Rewatching Monty Python's Flying Circus

[Dr Rock]

I can definitely see Python has as much if not more appeal when so many words or phrases are mysterious, and even for a brit or a youngster gettting into it, much of it is outside your realm of knowledge - 'Proust who'? -  is it just as funny if you have no idea who he is? No, it's a bit more funny when you know about Proust I reckon, even if all you know is that he wrote some highly-regarded impossible to summarise novels, which you can pretty much make out from the sketch anyway.

But sometimes, for example 'crumpet over sixteen' (without even knowing the sketch its from) I'm sure it's funnier when you know what it means. Would an American guess maybe it was a sporting reference, or twig the 'over sixteen' meant it had age of consent connotations? (Probably the context of the sketch would help answer that, if I knew what it was). Then they need to know exactly how silly but oft-employed at the time the word 'crumpet' was for attractive ladies. Likewise knowing Luton and Purley are not notable or notorious but bland places is possibly funnier than them being mysterious. Like references in American comedy to Des Moines, I've no idea where it is, but suspect it's being picked because it's unremarkable. Maybe I'm wrong and it's funnier if you have some knowledge of Des Moines, and his works.

[Isnt Anything]

I once knew a woman living on the outskirts of Des Moines. from what i could gather was boring bland city surrounded by millions of acres of equally boring bland farmers fields. she hated it. nearest uk analogue i could pick from the sounds of it would be somewhere like Northampton or Swindon only Iowa is flatter so maybe Norwich without the inbreeding jokes.

Or maybe they make inbreeding jokes about Des Moines i dunno.

But yeah seems like a similar kind of nondescript place.

I thought that was a great article but it does cut both ways i think. some Python sketches are funnier if you know and some are funnier if you do not i can see that now. maybe it is more a case of appealing to the mysterious.

that lampshade book thing is fucking hilariously and bizarrely shit btw.

[Serge]

Bill Bryson's first travel book, 'The Lost Continent', opens with the lines, "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."

I think the Midwest in general has the reputation for being dull cities and towns surrounded by a whole lot of nothing - again, I know Bryson does moan in 'The Lost Continent' that he has to drive through Iowa and Missouri and Illinois before getting to anywhere he considers interesting. In my mind, it's like Lincolnshire multiplied by a thousand - which sounds right up my street, I love a good flat landscape with no discerning features. (This isn't a joke!)

I remember when I first watched Python in my teens, my brother sat and watched an episode with me, and it was the one with 'The Bishop' in it. As I had seen plenty of the kind of shows that 'The Bishop' was parodying by that point, I was in stitches, but my brother, who hadn't, sat there stone-faced and kept asking what was funny about it.

[Dr Rock]

'crumpet over sixteen' is from here:

https://youtu.be/9JKvJaJKPPk

[neveragain]

Well the show's up on Netflix now if anyone wants a re- or first watch.

Some often-cut pieces (Proust's "masturbating", the glitch in Biggles Takes A Letter) are reinstated but other bits (Choreographed Party Political Broadcast, the "cripples" discussuon in s4's Programme Planners) remain missing.

[Phil_A]

Judging by the first episode they've used an NTSC source rather than the PAL master tapes. It looks pretty bad.

No effort put into remastering which I suppose is par for the course with Python. Think I'll stick with the DVDs.

[neveragain]

Yeah, the picture quality is a shame.

[Maurice Yeatman]

Even more interesting than shovels and precipitation: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/the-times-discovers-unseen-monty-python-sketches-in-michael-palin-s-treasure-trove-glfbmlwls

For Monty Python admirers the chance to read unpublished material by the comedy troupe is the holy grail. The search for undiscovered sketches since the group produced their last film 35 years ago has slowed but this is about to change with the opening of Michael Palin's private archive.

Boxes of material deposited at the British Library and seen by The Times contain dozens of unused script ideas, including two sketches written for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One is about a Wild West bookshop and another features an amorous Pink Knight. They are reproduced in full for the first time today.

The sketches, typical of the group's silliness, are being prepared for public access alongside more than 50 notebooks filled with first drafts and ideas. There are doodled notes of meetings that show how Holy Grail and the Pythons' later film Life of Brian changed radically from early drafts. In both cases the team cut material that would have caused controversy at the time and is risqué even now.

The archive shows that Holy Grail was to have a more conventional ending until they found it would be funnier — and cheaper — to end it abruptly.

Palin, 75, who has given permission for the sketches by Terry Jones and himself to be reproduced, admitted that the team always wrote far more than needed. "We did produce an awful lot of material when we were on song," he said. Palin usually wrote with Jones while John Cleese collaborated with Graham Chapman. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam generally worked on their own.

Palin, who continued his career in broadcasting by filming travel programmes such as Around the World in 80 Days, said that hearing about the unused sketches was a surprise even to him. "For me there's lots of material in those boxes that I've not yet seen myself [since it was written]. It's rather wonderful to hear them."

