MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) | First Time Watching | MOVIE REACTION & Review 

We didn’t have memes back then so the one liners in this film lived and were sporadically quoted for decades 😂 huge favorites there too. Perfect movie to disconnect ❤

Graham Chapman was the perfect king: played everything straight, never cracked a smile, and took every moment completely seriously. It contrasts and amplifies the silliness perfectly.

I’ve watched this since childhood but it wasn’t until like 5 years ago I realized OF COURSE the murderer of the historian wasn’t any of king Arthur’s men- the murderer had a horse!

Ending is a literal "cop out" and I love it! 😂

The knights were framed, the knght who killed the historian was riding a real horse. I love the fact that the big threatening trojan rabbit was harmless and the cute furry bunny was deadly. And no credits at the end because all the people responsible for the credits were sacked. Just a few of the little details.

The animation was one of the innovations of their TV series. It provided transitions for unrelated comedic bits, and freed them from having to always finish a sketch with a big punchline. The animations were done by their one American member, Terry Gilliam, who you may have heard of, as he went on to direct films like Time Bandits and Baron Munchausen. Gilliam also performed with them in minor bits. Here, he was Patsy, the Old Man From Scene 24, and of course himself as the animator who has the heart attack. In the TV series, he was Fang of the Spanish Inquisition. Carol Cleveland (Zoot of the castle Anthrax) is often regarded as the unofficial female member of Python. However, the witch (Connie Booth, another American) was married to Cleese for a time, and together they wrote one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, Fawlty Towers.

The story on "Tim" is John Cleese forgot the name he was supposed to have, and improvised the name as a joke, and they kept it in

When the Frenchman taunts him with the line "Your mother is a hamster and your father smells of Elderberries" he is basically calling his mother a whore and his father a drunk, as Elderberries were used to make wine at the time.

Cleese as the French instigator is one of my favourite things in a movie ever.

Perfect timing! "One day lad, all this will be yours?" [David takes a big sip] "What, the curtains?" [David struggles not to spit laugh all over the camera] You picked up your glass and I thought, oh no! :) We watched this in college, and for the rest of the time, my buddies and I used all of those iconic phrases every day. Our particular fave: "and there was much rejoicing" [waves imaginary flag] Enjoyed rewatching this with you. Brings back such memories.

Their first movie. A brilliant deconstruction of movies. The end is a literal cop-out. I love everything about this.

Graham Chapman (who plays King Arthur) was always my favorite (Monty Python member) , he passed away in 1989. You've gotta watch John Cleese's speech at his funeral, it's hilarious! Btw, watch John Cleese's classic and legendary ''Fawlty Towers'' (one of the greatest comedy shows ever made for tv), btw, the (gorgeous) lady who's the ''Witch'' in ''The Holy Grail'' is Connie Booth, she was his ex-wife, actress and co-writer of ''Fawlty Towers'.

The best way I have found to describe Monty Python is acerbic absurdism. They manage to intelligently poke fun at absolutely everything in the silliest of ways! And I am so here for it!!

There are sooooooo many quotes from this movie that we say all the time! "I'm getting better." "You could say Dennis." (I have that whole exchange memorized. lol) Most of my friends in college could quote the whole scene with the "moistened bint" part. I love the wedding scene part... "What? The curtains?" and "Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."

Both the shield and the tunic of "brave Sir Robin" have a chicken as his heraldic animal. Just one of the many features of this film you will only catch with repeated viewings. I saw this film totally by accident in the late 1970s on late night TV when I was a teenager. I was laughing so hard it woke my youngest sister, who came in and started watching with me and has also been a fan ever since.

You are correct about the budget. It did not allow for horses, so they improvised. I have chain mail and a sword. I made a pair of hollow coconut halves for my daughter to use while following when we go to speceal showing of the holy grail

What I love, and that very few people seem to pick up on, is that they use power tools' sound effects when the build the Trojan Rabbit.

Great first time reaction. You caught lots of things a first time watcher misses.

"Farewell to Arms" NO YOU DID NOT!!! Bahahahahahaha! I giggled for a good while at that. I have said, "I fart in your general direction" since I was a kid, and I see no reason to stop now. 😂❤

I forgot how funny this was. I haven’t seen it since high school 😂 my husband still says “I fart in your general direction” 🤣🤣🤣

Amazing movie, so happy everyone’s watching it. And yes, able to quote it backwards if necessary. It’s so good. Patsy/the bridge-man, etc. are director Terry Gilliam by the way - the only American in the group who also made all the animations, which are all cutouts on glass-plate. After the Python-years he directed Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Baron of Munchhausen, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Fisher King, and many more. About the writing: they worked in teams on everything, and yes: plenty got thrown out. It was a whole proces.

