Top 100 Movies Monty Python’s Holy Grail. If you are unfamiliar with the movie Holy Grail… from the British Comedy Troupe, Monty Python (pronounced pithon, thank you very much), then I do not know you. I would prefer to not to get to know you. Be gone. Go. Leave. But if you must, “Monty Python’s Holy Grail” is a 1975 British comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. The movie satirizes the mythical exploits of the legend of King Arthur’s quest to find the Holy Grail. At the time, Monty Python consisted of: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The film is comprised of a compilation of hilarious sketches of the legendary group of knights of the round table as they go hunting for Christ’s Grail. The film is widely considered a classic of British comedy and a cult classic. Which, goes without saying… and by the way, everyone knows about it but you. Have you thought about that for even a moment? The life choices necessary to bring you to this moment in time wherein you haven’t seen Monty Python’s Holy Grail and everyone else has? I mean, think about it, seriously… and consider significant life changes. Significant.
Personally? I believe it to be the single funniest movie ever crafted. Nothing even comes close to it. (Curious as to my second funniest movie of all time? Okay, you are getting cheeky now… ALRIGHT I’LL TELL YOU DEMMIT. Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock’s The Heat. hahaha. So, my comedic credentials are now thoroughly questionable. Oh, well. But when she gives that guy a tracheotomy in the diner? Classic.) And I would say that I probably could literally quote the entire movie front to back for you right now. NOOOoooo not The Heat. Holy Grail!
Holy Grail Movie Top 100 List Walkthrough
Monty Python’s Holy Grail works on pretty much every level because there is so much lampoon-able information related to the story of the Knight’s of the Round Table. I mean, it’s like butter in the hands of such a brilliant group of comedians… for sure. But, if you just read some of these tales they almost ridicule themselves. Regardless, Monty Python crushes it when pointing their gaze at these legends.
I say we test my ability to crank out dialog from the film without cheating. You are going to have to take my word for it that I’m not cheating (this would be the LAMEST possible thing to cheat at. A skill that no one would want, and here I would be lying about it? Hahah.) – let’s just start at the opening of the film… shall we?
King Arthur: Old WOMAN!
Peasant: Man!
King Arthur: I’m sorry but from behind.
Peasant: I’m 37. I’m not old.
King Arthur: Well I can’t just say – Hey you!
Peasant: You could call me Dennis.
King Arthur: I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
Peasant: Well you didn’t bother to ask now did you??
King Arthur: I apologized about the Old Woman bit, but from behind you really did…
Peasant: What I really object to is your automatically assuming that I’m an inferior.
King Arthur: Well, … I am King.
Peasant: Oh King ayy? And how’d you get that? By exploiting the workers? By hanging on to an outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in the society! I mean, if there’s ever going to be any progress, we will…
Peasant Woman: DENNIS!!! THERE’S SOME LOVELY FILTH OVER HERE!!!! Oh? Who are you then?
King Arthur: Hello good lady, I am Arthur, King of the Britons can you…
Peasant Woman: Who are the Britons?
King Arthur: We all are, we are all Britons. And I am your King.
Peasant Woman: I didn’t know we had a king, I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Peasant: You’re FOOLIN YOURSELF! We’re living in a dictatorship, a self-perpetuating autocratic collective in which the working classes…
Peasant Woman: There he goes again.
Peasant: But that’s what it’s all about!
King Arthur: Good people! I AM IN HASTE! Can you please tell me, who is your Lord that lives in that castle over there.
Peasant Woman: No one lives there. We don’t have a Lord.
King Arthur: Pardon?
Peasant: I told you, we’re an anarcho-syndaclist commune, we take turns to act as a sort of officer of the week, and all the decisions of the officer must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting of a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs.
King Arthur: BE QUIET!!!
Peasant: By a two thirds majority …
Peasant Woman: ORDER AY? Who does he think he is??
King Arthur: I AM YOUR KING!
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
King Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how’d you become King then?
King Arthur: The lady of the lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering Samite, held aloft Excalibur from the water signifying by divine right that I would carry Excalibur, and THAT is why I am your king!
Peasant: Look, strange women, lying in ponds handing out swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from farcical aquatic ceremony.
King Arthur: BE QUIET!
Peasant: I mean, you can’t wield supreme executive power just because some moistened bink lobbed a scimitar at you!
King Arthur: SHUT UP!
Peasant: I mean, if I went round telling people I was an emperor just because some watery tart threw a sword at you, they’d put me away!
King Arthur: SHUT UP WILL YOU SHUT UP!
How’d I do? Gotta find the script somewhere. Does someone have it so we can do a compare on that?? I remember asking my Political Science professor, my first year at Wheaton… “Sir, what is an anarcho-syndaclist commune.” Yes, I did. I swear it. And he was like, well, Anarcho – is like of sleep… and I was done right there, finished.
I mean, come on, that is hilarious dialog. They are destroying this silly myth of the Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the stupidity of a monarchy based on silly stories and myths. The fact that they are beholden to some King that is born to the position is stupid when you stop and think about it. Brilliant. Not to mention their pillorying of the class distinctions inherent in the British Monarchy and the assumptive power they hold for no reason whatever.
The movie itself only holds a very loose narrative thread running through it, instead it allows for the troupe to just do various sketches within the age and time period. We meet Roger the Shrubber, who is contracted to build a little set of bushes with a two level effect with a little path running down the middle. Or the Prince who’d prefer to just sing as opposed to being the manly man that his father would prefer him to be. Or the killer rabbit… or the Almighty Tim? Monty Python’s imagination sprinkled the Middle Ages with their brilliant humor and out popped The Holy Grail.
I will argue that Monty Python has notoriously been terrible at figuring out how to end their sketches and movies, and that while The Holy Grail is much, much, worse than the average Monty Python ending – and yet infinitely better at the same time. I can still remember the first time I witnessed the ending of this movie. I was so taken aback that the troupe had decided to have modern British officers roll up within the film and start arresting people. Was it Monty Python saying that modern police officers had arrived on the set and were arresting the actors? Were they saying that cops lived in the Middle Ages and were arresting the Knights of the Round Table for their ghastly crimes against the people of the movie? I had literally no idea. I was so confused. But the more I watched it, the funnier it got. And now, part of the fun of showing the movie to an unsuspecting viewer is watching their reaction as the movie ended.
Thoughts on the Film The Holy Grail
I’m not a big comedy fan. I’d rather a dirge than a comedy. (Banshees of Inisherin anyone? Did I finally spell it right that time CY?? CY has been the brilliant editor attempting to clean up my mess here for years and years… everyone say hey to CY!) But I adore British style dark comedies that comment on politics, and social rigidities, etc., with such aplomb.
If you are interested in checking out the entire list so far that I have already done through the top 100 movies of all time, you can find it right here.
Edited by: CY
