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Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): 40 Years of Arthurian Craziness

Inquisitionist

By Inquisitionist
in Movies

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Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

It has been 40 years since the release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 2015.  Time to break out your coconuts and share your favorite quotations/scenes/memories of this inspired lunacy. The surviving troupe members will attend a Tribeca screening tonight.  They got into the spirit by hijacking The Tonight Show yesterday.

 

As for me, well, I'm not dead yet!

supposebly

supposebly

I still remember the first time I saw it. I had no idea what it was about, I knew Life of Brian, so there it is, first scene, sunrise, rider slowly appearing over the hill, I hear horse hooves, and then, me, not quite trusting my eyes. What the hell? Is he knocking coconuts together?

I saw it in Germany and the title in German is: Knights of the coconut. I should have known.

I laugh at the whole thing every time when they come bouncing over the hill.

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Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

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(edited)

About 20 years ago, we had some friends visiting for a few days with their sons.  The youngest, about 5, asked if we had any video games he could play on the computer in my office, where he was relegated to sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag.  The only thing I had was a Monty Python Holy Grail CD, which I used to play a bizarre form of Tetris where the "blocks" were corpses, one of whom wasn't quite dead yet, which would throw off your gaming plans.  So I loaded that up for him, and he seemed happy.  The next day at breakfast, he said he'd found some other games to play, and he really like the one where he had to spank the ladies' bottoms.  His parents and I looked at each other across the table, stunned, and said "what????"  Turns out there was a "Spank the Virgins" game on the CD which I hadn't found that was sort of like whack-a-mole except that cartoonish bare bottoms would pop up and you'd have to spank them for points.  Fortunately, he was still too young to get the perverse sense of this activity, and his parents were cool about the whole thing, but it was quite a shock at the time.  Lesson learned: always check out video content carefully before sharing with a 5-year-old!

Edited by Inquisitionist
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MarkHB

MarkHB

On 4/27/2015 at 5:09 PM, Sharpie66 said:

A moose once bit my sister...

That whole bit ("even the majestic møøse") was even funnier to me when someone who spoke Swedish told me that the word "møøse" actually means "mouse".  (Wikipedia tells me that the North American moose is called an elk in Europe.)

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Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

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Possibly the best opening credit sequence ever!

A few years after the movie's release, I happened to see it in a theater in Geneva, Switzerland, where it played in English with German and French sub-titles.  There were many moments when my British colleague and I were the only ones in the theater laughing.  He knew French quite well and said that some jokes simply weren't translated at all while others did not have the same impact in translation.

Sandman87

Sandman87

My high school friends and I probably quoted every single line of the movie at some point. It never took much to get us to erupt into a chorus of "Ni!...Ni!...Ni!" Our weekly Dungeons & Dragons game always provided ample excuses for breaking out the quotes, complete with accents: "It's too perilous!", "Come and see the violence inherent in the system!", and so on.

Every now and then someone will ask me a question that that goes something like "What is (some property) of X?", and I usually replay with "African or European X?"

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Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

Holy Grail was my introduction to Monty Python. I was flipping through channels and came across the movie at the start of The Black Knight scene. I had no idea what I was watching, I think I stopped because I thought it was Excalibur or Sword of Valaint. I watched a lot if British shows/movies as a kid.

Long story short, this is one of my favorite movies ever. It is a pure classic from start to finish. There are times when I debate which is the better movie, Holy Grail or Life of Brian ( Honorable Mention goes to Yellow Beard...technically not a Python film). I go back and forth depending on my mood and age.  But there is no question that it's one of the funniest movies ever made.  

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BizBuzz

BizBuzz

It is my favorite movie of all time.  And quite thankfully, I have a daughter that will say every once in a while, it's time for a Holy Grail watch again.

::giggle::

I am going to massage therapy school, and on Monday night we had a teacher educating us on a new technique.  With this new technique, you have to make sure that woman that are well endowed, well that their "girls" are taken care of.  Anyway, she kept calling these women having "huge tracks of land" ... what was SO VERY SAD was I was the only one (of 6 students) that got the reference.

Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

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Remember this scene in O Brother Where Are Thou? where Pete's clothing is left behind on some rocks down at the river after he's succumbed to the singing sirens and a horny toad jumps out of his shirt?  I turned to my husband in the theater and whispered "She turned me into a newt."

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Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

(edited)
On 10/28/2016 at 8:01 AM, BizBuzz said:

OMG, I am so finding that, it would bring a smile to my face each time I got a text.  

@BizBuzz

If you have the Zedge app you can search Monty Python, there's a handful of notification tones you can pick from that's one for them. Spanish Inquisition is another, they also have "Ni" and "She turned me into a newt"

Edited by Morrigan2575
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xaxat

xaxat

On 4/25/2015 at 0:36 PM, AimingforYoko said:

"Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' 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."

I was getting my degree in political science when I first saw the movie, and I love that line. 

One Halloween a friend and I decided to go dressed as characters from the movie. I lost the coin flip. He was Arthur, I was Patsy.

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rmontro

rmontro

On 10/26/2016 at 11:22 PM, Morrigan2575 said:

There are times when I debate which is the better movie, Holy Grail or Life of Brian ( Honorable Mention goes to Yellow Beard...technically not a Python film).

Omigosh, I thought Yellow Beard was horrible, one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  Which is a shame, because I really wanted to like it.

As for Holy Grail, I like Tim randomly blowing things up with his hexes.  And the reading from the book of Armaments when they use the Holy Hand Grenade.

Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

Just now, rmontro said:

Omigosh, I thought Yellow Beard was horrible, one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  Which is a shame, because I really wanted to like it.

I was really young the first time I watched it, I think it was my first Monty Python (sort of) movie.  I loved it as a kid and it held a special place for me. I haven't seen it in awhile, so it my not hold up but, i remember loving it.

Of course everyone has their own taste, i know people who think The Meaning of Life is great and I hate that film. Others love Mr. Bean, i hate him, always say Blackadder was 10x better

Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

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2 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

Of course everyone has their own taste, i know people who think The Meaning of Life is great and I hate that film.

After the brilliant opening of Every Sperm is Sacred, I found the rest of TMoF pretty disappointing.  I think I love Grail and Brian equally.  The latter has a more coherent narrative, but they are both full of memorable hilarity.

rmontro

rmontro

I like Meaning of Life.  It's certainly not as strong as Holy Grail or Life of Brian. I remember when I was a young man I thought Mr. Creosote was the greatest thing ever, but everyone around me just thought it was disgusting lol.  There are lows and highs.  But I'd hate if they hadn't made it and we had one less Python film.  And it's the movie that's the most like the TV show.  I find myself singing Christmas in Heaven a lot, for some reason.

rmontro

rmontro

19 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

The Crimson Permanent Assurance will always have a special place in my heart. As will Death pointing a bony finger at the dinner table and proclaiming "The salmon mousse!"

My favorite part of that scene was when Death was leading them away, and the lady (Eric Idle) says "Wait a minute, I didn't have any of the salmon mousse".

voiceover

voiceover

I love John Cleese's lecture on sex, complete with the act thereof, in front of a roomful of bored inattentive schoolboys ("What about a *kiss*, boy?...You don't have to go leaping for the clitoris...")

As a longtime professor, I gotta say: Accurate (though not of course when I give MY sex lectures. With Chris Hemsworth.  In his Thor costume).

rmontro

rmontro

On 4/6/2017 at 11:10 PM, voiceover said:

I love John Cleese's lecture on sex, complete with the act thereof, in front of a roomful of bored inattentive schoolboys ("What about a *kiss*, boy?...You don't have to go leaping for the clitoris..."

Also "This is for your benefit, would you kindly wake up" and "more or less, fully erect".

The wife in that scene though, her position looks so uncomfortable, with her neck and head off the side of the bed, completely unsupported.  Must have been that way for the benefit of the framing of the scene, can't imagine that anyone lays that way intentionally.

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