Monty Python and The Holy Grail 2 Disc DVD

Anyone who bothers pressing the audio commentary option will know just how seductive this new media is as actors and directors tell you all about their experiences in making your favourite movies.

If you have never seen this or any of the brilliant Python trilogy that slightly tailed of with ‘The Meaning of Life’ then you really need to as they are undoubtedly some the funniest movies ever made. If you didn’t ...
...to number three in the BBC`s all time top one hundred sitcoms.

Ok you need a bit of brain power to get the more cerebral references and subtle gags but the visual humour alone pretty much had everyone rolling in the aisles when the likes of The Grail and the even better ‘Life of Brian’ packed the cinemas with their naughty and provocative humour.

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Anyone who bothers pressing the audio commentary option will know just how seductive this new media is as actors and directors tell you all about their experiences in making your favourite movies.

If you have never seen this or any of the brilliant Python trilogy that slightly tailed of with ‘The Meaning of Life’ then you really need to as they are undoubtedly some the funniest movies ever made. If you didn’t like this then you probably voted ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ to number three in the BBC`s all time top one hundred sitcoms.

Ok you need a bit of brain power to get the more cerebral references and subtle gags but the visual humour alone pretty much had everyone rolling in the aisles when the likes of The Grail and the even better ‘Life of Brian’ packed the cinemas with their naughty and provocative humour.

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A Brief overview of the Holy Grail………
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Its 979 AD!, which director Terry Jones, in one of the two audio commentary options, insists is three hundred years earlier than the actual period the movie is dressed in. He is a sucker for detail and feels you need to know that there were no medieval types around in 979 AD.
Five of those gallant Knights who meet up and head to Camelot have taken up the quest to find the Holy Grail, a fictitious cup that an apparently once contained the blood of Christ!.
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“On second thoughts lets not go to Camelot, it’s a silly place”
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On their trails they will fight many battles and faces mysterious wizards and knights that go ’Ni’, blocking their mighty quest for the cup of Christ. Gallant Sir Lancelot (Michael Palin), will be laid low by young virgins demanding oral sex, whilst King Arthur does battle with the Black Knight and the protestors of the ‘shrubbery’!
Some will fall at the bridge of death, the films most hilarious sketch, whilst others will do battle with the smelly French!.

As they near the final showdown at the ‘Castle of Arghh’,(Currently owned by a Surrey solicitor) only two proud knights will live to see the end of the movie, before being arrested by the Scottish constabulary. You really have to see the funniest ending to a film ever to believe it.

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DVD EXTRAS DISC 1
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Silliness’ is the order of the day as the first disc is essentially a lot of crap to pad out the gaps, im sure an ironic joke by the Pythons; to make it look like theirs more than there is. A common trick played by film studios to justify the extra ‘tenner’ for these double disc jobs.
You can learn the financial secrets of the ‘accountants version’ when pressing start’, hence uncovering cheap photos of some important bits of paper!. Or you can play ‘press the killer rabbit’ nonsense option, which when prompted gives you the option to insert” Disc 9” for additional extras, ho ho.

There’s more fillers to make the new 2001 DVD look busier than the previous 1997 version, so hard core fans will buy it all over. The pythons of course no this and love to make the most of it like the taunting Frenchmen throughout!.
Apparently in real life the French Medieval soldiers would deploy’ taunters, men dispatched to the front lines, to take the piss of the enemy, hence inviting them to attack early. You learn something new everyday with these guys!. Although there were no mentions of ‘elderberries’ I believe…..

There’s segmented sing alongs from the movie as an option to bulk things up even more or the far more enjoyable and interesting ‘locations short. In this we see present day Palin and Jones go back to the place they filmed this wonderful movie, armed with a lap top and DVD screen player, showing the clips in the actual spots they filmed it.

Its fascinating stuff as the two explain how the budget of a mere £200,000,donated by mostly rock stars from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, who could see what they were doing, was carefully cannibalised to get it in the can.
They explain and demonstrate how the obscure castle they chose for the centre piece doubled internally for many of the films main scenes. How all of the cast and crew played multiple roles that would see the soundman turn up as a century or the man assigned to make the music for the film playing a monk handing over the ‘Holy Hand Grenade!.

A week before filming was to commence the Glen Coe tourist board pulled out of letting them shoot at their preferred castle because they felt the Pythons would somehow demean their heritage. Terry Jones of course loved that irony in that castles were of course nasty places were boiling oil and all manner of things were tipped down the necks of anyone uninvited.
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DISC 2
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This of course has the movie on it and the two audio commentary options of –Palin, Cleese and Eric Idle, eulogising with wit and honesty on top or the more technical option of co directors, Jones and Guillian.
Both are hilarious as we are given plenty of musings and titbits scene by scene, with no real sense of smug intellectualisms the Pythons seemed to avoid.. Their boyish enthusing and chuckles at little in-jokes and behind the scenes things we the viewer would be oblivious to is really engaging stuff as all is revealed.