I’m a fan of satirical humor, so Monty Python’s Flying Circus was one of my favorite tv shows. Satirical sketch comedy. There were 6 guys, who played most of the rolls, and the supporting actors. The guy who plays Patsy (Terry Gilliam) is the only American. He is also the animator. Arthur was played by Graham Chapman who passed away in 1989. Sir Bedevere (kept lifting his visor) and Herbert were played by Terry Jones who passed away in 2020. The other Pythons are Eric Idle, John Cleese and Michael Palin

I can’t say for sure that no drugs were involved in the making of the film, but audiences found it howlingly funny when there were drugs involved in the viewing. The Monty Python TV show was shown for years on PBS. Lovely reaction, as always! Peace … PS. John Cleese has a wonderful small part in Silverado, if you’re looking for a Western to watch. Otherwise, A Fish Called Wanda.

Bahahahaha!! I adore Monty Python. Quite a few of the jokes in this one are accurate, hilarious commentary on medieval culture, so much so that I had a professor in college who would use parts of the film to illustrate certain points. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it.

i will never forget the first time i saw this - i was 14 and had zero idea what to expect. for the first half i was like what the actual fuck is this??? and i called my friend who had recommended it and she laughed her ass off and told me to start it over and just understand that’s it’s SUPPOSED to be silly. she stayed on the phone with me while i did this and kept quoting lines and it was the best ever.

15:51 Everyone misses the punchline to this scene: “Bloody weather!”

A literal blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail: The knight that slew the historian was on a horse!

"Spamalot" is a hybrid piece they came up with, using two things as the basis: - The "Camelot" song that you noted, and - The "I don't like SPAM!" sketch from the original series. It should be noted that the latter is the reason why we call unsolicited emails and ads "spam" today. Watch the sketch and do a quick google on "why do we call it spam?" :)

Lots of reviewers complain about the disjointed nature of the "plot", which gives the movie an appearance of a series of sketches thrown together. But that is the nature of the Arthurian cycle. The original Grail story was left unfinished by the author and had no connection to Arthur. Subsequent authors remained true to the original and did not present a story which achieved a goal. Instead, the stories became tales of character development during the journey., achieved by overcoming odds and by developing moral maturity, worthy of good Christian knights. This theme was dubbed "The Hero's Journey" by Joseph Campbell. The Arthurian cycle branched off into a series of Hero's Journeys of individual members of Arthur's entourage.

This is such a quotable movie! I grew up with my dad quoting it out of context all of the time lol. The moose stuff in the beginning was pretty confusing the first time around 😂 So, I read a comment mentioning how the ending came about but based on what I’ve read elsewhere I have to elaborate a bit. They literally had no budget to have a large scale fight scene, so they just abruptly ended it there lol. I’m guessing they decided to do a “cop out” once they knew that. Another fact, based on the budget, all of those extras getting ready to fight were local students - they got two pounds sterling, free transport, food, and “an abundance of crazy antics” for a day of work. All the other extras throughout the movie were various different people on the production team. Oh, I’ve also been in the musical that is based on this - Spamalot. I played Herbert (among other roles). It was great. And going back to the moose, the program on broadway references that whole intro bit lol. The musical is a much more complete version of this (it actually has an ending lol) and has some pretty interesting stuff added I think. If you’re in NY in the near future they actually just revived it. Anyway, this is a classic and I try to watch it every few years because it never really gets old lol. Thanks for the reaction! Great as always

However wild and improvisational some scenes may sound, the Monty Python projects were very tightly and carefully scripted. I think that's one reason why they stand up so well: a lot of thought and preparations went into these seemingly casual movies. John Cleese has said that what we see is maybe 0.0001% ad libs. You'll get lots of recommendations for their later movies. I want to put in a word for an earlier one, And Now For Something Completely Different. It's purely a series of sketches, most of them from their TV series (but restaged for film), but it gives you a good idea of where they came from and why they became popular, and contains some of the sketches that everyone still quotes.

yes, it was filmed in Scotland at Doune Castle and Castle Stalker and some landscapes in between. Doune Castle was also used as parts of Winterfell in GoT.

My first watching of this was for a High School World History class - we watched the movie & for our semester final had to write an essay on how Holy Grail accurately reflected medieval history.

