20 Movies: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

From out of the mists of time and legend comes... Arthur, King of the Britons, along with his faithful knights of Camelot, takes up the quest for the Holy Grail, bravely (for the most part) facing a wide array of horrors along the way, including a persistent Black Knight, a rather demanding three-headed giant, a local wedding, a house of lusty virgins, some very rude Frenchman, the violence inherent in the system, and a particularly vicious rabbit, all while they are being investigated by the police for the crime of murdering a famous historian.

I'm posting about 20 specific movies because of a social media trend-game. The idea was that you choose 20 movies that greatly influenced you, and then you post the poster of each one, one per day, for 20 days. No reviews, no explanations, just the posters. So, I’m doing that.

But I also wanted to talk about them a little bit, so...

In a nutshell, this is one of the funniest movies ever made. 12 year old boys are helpless before its raw comedic power. And I should know, as I was once a 12 year boy myself, and now here I am, nearly a nearly 50 year old boy with a French guard standing watch on my desk.

Also, a good decade after first seeing the film, I was walking across the big lawn at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and out of the blue, I suddenly realized what the French guard meant when he said: “You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng, you and all your silly English Ka-Nig-its!" For years, I was like... why Ka-Nig-it? I mean, it sounds funny, sure, but I don't get it. And then one day, like a bolt from a clear blue sky, I suddenly understood...

Y’see, he’s French, so he’s pronouncing the “K” in Knight.

When I realized this, I stopped dead-center in the middle of the lawn at CU Boulder, surrounded by frisbee guys and hacky-sack guys and hippies, and looked out toward the Flatirons, and said… “Oooooo… Ka-Nig-its… Knights...” and then laughed out loud. Truly, it's a film that keeps on giving.

So, it makes sense that it would appear as the sixth entry on my my list...

In the year 932 CE, King Arthur, along with his faithful squire, Patsy, travel the width of breadth of Britain... on horses... searching for valiant knights who will join him as his Knights of the Round Table.

Along the way, Arthur finds himself debating whether or not swallows, regardless of their geographical origins, could actually carry coconuts. He also passes through a town that has rejected witchcraft and superstitions and has fully embraced the wonders of science. He then finds himself recounting how he received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake to two anarcho-syndicalist peasants. After that, he goes on to defeat a Black Knight in single combat, a difficult feat indeead, as the Black Knight is a warrior who is more than willing to ingnore a few paltry flesh wounds.

Eventually, he is charged by God himself with the quest to find the Holy Grail.

To aid him in this quest, Arthur recruits Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, and the aptly named, Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film. Along with their squires and Robin's minstrels, Arthur leads his knights to the castle of Camelot, but discovers that not only is it a model, but it is also a silly place, and so Arthur and his knights ride away... on their horses.

Arthur and his knights then arrive at a castle occupied by French soldiers.

The French guard taunts the Britons, claiming to already have a Holy Grail and that is “very nice,” before forcing Arthur and the others to run away with a barrage of barnyard animals, including a cow, which kills an unfortunate squire. Bedevere concocts a plan to sneak into the castle using a Trojan Rabbit, but the plan’s fatal flaw is revealed when they realize that they should have been inside the rabbit. The knights are once again forced to run away when the rabbit is flung back over the castle walls at them. Defeated, dejected, their egos bruised and stinging from the vicious French taunting, Arthur decides that he and the other knights should all go their separate ways to search for the Grail.

Meanwhile, a famous historian is discussing Arthurian legend, when he is killed by an unknown knight on horseback, triggering a police investigation.

Having split his forces, but hopelessly lost, Arthur and Sir Bedevere are first given directions by an old man, only to find themselves having to satisfy the landscaping needs of the dreaded threat of the Knights Who Say "Ni!" Luckily, that old man they had previously encountered is a shubberist. His name? Roger the Shrubber. Yes, shrubberies are his trade. He arranges, designs, and sells shrubberies.

Meanwhile, Sir Robin, who had nearly fought the Dragon of Agnor, had nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill, manages to avoid a fight with a massive Three-Headed Knight by slipping away while the heads are arguing amongst themselves, much to the disappointment of his minstrels.

It is at this point that Sir Galahad is led by a grail-shaped beacon to the Castle Anthrax. The castle is occupied exclusively by young women, and they are led by twin sisters Zoot and Dingo. There is no grail in the castle, only a grail-shaped beacon, and so, the women all wish to be punished for misleading Galahad, the chaste and the pure, preferably by spankings, lots of spanking. But before he can mete out their well-deserved punishments, he is rescued by Lancelot.

Lancelot, meanwhile, had been busy showing off his incredible horsemanship... upon his horse... to his eager squire, when he suddenly receives a note attached to an arrow, shot from the nearby Swamp Castle, that he finds sticking out of his squire’s chest. Believing the note to be from a lady in peril of being forced to marry against her will, Lancelot storms the castle and slaughters several members of the wedding party, only to discover that the note is actually from a prince, at which point, he profusely apologizes to the groom’s father for killing so many of the wedding's guests.

