monty Python stuff and it still works exactly as it did in the 70s/80s, back when it was new. :D It IS some of the best comedy out there in movie form. ONly surpassed, perhaps, by Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Life of Brian is certainly on par, such a great movie. Wonderful seeing such joy watching this though!
I personally prefer this one, but it really is a toss-up between Grail and Life of Brian. Everyone likes both, some people just prefer one over the other.
I guess the difference between this movie and Life Of Brian is that Life Of Brian more has a story to it. It’s a good story. It makes fun of how Christianity started. It also had an ending.
PS: I've seen this movie ten thousand times. I NEVER noticed that the sun on Arthur's chest has a mustache on it. THANK YOU! This is why I love reaction videos. I never, ever noticed that. You guys are great!!!! I'm a happy subscriber!
Also, Sir Robin’s emblem is a chicken and he’s a coward.
Absolutely floored! Same! I grew up watching this sooo much. Didn’t catch either. Thank you, kind commenters. ❤
"Tis but a scratch!"
"A scratch!? Your arms off!"
"No, it isn't "
"Well, what's that?"
"I've had worse."
"You liar!"
"Come on, you pansy!"
What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!
@@NiceDudeMovieNight It was only a flesh wound...
@@NiceDudeMovieNight "I"M INVINCIBLE!"
16:02 TWANNNGGGG! "Message for you, Sir." - I had this as my SMS tone for quite a while a few years back :)
The part where it takes a billion cuts for Lancelot to just suddenly come up and start stabbing everyone kills me everytime, the first time I saw it I laughed for a solid 10 minutes cos it just took me off guard completely.
"This movie is shot really well!"
You should see what directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones can do with a budget. Monty Python goes on to make several more movies, and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie.
But it's when the Terry's came to Hollywood when they started creating their most iconic and epic work. Terry Jones directed the hysterical "Erik The Viking," with Tim Robbins and various Python members. Terry Gilliam's "Dream Trilogy" will melt your brain. "Time Bandits" "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is full of Pythonesque humor but will explode your mind with their brilliant visuals. He went on to make the popular hits "12 Monkeys" "The Fisher King" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Another forgotten Gilliam film is Jabberwocky. Though not an "official" Python project, it does feature a few of the Pythons including Michael Palin in the leasing role as Dennis.
"and there's a scene in the next one that cost as much as this whole movie."
Without looking it up and I'm not sure if Life of Brian is the next movie (but I guess it is), is it the alien one? xD
@@BestAnimeFreak SSSHHHH!!!
😉
I still have yet to get through adventures of baron munchausen.
Doctor Parnassus was a stellar film
Fear and loathing proved how well he can make a film adaptation of a literary work
@@kevinmi42 That's a good one and almost nobody remembers it despite being Heath Ledger's last movie and the star power that came together to finish it.
Give Baron M another shot. Maybe burn some mood-altering herbs first...
I absolutely adore peoples initial reactions to any Monty Python movie or sketch, its always hilarious, timeless classic
I just wanted to say I love editing skills: the close-ups and the captioning. Made the reaction even more enjoyable.
❤️❤️
Yes! The animates captions were amazing.
The fun thing about the witch scene, is her saying "There's a fair cop" which basically is "Yeah, alright. You got me."
Meaning that she really was a witch.
My husband showed me this movie the moment we subscribed on Netflix. I had never laughed so much in my entire life and I was so confused by the end until I realised that they fired the entire credits team so they can’t do the credits! Very clever humour.
Dudes....I was OBSESSED with Monthy Python as a teenager! Holy Grail, The meaning of Life and Life of Brian are 3 of my top tier comedy flicks of all time! there are scenes in each movie that still crack me up to this day like the sheer chaos of that intro scene, the whole discussion about coconuts, the citizens who are OPPRESSED!!!, the Black Knight fight or the sorcerer they call..................Tim
I also love the idea of "Here is a historian telling the story AND NOW HE´S GONE!" and how that essentially leads to the abrupt ending of the movie
Those just scream to me "What if we just go nuts and see what sticks in the editing room?"
I can only wonder what the editing room was like for this movie 😵💫
“…and it seemed to go wherever I…did go!”
Obsessed with the series and the films and taped them all off PBS before owning them on VHS and later DVD. Grail is still my all-time favorite comedy.
I'm 50 and they're still my go to laugh...
