State’s film series brings slapstick English humor back to the screen
Before “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” ever became a cult classic in the film industry, Monty Python, made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, was just a British comedy group.
They had gained a bit of a following through the BBC television series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” and during the hiatus between the third and fourth series, the idea for the 1975 iconic film was born.
The State Theatre in Uniontown will show the slapstick comedy on July 20 as part of the Classic Film Series. Showtimes are 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and students.
Parodying the legend of King Arthur’s quest for the Holy Grail, the film is set in 932 A.D., when Arthur (Chapman) and his squire, Patsy (Gilliam), travel throughout Britain searching for men to join the Knights of the Round Table.
After recruiting Sir Bedevere the Wise (Jones), Sir Lancelot the Brave (Cleese), Sir Glalahad the Pure (Palin) and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot (Idle), they march to Camelot but decide that’s a silly place and head elsewhere. This is when God speaks to them and gives Arthur the task of finding the Holy Grail.
The film follows a lot of twists and turns, each one as funny as the one before, and then ends in “arresting” fashion.
Palin said in a previous interview, that “casting was largely determined mainly by who’d written what. Castle Anthrax was a Galahad thing and I’d written that with Terry (Jones), so I was cast as Galahad. Terry (Jones) had written Bedevere and Lancelot was a mixture of stuff we’d written, but John (Cleese) seemed to fit that well. Eric (Idle) had written Brave Sir Robin, so he got the Sir Robin parts, and the rest were subsidiary parts, which again I think were probably largely to do originally with who wrote what.”
In the trivia section on the IMDb website, there were numerous disagreements between Gilliam, who was more focused on technical aspects, and Jones, who was more focused on the comedy. Afterwards, it was agreed that Jones direct the further Python films.
Also, funds earned by Pink Floyd’s album, “The Dark Side of the Moon,” went towards funding the movie. Apparently, band members were such fans of the show that they would halt recording sessions just to watch the BBC television series.
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” grossed more than any other British film in the United States in 1975, and in the United States it was selected as the second best comedy of all time in the ABC special “Best in Film:The Greatest Movies of Our Time.”
In the United Kingdom, readers of “Total Film” magazine only ranked it the fifth greatest comedy film of all time.
On the Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has a 97 percent certified fresh rating, with the critics consensus being, “a cult classic as gut-bustingly hilarious as it is blithely ridiculous. ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ has lost none of its exceedingly silly charm.”
The Classic Movie Series will end with “Million Dollar Mermaid” on Aug. 10.