My friend group in middle school loooved this movie, but my mom wouldn’t let me watch it because she thought it was “weird and inappropriate” lol, but because my friends quoted it nonstop, I knew practically every line 😂

That arrow sound effect and the "message for you, sir" is my notification sound for Amazon stuff.

From moose to llamas to (killer) rabbits, this film has it all!! TY for reacting!

I love that you did a reaction to this because there are a couple of movies that you either love it or you hate it and I wasn't sure if you were going to be one or the latter but I'm glad you loved it another movie that I loved was lion in the winter

Dennis, the hyper-political peasant, played to perfection by Michael Palin, is my favorite skit in Holy Grail. Palin is one of the best Pythons imo. The way he holds his answer so long in the witch burning scene that Eric Idle has to bite his scythe to keep from laughing is masterful 🤣🤣🤣

You want Patrick Stewart in an Arthurian epic? Give Excalibur (1981) a watch. Excellent film. Every person in it was chomping on the set dressing, but that's what makes it epic. Many people in it who would go on to huge careers were largely unknown at this time.

Whenever this used to air on Comedy Central (90s kid, obvs!), my best friend and I would jump on the phone and “watch” it together. He passed away before our Sophomore year of HS, but this movie always makes me think of him and smile 😊 Thanks for another great reaction! [Edit: The only impression I’ve ever nailed is “I’m not dead yet/I feeeeel happy!”]

This is the epitome of ridiculous hilarity!!! Now when you rewatch other shows/movies you will begin to recognize the enormity of how often this film has been parodied, memed, alluded to...50 years worth basically. I mean...it's even parodied in an episode of Xena the Warrior Princess...and yeah...I know this...huge Xena fan here! So glad you liked it!😂💚

Patrick Stewart has been in a King Arthur movie, called "EXCALIBUR", and is a fantastic movie, directed by the great John Boorman.

Patsy is played by co-director and Python animator Terry Gilliam fyi. His facial work and reactions to the hilarity are pretty great.

This film was well ahead of its time. It's not just breaking the 4th wall, it's being self aware of being a film.

Their TV show is worth a watch too, I loved watching it back in junior high and high school on PBS back in the late 70s

I went to Scotland last summer, we visited the castle and the rabbit's cave, the cave wasn't that easy to find, but it was so worth it! There were stuffed rabbits and rabbit pictures, etc that people left there, like a freaky altar...and we loved it!

That black knight scene is my favourite ever scene. T’is but a scratch is part of my vocabulary 😂

Prince Herbert is one of my favorite Terry Jones characters. The comedic timing and physical comedy of shooting the arrow out the window makes me cackle every time.

This is a rare documentary using actual authentic Medieval film footage from the Middle Ages. Monty Python spared no expense having the rare Medieval film reels delivered by European Swallows. Recommend checking out Holy Grail movie location videos to royally appreciate the creative filming talent. From Monty Python's Flying Circus tv series, my favorite skit is Self Defense against fresh fruit.

The ending is both the biggest cinematographic insult and the greatest idea ever

I'm 50 now. I saw this in junior high when it came on one weekend and we all watched it. From then on in we were all quoting this constantly. Having seen AIRPLANE! a bunch before that we were heavily influenced by these. So my sense of humor is half British but 100% silly. The bunny was my spirit animal from before I knew what a spirit animal was. I hope I've made them proud. In the 90s they made Spamalot and I was lucky enough to see the original Broadway cast. This movie is basically part of my DNA now. That you haven't seen this until now explains a lot, David. I'm going to watch the reaction now and might need a 2nd comment.

The line "Thwank,message for sire" I use for the sound that plays when I get email.

A farewell to ams. Priceless.

I will NEVER forget when a roommate and I got high (back in our 20s) and put this movie on. Big mistake. If it was possible to die from laughter, we would have. Especially the massive double-take the Frenchman did when the Trojan Rabbit was approaching. We were literally on the floor, barely able to breath from laughing so hard. As soon as we regained our composure we rewind the tape and watch it again. 🤣😂

My man!!! My 16-year-old self and all of my teenage friends embrace you! You are one of us now.

The six main actors in this film, Cleese Chapman, Jones Gilliam, Idle and Palin also wrote the script. Before making movies they had a TV sketch series called Monty Pythons Flying Circus which was also brilliant. Their first film was a collection of their sketches from TV called And Now For Something Completely Different, which was also a regularly used catch phrase in the series.

The intermission part was due to the knight getting scared on the bridge and needed encouragement to finish crossing. From the special follow the white rabbit DVD. That has so many gems.