My history teacher in highschool showed us this movie, wasn't even part of our lesson he just wanted us to see it. I'm so glad for it though he introduced me to something that I would reference to this day, I genuinely say "I fart in your general direction" with a stupid french accent anytime I can.
Hey guys! Another great reaction! Python is always an interesting test of a person's sense of humour because Python is a particular brand of humour that is unique to them, and it is certainly not for all tastes. The way that they mix heady, intellectual humor with just plain silliness is unmatched. By the bye, the idea of the "French Taunter" (I wave my private parts at your aunties!) is actually based on historical fact. Armies often would taunt each other in this way as a part of warfare in the middle ages. Indeed, a lot of the brilliance of this film is how they use historical research as the core of what they are doing and then twist that in a hundred different ways.
As a preview for Life of Brian (my favourite of their films, and their best film), it first came to them when a reported asked Eric Idle what the title of their next film would be, and he replied, "Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory." Also, the film was banned in several American cities and in several countries around the world. So you have that to look forward to!!
It's definitely on the list for us! Thanks for watching 🎉
I love that the Battle of Badon Hill is mentioned. The name Arthur didn't pop up in history until after that battle, so it's theorized that he was a British warlord that pushed back the Saxons (for a little while at least) and gained enough fame that people started naming their children after him.
He knew that the Original Title of Patton was "Patton : Lust for Glory"! When I saw it in London that was the Title that appeared on Screen!
@@chairmanofthebored6860 There is quite a few theories to who he was (Or based on)
The two main ones being a Brythonic Warlord or that or this Roman general fella
I love how layered their humor is. One example: I didn't know until years later that "your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries" was a much more elegant way of calling his mother a slut and his father a drunk.
The singing and dancing knights in Camelot were intended to spoof the musical "Camelot," which was also a movie, and gave the name to the Kennedy Administration. Also, the opening credits were a direct spoof of the opening credits of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," which were in Swedish with English subtitles at the bottom.
I remember a random fact about the musical score in the movie.
"Serious" or classical type music had never been used before (or was known to have been) in comedy movies before, so that part is highly experimental. It worked out well!
(The animation stuff of course also being a staple of Monty Python)
7:19 - The cartoons that are in the film were done by one of the main members of the Monty Python group, Terry Gilliam. In fact, Terry was responsible for all animation work throughout the Monty Python show and films. Terry was also the co-director for the film as well.
Gilliam is also the lone American in the troupe. He turned out to be absolutely integral to the look and style of the original TV program. But he didn’t get much in the way of speaking parts. I wager he was fine with that since his talents lay in art and directing. He also turned out to be quite the talented producer and director. His films range from the Python Films to completely original and well acclaimed works like 12 Monkeys and Brazil.
And he's Patsy, isn't he?
The cartoon bits were all a part of the culture if the time. The Beatles had animated films like this. Psychedelic drug-inspired imagery.
It’s amazing how much comedy today is inspired from Monty Python. Deadpool’s credits and the fight with colossus was clearly inspired from this movie and that’s just one example. Unlike many comedies that came after they used more comedic techniques than just dialogue such as the Lancelot running scene, however techniques like that are mostly used in animation now. It’s amazing how much of comedy was shaped by this movie.
Fantastic reaction. Welcome to the insane world of Monty Python.
Thank you and we're definitely happy to be here haha
I was new in the office and the secretary had this laptop just sitting closed on a nearby chair. I asked her what was the matter with it? She said "It's dead." I don't know why but I replied "No, it's just pining." She immediately shot back "It's pining for the fjords of Norway!" We Found we both have brothers....
Fun fact about the monks, they're chanting “Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem,” which translates to "Merciful Lord Jesus Christ, grant them rest". Or in other words "Jesus Christ make it stop,".
Fun fact: the “Bring out your dead” bit is a real thing that happened during the Black Plague. Not sure if there were people saying “I’m not dead” and subsequently killed, but hey, it’s possible.
The animated bits were already a big thing in the TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus - they're created by the one American member of the Pythons, famous director Terry Gilliam. (Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, Münchhausen...)
A truly brilliant multi-talented artist.
Like the rest of the movie, some of the animations are historical references. The men bending over with trumpets against their anus were found as marginalia in medieval manuscripts; the monks and nuns who worked as copyists amused themselves by drawing often-scatological cartoons on the edges of the parchment, but the drawings also served as a commentary on the adjacent text. A fart joke might indicate criticism of a bad character.
