Monty Python & The Holy Grail: Facts About The Cult Comedy Not Many Fans Know

Monty Python & The Holy Grail is a comedy film that has earned its name as one of the classics of the ’70s. The film is based on the reign of King Arthur. Some dialogues from this film are still used in the casual tongue, and people often give references from the movie. There is no doubt that this movie has a vast fanbase. Yet there are some facts about it that you may not know. Here are some of them listed:

The movie lost its original location even before the shooting had begun. The crew had spent a long time looking for castles across Britain. However, event after the site was finalized, the authorities revoked the permission to shoot as they felt that the title of the movie was undignified in the context of the castle. The comedy theme did not agree with the history of these heritage. The crew then had to settle for private castles like Castle Doune and Castle Stalker.

They faced some major production failures while shooting. They only had one sound camera on set, which fell apart and broke into pieces right before the scene. The cameramen tried pulling off shooting other silent scenes. But it was almost impossible to put them together to make a reasonable scene. It is safe to say that the production in itself was a comedy plot.

Remember the dirt farmer played by Michael Palin? He was expected to lay down in stinky mud taken from a sty/pigsty. The scene demanded him to lay in it and eat some mud in the end. The crew suggested that they could keep some chocolate for him to eat, but it was impossible to identify chocolate from mud and not to mention, ensure that the chocolate was not covered in the dirt. Palin did the scene and ended up eating the dirt, only to find that the scene required a reshoot due to technical difficulties. The actor did the needful and immediately left to get himself a tetanus shot.

Tim The enchanter was a challenging role. However, most of us don’t know that John Cleese almost died while filming a shot. The scenes where Tim is standing on a mountaintop conjuring fireballs are epic, but Cleese had a rough experience shooting for it. The explosions from the fireball were very spooky, but when Cleese realized that he was standing right next to a cliff on all slides, getting cold feet was normal. His cloak was indeed like a cherry on top. It could easily act like a kite dragging Cleese down the cliff. The actor crouched for almost an hour, waiting for the crew, trying to dodge the gusts of wind. Indeed, being a comedy actor is not that fun.

Gilliam once revealed that he and the editor John were really unhappy with the direction of the film, so they both often snuck into the editing room and made changes in the scenes without letting anyone know. Surprisingly, they never got caught. However, when the audience did not react in the desired manner, Gilliam did take the fall for it. He had made changes like adding too many sound effects that compromised the dialogues and their impact.

So this was it for ‘some fun facts about the comedy classic, Monty Python & The Holy Grail.’ Clearly, there were a lot of hardships involved behind the hilarious scenes of the movie. So let us know what you think about it! And for similar content, do check out our YouTube videos.