Monty Python troop slays them in ‘Grail’

By Hannah Wallace

Produced in 1975, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was never quite finished, but it won great acclaim, anyway.

Over the years, this zany movie has received many great reviews, as well as some hideous thrashings.

It stars the ingenious cast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, including Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle.

This movie is about Arthur, King of Britons, searching for knights to sit with him at Camelot. Arthur finds many knights including Sir Galahad the pure, Sir Lancelot the brave, the quiet Sir Bedevere, and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot. Throughout the movie many strange events take place, like for example, the knights don’t ride horses but rather gallop on foot, and have servants that bang coconuts together so it sounds like a horse galloping instead of a person.

The movie also touches base on a few events that actually happened, such as witch trials and the black plague.

Throughout the movie, most of the characters die, some by the jaws of a killer rabbit that was guarding the Holy Grail, and others through being thrown off a bridge for not answering the three questions right.

If the characters weren’t killed, they were seriously injured, such as having their arms and legs cut off or having a flying cow land right on top of them.

No animals or humans were actually harmed in the making of this film.

The knights end up getting the Holy Grail that the rabbit was guarding, but only two out of the six knights lived to see the final portion of the film.

The movie has no defined ending because the producer ran out of money and could not afford to finish it.

As the movie ends, we see the two knights that were left being arrested for killing a famous historian earlier in the movie. The “Sweetish” subtitles at the beginning of the movie were added for no good reason.

When it first opened in Cannes, the audience enjoyed the credits so much that they thought a fireman coming in to escort them out of the theater after the credits ended was a part of the show.

It was an actual bomb scare. Thank-fully, it was a false alarm, and everyone got to finish watching the movie.

Known for its shameless silliness, the film stole the hearts of many while drawing withering scorn from others.

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