The movie was directed by two members of the Python team; Terry Gilliam is the one who went on to acclaim, and you can tell when he's directing, due to atmospheric use of smoke, lots of set dressing in shot, unusual angles and use of wide angle lenses. Gilliam also did the animations. His first solo movie, Jabberwocky, also had a medieval setting, and is definitely worth watching. Also, did you notice that all six Python members were playing multiple parts throughout the film?
Comedy albums were big in the 1970s, and Monty Python put out a number of them, including a "soundtrack" of Holy Grail. The gimmick is that it is supposedly a live recording of a showing of the movie; it includes scenes from the film but also additional sketches. You can find playlists of the complete record on TH-cam.
And another thing! Technically the first Monty Python movie is "And now for something completely different", for which they redid some of the best sketches from their TV show, but this time in widescreen and on film.
Terry Jones was the co-director. He became known in his post-Python career as the creator and host of history documentaries, mostly in the medieval period. He had gotten his master’s degree in English literature with a dissertation on Chaucer’s knight (which he published and I’ve read-it’s quite good!). I especially like his miniseries on the Crusades.
@@kathyastrom1315 I'm still peeved that that Chaucer jerk hasn't finished "The Canterbury Tales" yet..
I remember going to a local movie theater for a rerun in the late 1980s with a girl I had a crush on, and we also took her younger sister along. And, while I was laughing SO hard, the girls were just totally confused with what was going on onscreen... Taught me that the woman I wanted to spend my life with needed to have a sense of humour similar to mine!
What you said at the end is exactly right - this is the perfect movie to watch when you don't want to have to think about a plot, you just want to laugh and have a good time.
"And spank me!" - "And Me - and me!" - / "Well I guess I could stay a little bit longer".
I watched this movie as a 14yo kid in the 80s. I didn't get half of it but laughed just as much as you guys did. Watching it again with you, now, as a 56yo kid who gets it, I'm laughing even more. Thanks guys
Seeing these reactions to a movie I love bring me such joy. It just shows that the humor is ageless.
"that is the dumbest fight i have ever seen"
honestly that can be used for pretty much anything in monty python like
monthy pyton is just one big scramble of
"that is the dumbest" insert situation "thing i have ever seen " XD and i love it
I was 8 or 9 when my parents showed me this movie for the first time. I remember being SO pissed off at the ending, haha, i was so invested in the battle i wanted to see him get that damn Grail! And my parents were just laughing haha. Can't count how many times I've rewatched this movie since, it's always a joy to see someone else experience it for the first time!
There's no credits at the end because they fired everyone in charge of credits at the beginning.
As someone who's watched this film more times than I can count, it's so great to see your reactions. Like seeing it through fresh eyes.
This is absolutely my favourite Monty Python reaction ever. I got a box set of the MP films for my 12th birthday (17 years ago!) and I remember crying laughing at those moose jokes in the opening credits!
Had to return to the theater over and over to get the jokes because of the continuous laughter. Can you imagine full grown Army soldiers having this entire running dialogue memorized? True Story. The animals and heavy objects were flung by Trebuchets, a type of catapult.
The holy greande of Antioch is what Worms games is using one of the iconic weapons based on that reference.
I played "Worms: Armageddon" on the N64 with my friends in high school (the same ones who introduced me to this movie, now that I think about it), and before a player selected the holy handgrenade to use, someone would either quote some of the instructions or try to throw off the player by going "1, 2, 5" "Three, sir!" while they aimed.
Now I wanna go play again... hmm...
As I get older, it warms my heart to watch younger people laugh at the stuff I laughed at when I was a kid.
18:53
His name was improvised.
His character was originally supposed to have a long, complicated name, but the actor forgot, so he just called himself Tim.
The director thought it was so funny, they changed the script to call him Tim.
This proves just how ahead of the times the sketch was imo.. it's utter genius
0:12 are you telling me John Cleese is in a Monty Python film? What's next? Clarke Kent is really Superman in disguise?
My parents introduced me to Monty Python and I instantly feel in love with the group and their movies, they're actually pretty deep at times even though they seem extremly shallow at first. Glad to see you also did the life of brian :)
Edit: I would have loved to experience these in theatre, unfortunately the movie is as twice as old
It's "their" movies as they were a group not a single person :)
@@k_t_a66 oh thank you of course, idk why I have mistaken the group for one single person or a regisseur
Monty Python just goes to show what five British transvestites and one American illustrator can accomplish when they really put their minds to it. Filmed on location in Scotland.
This is my absolute favorite movie ever. Seen it easily over 50x, no exaggeration.