And thus, do our heroes’ various quests then lead them back to one another once again. Arthur and his knights regroup, and are joined by Brother Maynard and his monk brethren, as well as three new knights: Bors, Gawain, and Ector.

There was much rejoicing.

But soon enough, Arthur and his knights cross paths with the powerful and impressive Enchanter, Tim, who directs them to a cave where legend has it, the location of the Grail is said to be written. Unfortunately, the entrance to the cave is guarded by the Rabbit of Caerbannog. Despite appearances, and a reputation scary enough to make a brave knight soil their armor, this is no ordinary rabbit. It’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent that you could ever set eyes on, with a vicious streak a mile wide. It's a killer, who can leap about! Look at all the bones that surrounds him!

Underestimating the beast, the knights dismount from their horses and attack, and the Rabbit easily kills Bors, Gawain and Ector.

The Knights are forced to run away.

Arthur must use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, a relic provided by Brother Maynard, to destroy the creature. Counting to five, Arthur hurls the grenade, and the vicious Rabbit of Caerbannog is defeated.

Inside the cave, Arthur and the knights find an inscription from Joseph of Arimathea, directing them to Castle Aarrgh. After some discussion on whether or not Aarrgh is the actual name of the castle, or if Joseph of Arimathea was actually devoured while chiseling the inscription, and how silly that would be for him to keep chiseling while being devoured, the knights are suddenly set upon by an animated monster. Arthur and his knights only manage to escape the monster after the animator luckily suffers an unexpected and fatal heart attack.

Finally, the knights approach the Bridge of Death, where the bridge-keeper demands they answer three extremely difficult questions in order to pass, or else they will be cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. Lancelot answers easily, and so he crosses the bridge. An emboldened Robin is defeated by an unexpectedly difficult question, and an indecisive Galahad fails an easy one. Both are flung into the void. But then, calling back to an earlier discussion in the film, Arthur asks for some clarification on the geographical origin of the unladen swallow in question, before he can determine its airspeed, and when the bridge-keeper cannot answer, he is flung off into the gorge.

Once across, Arthur and Bedevere cannot find Lancelot at all. They are unaware that he has been arrested by the police investigating the famous historian's death. Alone, the pair trudge on across the marshlands, and finally reach Castle Aarrgh, only to find that it is occupied by the same French soldiers from earlier in the film.

After being repelled by the frenchman's flung poop, and just plain frustrated by the sheer aggrivation of having to deal with the French yet again, Arthur summons an army to assault the castle. But as the army charges, the police arrive. Arthur and Bedevere are arrested on suspicion of the murder of the historian, and of course, the cops break the camera, which abruptly ends the film.

This is a movie that leads you to your people, because you either understand that it's one of the funniest things ever... or you don't, and more's the pity to you poor, wretched creatures who don't.

Absurd, silly, and filmed from a pittance by a bunch of dudes out for a lark with a camera, as evidenced by the wool rings in the chain mail, the very real mud they all slog through, and of course, the coconuts in lieu of the actual horses they couldn't afford, this is most definitely a movie that plays best to an eager crowd.

This is also the type of film where almost all of the side characters stand out, and have the best and the most quotable lines, but watching it now, it's clear that it's Graham Chapman, as the straight-laced and self-serious straightman, King Arthur, around whom all this lunacy revolves, is the one who truly carries the film. I mean, the way, during the witch's trial (a scene that is both incredibly funny and also a clear commentary on the absurdity of religion), that he lifts his chin and answers Sir Bedevere's question of what also floats in water, in a clear voice that rings out: "A duck!" just kills me.

Although, when John Cleese, as the French guard, leans back from the parapet to whisper an aside to his fellow guards, who are crouched down there, that he had just told Arthur and his knights that they've already got a Holy Grail, and then the other French guards all snicker wildly... that's my favorite part.

All art is political, of course, the very act of making art is a political statement, and this film is no different, as it also contains a few valuable truths too. While these truths might be a metphor, they are still ones that are relevant to our own modern day society. Like the fact that strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government, and that supreme executive power should derive from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony, and that you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. But apparently, the days where a person would be put away if they were to go around saying they're emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at them are long gone. Of course, if you bring that kind of thing up now, well, that's when you see the violence inherent in the system, right?

From the story of a sister who was once bitten by a moose, to the sudden pleasant musak of the end credits, this film is a delight. A pure delight, and maybe that's what we all need in these now dark days we find ourselves in, maybe we could all use a good laugh at some absurb shit.

A charming, riotously funny, and singular work, Monty Python and the Holy Grail will deliver just that for you.