MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
Directed by TERRY GILLIAM and TERRY JONES
Screenplay by GRAHAM CHAPMAN,
JOHN CLEESE, TERRY GILLIAM, ERIC IDLE,
TERRY JONES, MICHAEL PALIN
King Arthur, as London's Monty Python troupe imagines him, is really an awfully sensible, decent chap. Played by Graham Chapman, he is the kind of tweedy fellow who should be sitting on the Tory party backbench in modern Britain rather than running around 6th century England forming Round Tables and looking for holy grails.
The king's enlightened path is always blocked by problems. One of them is a movable castle full of French knights who defend their ramparts by shouting down intolerable sexual insults and pelting would-be attackers with a hail of dead farm animals—most unchivalrous. Another obstacle is a Black Knight of uncompromising combativeness; after Arthur has severed all four of his limbs, the knight perversely insists on trying to bite the king on the ankle. Then there are the guardians of a sacred forest who demand a tribute of shrubbery —something with "a nice layered effect"—before allowing Arthur and his party to pass. That, of course, only brings them closer to such perils as a murderous bunny rabbit who is improbably but effectively charged with defending a cave where a vital clue to the grail's whereabouts is located. Bunnies indeed are much on the Python group's mind. One of the stratagems that the heroes devise to gain access to the French castle is a Trojan rabbit. It does not work out, but then not much else does either.
Arthur's adventures reach no logical conclusion. They are simply brought to an abrupt end when a police car rolls up and the entire Round Table is rounded up. The knights are charged with being accessories to the murder of the historian who popped up midway in the movie — BBC style — to supply some useless background on the traditions of medieval romance. The intervention of the bobbies also leads to the fine sight of a fully armored knight spread-eagled against the squad car and being patted down for concealed weapons.
This is a key image in the film, which pats down the entire chivalric tradition for bloody and dangerous residual ideas.
Along with the high comedy, this determined insistence on the gory stupidity of ancient but still potent fancy is what holds the film together. Grail is as funny as a movie can get, but it is also a tough-minded picture — as outraged about the human propensity for violence as it is outrageous in its attack on that propensity.