For instance when John Cleeses, ’Black Knight’ gets his leg hacked of by Graham Chapman’s wonderful interpretation of a very English’ King Arthur’ ,Basil Fawlty was replaced by a one legged jeweller from Ipswich to give the scene more authenticity.

We also learn that just about everyone on screen is an unpaid actor and the final siege of the castle is carried out by 200 Stirling University students, sure to be some of the first people to purchase this excellent DVD. Maybe you were unaware that the God cartoon figure that confronts our intrepid Knights mid-movie is based on the famous cricketer,’W-G Grace’.
Maybe you would be intrigued to know that anything that didn’t quite work on location was re-shot on Hampstead Heath, just ten minutes from Terry Gillian’s London home.

Yet more pointless clutter litters the second disc with an assortment of trailers, mostly in Japanese. “Python Artefacts”, which is more silliness or the shortened ‘Lego’ version of the Holy Grail for the kids.
A real time Michael Palin little piece about the use of coconuts is by far the worse extra here.

My personal favourite here was the original 1974 BBC documentary called ‘Film Knight’, where we see the fresh faced Pythons on location for the ‘Grail’. The geeky nature of the boys really comes through as does that bright eyed under graduate humour that we know see in ‘The League of Gentleman’ boys on BBC2 in the new generation hybrids.
Seeing Eric Idle larking around you can see where the cheeky star of Starsky & Hutch’s, Owen Wilson got his act.

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The Result
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Some say the Beatles were the most significant group to come out of England. I beg to differ and say the Pythons did more to emphasise this countries eccentric and innovative emotions and culture than any bland over rated boy band.
So intelligent and unlike anything else where the whacky mix of Oxbridge graduates and that American that they have done more than anyone, bar Mel Brooks, to move comedy away from the predictable Hollywood fair.

It’s yet again an example of that elite and intelligent gaggle of Oxbridge graduates, who have always had the time to ponder their unique comedy under those dreamy spires, before being quickly streamlined into the BBC.A formula that has worked so well from ‘This was the Week that Was’ with David Frost’s mob in the 60`s at the birth of TV to the modern Day ‘Blackadder’ team of Richard Curtis’s and co.

The Pythons had that luxury and want to take the piss of their formulaic middle class up bringings and did so with great gusto and enthusiasm. The rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge seemed to leek into the group as they paired of to an Oxford Group and a Cambridge one, with the American in the middle somewhere.
The absurdity of religion was a particular target for the guys who were bought up on the bizarre rituals of Public School and going to church as kids.

Terry Jones tells a wonderful story of how Americans embraced their unique sense of humour during a big Gridiron match between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings.
As the team gathered in the huddle to discus and execute the play, the quarter back looked at his receiver and said”Run awayyyyyyy”!.

A bizarre scene at the ‘Castle Anthrax’! , encapsulating the more disturbing gap between American and British humour when it comes to irony as Terry Jones and Michael Palin are taping the ‘locations’ segment of this DVD.
The surreal sight of the two turning up at an obscure Scottish castle gift shop, made famous by the movie, and the reason that most people go visit it, confronting a bemused American tourist will make you cringe.
“Hey! your the guys from the film.’Oh My God’. I cant believe it!: Do you live here then, are you here all the time: Is that your house”……... You just can’t make it up with Americans, you really can’t…….

When the filmed premiered in the States the hilarious and obscure opening credits, penned by Palin, involving an old Black and White ‘Bob Monkhouse’ film reel being put on instead of ‘The Holy Grail’ joke; went right over the audience’s heads. Just as the Nordic subtitles and flashing Mexican credits sent many into epileptic fits, there was a fire alarm in the cinema, which meant the theatre had to be emptied.

The assembled audience loved it and thought the siren was part of the premier, spreading mass confusion and brevity through out. If the ‘Pythons’ hadn’t had arrived before with their unique brand of collegiate and anarchic humour than they had now!.

The cave of the ‘killer bunny’ is relocated as the two enthusiastically and with plenty of sentiment recall their early days of film making up in the mystical Scottish mountains. The ‘Bridge of Death’, a real construction, bought more vivid recollections as Palin and Jones both admitted that everyone but Gilliam had doubles to cross the precarious and rickety structure…….

If you’re a fan of the Pythons there’s hours of fun here as you can watch he film three times over with the assorted and entertaining audio commentaries. The extras are a mixed bunch and more about flogging the format over and over than anything new and original.
This would still make a cracking birthday gift and can always be left on your DVD rack in prominent position, ready to entertain friends as we can endlessly revisit the wonderful and silly comic world of the Pythons!.

 

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