Monty Python are like the missing link between The Beatles and The Simpsons, but not quite as good or important as either. Still pretty funny though.

Their sketches have a reputation for being hit-and-miss and going on too long, but I think those problems are innate to the medium of sketch comedy: the same criticism holds true for those twitter dudes who did the sketches about the guy who thought he went to college with Spongebob and the guy who got the ‘doom breaker’ vaccine. The sketches in Holy Grail are all pretty consistent and fast-paced imo.

However, there’s still a lot you can criticise about this film. It flops the Bechdel test hard, and it’s really fucked up (an especially 1970s kind of fucked up) that the young women of Castle Anthrax are all meant to be between sixteen and nineteen years old. John Cleese is apparently a bellend, and all five of the British pythons are clearly the result of the UK’s elitist education system.

But the Witch sketch still is god tier! So is the holy hand grenade. Sir Bedevere the Wise is my favourite character, his silly voice is actually really funny and “No no no, ‘Oooohoooh’ in surprise and alarm,” is probably my favourite line in the film. Terry Jones was the real MVP on this, playing Bedevere and splitting directing duties with Gilliam (and supposedly being better than TG at keeping the cast and crew onside during the film’s cold damp production). I find Eric Idle really likeable as well.

I believe I speak for everybody when I say the first time you watch this film is with your dad when you’re 11, and it’s the only time you ever laugh properly hard through it. The second time is with your French exchange when you’re both 15, and neither of you laugh at all. In fact it’s the most awkward evening of an incredibly awkward week. The third time is when you watch it stoned with a group of friends at university, and you’re pleasantly surprised by how funny it is but that might just be the brownie you ate. The fourth time you conclude it is actually funny and you write a letterboxd review, and the fifth time you watch it years later with your own kid when they’re 11 - how the circle of life goes on!

I think this film holds up so well because its anarchic style still feels relevant, with DIY flavoured comedy being continually reinvented. The takeover TV public access stuff of the 90s bled into the early YouTube videos of the 00s which bled into the weird twitter and tiktok skits we’re scrolling through today. In general, I think anyone who makes silly things on the internet is a much truer heir to Monty Python than anyone who has since passed through the Cambridge Footlights or the Oxford Revue. The animation in this film feels especially internetty, with mediaeval art being an excellent ingredient of modern meme culture. Drawings of knights riding snails along the margins of really old bibles do the rounds on twitter and reddit surprisingly often.

And although this film was independently produced by the troupe’s rock star friends, it felt much less low budget than I remembered. I think that’s because the budgetary limitations of the film affect very obvious things about it that are mythologised. They couldn’t afford horses so they used coconuts, they couldn’t afford a proper ending so King Arthur gets shoved in the back of a police van, they couldn’t afford metal armour so most of the costumes are made out of wool. The film still successfully curates heavy mediaeval vibes, and features impressive special effects like John Cleese’s flamethrower staff. And as much as the rug-pull ending may have been inspired by their lack of funding, the size of Arthur’s army in the same scene is awesome.

There’s good social (or historical) commentary in the film as well. Dennis’s political analysis is on fleek (“Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony,”) and even if he is meant to be tedious, he was probably the inspiration for the omnipresent We Should Improve Society Somewhat webcomic. And whole eras of our history being written by murderous madmen who sincerely thought they were following direct orders from God, is probably as good a lesson you can glean from the film’s plot and twist ending. The film also depicts life in the middle ages as thoroughly miserable with everyone except knights and kings rooting around in the mud, covered in shit. Obviously it’s funnier to show it that way, but my historian little sister would argue that literacy rates and the quality of life back then were higher than we think.

Final observation, so many jokes in this film revolve around someone getting ill and then getting better, or otherwise surviving mortal injury. The Black Knight, the ex-newt, the father of the bride, Sir Lancelot’s servant, the old man in the ‘bring out your dead’ scene, etc etc

This is my favourite Monty Python film, and I think only Barry Lyndon keeps it off the top spot for best film of 1975 (at least of the ones I've seen).

By Matt Purbrick

Originally published in January 2022 on letterboxd.com