In terms of Mel Brooks and direction of influence, BLAZING SADDLES came first. Both films end with anachronistic motor vehicles. “Tell them I said . . . OW” becomes “the castle of . . . Aaargh.” “Can’t you see that man is a ni-“ becomes the knights who say, “Ni.”

The swamp castle bit is the best part 😂😂

You have the entire MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS series. You will adore it.

Prince Herbert was played by Terry Jones who was also one of the directors. He directed Life of Brian too.

Spamalot is indeed the musical of this movie. I highly recommend it! Love that the ending is a literal cop-out. My cousins and I watched this and quoted it often in the 90s/early 2000's! You'll notice with Sir Bedivere keeping lifting the front of his helmet because the lines on it are right in front of his eyes lol What i love about all the art/animation throughout that is so ridiculous is, that a lot of it appears to be taken from real art. Blowing the horns with their asses. And just look up medieval rabbit art. They're bloodthirsty.

This movie is _ENDLESSLY_ quotable in daily life. A longtime favorite. 🥰🥰😂😂

This is the only movie saved on my phone. Always watchable to kill a few moments when you need to.

The bunny scene gets me every time 🐰

They actually did a special theatrical run of this movie last December for it’s 48 1/2 anniversary. My dad and I went to see it.

One thing that surprises a lot of people about Monty Python is that they did not improvise in their films and TV shows. Like you guessed, they sort of had brainstorming sessions, but they were more like meetings, and they would hash ideas out until they got the wording and the action exactly the way they wanted and then not deviate from it on film. Also, the two Python actors you did not know were the only two who are now dead. Arthur was played by Graham Chapman, who died of cancer in the late eighties, and the other was Terry Jones, who died of dementia about three years ago.

Sir Bedevere was played by Terry Jones who also played the young Prince Herbert (who stood to inherit the curtains).

if you've never seen the tv show, "And Now for Something Completely Different" is a best-of movie of sketches from the show with animations from Terry Gilliam (Patsy/the dead animator). It's an excellent primer for their humor. the other Terry who co-directed with Gilliam, Terry Jones, was a *big* medieval scholar, and a lot of bits in the movie were taken from history (a town of serfs running themselves because no noble really wanted the land they were on, a religious order of flagellates who would flog themselves in public as a display of devotion, sir lancelot always charging into battle and killing indiscriminately, beseiged castles throwing food at the invading army as a boast that they could hold out, etc). he produced and presented a series of documentaries on medieval life for the bbc that is really good.

I absolutely love that you love it so much and get the sense of humor in this 🩵

The part of Prince Herbert, and the part of the knight who continuously lifted his face shield to speak were played by the same Python member. Terry Jones. All the animations were done by “the old man from scene 24”. Terry Gilliam. ♥️🐍✌🏼😎🇺🇸

Hahahaaaaa 😂 You, my friend, must have some British blood I think, You spotted EveryThing that so many overlook…homage 👍✨

The epitome of British humor. ❤🤍💙

"Livestock Attack" was the name of my band in college!!!

Literal cop out in the end, genius

David! It's been a while since T2... I've missed you. I intend, yet so far fail, to watch the Graham Nortons. I love that man. Anyway, now I'm telling myself, yet again, that I will. Anyway 2... I have a long loving history with this film. Saw it many times. Showed it many times in our little repertory cinemas. Had a celebration of it like ten years ago, with costumes and shouting and generally acting fools for it. It's gonna be 50 next year! Need to see what might can happen for that. Dare I say "anyway" again... No. Just gonna watch! It's good to see you. I hope ya'll had a lovely Xmas, and have a wonderful 2024! ❤ Here we go! :)

Terry Jones, degree is medieval English st Edmunds hall(teddy hall), Oxford university.also.directed the .movie with Gilliam

'supp, David! 😄I adore the French K-nig-it. "Fetchez la vache!" MOOOOO. Also the peasants in the collective... If you haven't seen the 1976 film Excalibur, I think you should. There's a watery-tart handing out swords. 😊