"I just don't know what to expect." And that's when the choir shoved trumpets up their butts.
The accidental, utterly stupid comedic timing on that is perfectly Monty Python.
The whole movie was shot with a shoestring budget, thus coconuts instead of horses, knitted sweaters with paint rather then real chainmail and the ending were all got arrested was because they had run out of money for a big battle. Imho, that makes it even funnier.
A fun thing about the Black Knight is he's played by two actors. In the scene where's he's down to one leg, he is actually played by a one legged man! For all the other scenes he's played by John Cleese. This is cause Cleese just could not balance well on one leg. So they got a one legged local man.
Also on the DVD there's a subtitle track you can turn on for shits and giggles called "Subtitles For People Who Don’t Like The Film" and, it's just lines from Henry IV Part 2(the Shakespeare play), but cherry picked to mostly match what is on screen.
Fun fact. The movie was financed by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the movie's co-producer Michael White, a cricket team, and three record companies.
Watching you guys experience this classic for the first time is great... and the editing is also wonderful! Great work!
As a huge Python fan who’s seen both the film and the musical numerous times, it is such a delight to see your first reactions to this. It’s such a fun journey.
The spamalot musical reference reminded me that the term spam comes from a monty python TV sketch where the only thing on the cafe menu is spam. Not just once but spam with spam or spam with spam and more spam and it just goes on and on.
4:00 The heraldic symbol on the black knights tunic is a wild boar which is a very fitting symbol as its an animal famous for ignoring lethal injuries and fighting on regardless of how badly hurt it is, it's that tenacious that in medieval times they developed a special spear for hunting wild boar, the aptly named Boar Spear had horizontal lugs just below the spearhead to stop an impaled boar from running up the length of the spear and continuing to attack.
One of, if not the, funniest movies all time. I watched it for the first time with my dad back in the early 90's. He was a fan of dry British humor, as was his father. Both of them are sadly no longer with us, but I think they both would have appreciated your genuine joy watching this fantastic movie. For me this was like watching it for the first time again. Thank you very much for your channel, and please keep it up.
Its genuinely nice to see someone experience this film for the first time and the joy it brings, it's kinda like seeing someone's first time watching Fight Club cuz they don't know the twist yet.
So happy you did this, I love watching fresh victims fall prey to Holy Grail's ending! DEFINITELY check out Life of Brian if you haven't already - it's a bit more of a coherent movie but it's just as funny!
It's so hard to find anyone in the English speaking world who doesn't already know this film and can recite half of it from memory. Oh no, I said IT again....
Watching this as a child definitely shaped what I consider humorous, always loved the Monty Python stuff. Glad to see you guys enjoyed it so much
Love that they use coconuts because they couldnt actually afford Horses, it really adds to the movie so much, same with the fact that they just get arrested in the end. They really just didnt have the budget for horses, and just ended the movie like that for the same reason, or so Ive read.
I love pretty much every joke in this movie, but I love how it ends as a literal cop-out the most. It's why they did all of the credits at the start instead of at the end like most movies.
Well that, and they already fired the credits making people at the beginning of the movie.
Historically, movies usually (almost always) had the credits at the beginning, as in this film. You can see this in The Wizard of Oz, for example. It wasn't until the 70s into the 80s that movies switched to putting the credits at the end.
Gauging by your taste in movies from past reactions I suspect you guys would really enjoy one of my favorites of all time: The Dish (2000) is an Australian comedy drama that didn’t see a huge worldwide release but is an absolutely great little gem of a film. It’s very loosely based on real events surrounding a satellite dish crew that played a key role in the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, but the real fun is all the zany characters and fictional plot that it’s wrapped in.
Yes that’s an amazing movie. I’ve never seen a reactor do it. I used to watch that once a week for a few years after it hit video, I love it so much.
@@siraea89 I recognized Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton as actors from other worldwide A-list films, but I don’t watch enough local Australian stuff to have recognized any of the rest of the actors.
I remember my sister watching this for the first time and she wasn't interested. But at the end she shouted "that's it?! That's how it ends?!" 😂
2:06 According to Eric Idle, he stated that the film had a very low budget meaning that they couldn’t afford any horses at all for the entire film, so they thought it would be funny to have the coconuts clapping while the characters pretend that they’re riding a horse.
The story of the coconuts is that hiring a horse trainer, renting acting horses, and having feed and shelter for horses for filming is incredibly expensive, so they said "Fuck that, just clank some coconuts together to make it sound like hooves."