Monty Python & The Holy Grail

MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) Cert 12A
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin. Directed by Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones (1h 32m)

Purists might argue over the respective merits of the Monty Python movies, but for our money Holy Grail is, for sheer lunacy and imaginative daring, their crowning achievement. The full Monty if you like. It remains arguably the most gloriously silly and inventive comedy ever to grace the silver screen, a sublime send-up of medieval history and the legend of King Arthur that manages to be as intellectually sharp as it is hilarious. The Life Of Brian five years later enjoyed a significantly bigger budget but it's the rougher edges of Holy Grail that are among its greatest pleasures. Not just the far more explicit comedy violence -- "It's only a scratch" "A scratch? Your arm's off." -- but the way in which the film makes an absolute virtue of its minuscule budget, from clapping coconut shells instead of real horses to cut-out castles and greater use of Terry Gilliam's wonderful animations to link individual sequences. Yet even with limited cash to spend, co-directors Gilliam and Terry Jones make exceptional use of several sumptuous locations -- not all the castles are cut-outs -- and the cinematography is often gorgeous. And let's not forget the gags: "She turned me into a newt!" "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" "I'm not dead" "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" "We are the Knights who say 'Ni'!" "I just want to sing!". Ah! Pure pleasure!