(9:00) Spamalot is written by Eric Idle who is one of the Python crew

You probably noticed that the guys all played multiple roles - as well as writing the script and directing themselves. Prince Herbert was played by Terry Jones, who also played Sir Bedevere (the guy with the helmet visor problem), Dennis's mom, one of the supporting French soldiers, and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff - who can keep track? He was also the lead writer of the film, with Terry Gilliam, the animator, both on screen and behind the scenes, as well as Patsy, the Old Man from Scene 24, and a few other bits. All the guys contributed scenes and lines, but the two Terry's were the lead writers. All the Pythons were big intellectuals in different fields, and Terry Jones in particular, was a historian. He did a bunch of history documentaries for the BBC after Python. He brought his expertise in medieval history and literature to this script, making it, for all its insanity, one of the most accurate depictions of Medieval England ever put on film, according to at least one of my history teachers. That might be hard to believe - though the thing with the French was certainly realistic; they were quietly taking over castles in England all the time; the English did it to them, too; likewise, nobody recognizing the king or even knowing they had one was totally true to life. However, I can personally attest, because I'm the kind of nerd who reads medieval literature, that it is absolutely an accurate recreation of the way they told epic stories in those days. Random monsters, knights in black armor challenging random travelers to mortal combat, castles full of "temptresses," enchanters and sorcerers of various kinds, the king wandering around instead of, y'know, kinging, creepy magical exposition-hermits, everything this movie had, the original tales would give you, too. Including killer rabbits, which were a medieval pop-culture meme. It's kind of disconcerting to realize how smart this utterly nuts movie is.

If you want to see Patrick Stewart (and Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren) in a film about Arthurian legends, then you, my good friend, need to see the 1981 film, "Excalibur." Nicol Williamson chews ALL the scenery as Merlin. It's great. (He and Mirren had a romantic past, and the enmity between Williamson's Merlin and Mirren's Morgana Le Fey is informed/enhanced by the lingering bitterness of their failed romance. It was truly inspired casting by director John Boorman.)

Patrick Stewart actually appeared as a knight in the 1980 movie Excalibur.

Mike Palin deserved an Oscar for his performance here

I remember when I was grown-up and I watched the Monty Python TV series on DVD and a lot of these cutaway animation jokes make a lot more sense in the film if you watch the complete tv series because they are so frequent.

I used to know the whole Sir Robyn song but I don't watch this quite as often as I did in my 20s. ;)

My favorite fillum of all time. 🤣 I have the anniversary DVD that has extraordinary bonus footage.

Pretty sure I got at least two of my jobs back in the day because I quoted this movie in the interview.😂

Oh, and we always count, 1, 2, 5 ... 3, sir

"OH SHIT! Poor historian..." "Frank!!!" 🤣🤣🤣 The running gag of the dead historian and the resulting investigation that ends the movie is such a good, albeit dark, joke. And the irony that Arthur & Co couldn't have done it because they have no horses 🤣🤣🤣

Arthur is Graham Chapman an original Python, he was also the voice of God and the hiccoughing guard. Terry Jones was Dennis' Mother as well as Sir Bedevere [he that kept opening the see through visor] and Prince Herbert in the tower. Michael Palin was Dennis, and the guard who knew about swallows, and Galahad The Pure. All the pythons played several major characters and quite a few lesser ones as well ............ yep, no budget !

Parts of the funding for the film were made by members of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Genesis who were all big fans of the series.

They were falsely arrested. The knight who killed Frank the famous historian rode a real horse.

John Cleese ad libbed the name Tim for the enchanter because he'd forgotten the original name.

If you want to see Sir Patrick Stewart in an Arthurian film, check out John Borman's Excalibur(1981).

I’ll never not laugh at this movie. Such a good choice!

Almost no Python material was improvised. They wrote it and didn’t want anyone going off script. The only ad libbed bit I know of in Holy Grail was Carol Cleveland’s cry of “Oh shit”.

7:48 Hey, don’t judge, they were trusting the science.

8:52 The DVD contained the Camelot dance and song scene done in Lego and Lego mini figures. Only possible way it could be funnier! 😂

If I needed to, I could qoute the whole movie from start to finish lol Seen it dozens of times growing up.

Your continuous insistence of the Pythons taking drugs in order to have written this is funny, because obviously there were no drugs, these guys were just really funny writers. Eric Idle has said that if they had been taking drugs, nothing would have been written. The only ‘drug’ that was there throughout this period was alcohol, but that was because of Graham Chapman (King Arthur), who by this point, was a 24 karat alcoholic and made him extremely difficult to work with and so he was trying to give it up while making the film, but there are some moments where you can tell he isn’t all there and he even suffered from DTs whilst filming the Bridge of Death scene. Each Python had their own writing styles and groups (John Cleese and Graham Chapman were one partnership, Michael Palin and Terry Jones were the other and Eric Idle wrote on his own, while Terry Gilliam did the animation), and they would often meet up once a week or month to compare what they had done and try to work it into the script.