Last year he handed over his private archive to the British Library, which is cataloguing the documents covering his life and work from 1965 to 1987 before making them available to library users. Fans will also be able to see a small selection at the library's Treasures gallery from August 7.

It is hard to imagine how Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table filmed in the damp landscape of western Scotland, could include a scene set in a Wild West saloon, but the incongruity of the sketch shows how little conception the comedy group had of how their first film would look when they began writing it in 1973.

The sketch's title appears on a pair of handwritten documents from March of that year under the heading "film list". A polished version was typed out but was unused.

A parched man stumbles out of the desert, desperate for a beer in the scorching heat, only to hear that they do not serve drinks because it is actually a bookshop. "The last bookshop before you get to Mexico," the man behind the counter drawls proudly.

Palin said that he had little memory of the sketch, although he knew it was written mostly by Terry Jones, his writing partner in the group, whose other members were John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam.

Early drafts for the 1975 film featured extensive material set in the present day that was later cut, including a sequence with the Shakespearean character Hamlet, who has abandoned life as a Danish prince to take up a career as a particularly foul-mouthed private detective.

The Wild West sketch is typical of Palin and Jones's method of taking a stereotypical scene and inserting an incongruous element. When the man pleads that he must have a drink, one of the reading cowboys suggests that he try the local Native American trading post, but is told that they stopped serving drinks when they chose to specialise in modern European literature.

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a gang of hard-bitten bandits, who demand a copy of Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. They become increasingly menacing when they find that the copy is dog-eared and demand a horse story in hardback.

The barman nervously lists such books, all of which the bandits have read. The tension is broken only when he mentions Chestnut and Sue, a sentimental story of a girl who is forced to move from her ranch to the city. As the barman recounts the story the bandits become increasingly emotional, eventually weeping as the girl is separated from her horse. The bandits are later shown riding across the desert while singing a song extolling the virtues of various publishers.

Palin told The Times that the two corrections on the sketch were in Jones's handwriting and indicated that the bulk of it was written by him. Jones has dementia and was unable to comment; his family has approved publication of the sketch.

Alison Telfer, who was married to Jones when he wrote the sketches, said: "It would be nice if they saw the light of day."

Palin said that the group liked to produce an excess of material before winnowing it down. "We did produce an awful lot of material when we were on song," he said.

"Sometimes you have things like that. I can't think why it wasn't used. The Holy Grail took shape gradually and at the beginning it had far more ideas in it than ended up on screen because you had to have a narrative. In the end the story of the knights was strong enough."

Other discarded ideas for Holy Grail that survive as scripts in the archive include a handwritten sequence for Sir Tristram, a knight who tries ineptly to track down the grail using scientific principles.

In another scene Sir Beldevere, who was played in the film by Jones, finds the Holy Grail in a tent belonging to a louche knight named Sam, who keeps it on his bedside table. Sam, who insists that sunbathing in the company of naked women is his way of "resisting temptation", persuades Beldevere not to take the grail to Arthur until the next morning. They wake up to find it has been stolen by the French. Beldevere laments: "They'll kill us." Sam responds: "We'll find another one."

The archive also contains numerous boxes devoted to their 1979 film Life of Brian, including a handwritten sketch that would have given ammunition to those seeking to have the Pythons' film banned. This material will be revealed in The Times tomorrow.

[Shaky]

It is hard to imagine how Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table filmed in the damp landscape of western Scotland, could include a scene set in a Wild West saloon, but the incongruity of the sketch shows how little conception the comedy group had of how their first film would look when they began writing it in 1973

This strikes me as an odd thing to say when the finished film contains numerous intentionally incongruous elements. That's sort of the joke, really.

[Revelator]

Here are the full transcripts of the material (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/lost-monty-python-sketches-full-transcripts-of-the-cowboys-and-the-pink-knight-from-michael-palin-s-archive-3pc5rwf8t):

THE COWBOYS SKETCH

ROCKY COUNTRYSIDE. A SIGN: "MESSICO"...MEXICAN MUSIC.
SUDDENLY A GROUP OF MEXICAN BANDITS POP UP FROM BEHIND A ROCK. MUSWIC TURNS THREATENING. THEY LOOK AROUND THEN RUSH OUT FROM THE ROCKS TOWARDS THE SIGN. THEY PICK IT UP AND MOVE IT A FEW YARDS FURTHER UP THE ROAD...THEY ALL DANCE AND SHOUT "YIPEEEE!" THEY THROW THEIR HATS INTO THE AIR AND DASH BACK.

CUT TO NEWSREADERS ON TELLY. THE TELLY IS IN A ROOM WHICH IS IN TURMOIL. CHAIRS OVERTURNED ETC. A PAIR OF LEGS ARE HANGING AT THE TOP OF THE SHOT.

NEWSREADER: Mexico is getting larger. It's expanding at the rate of over 40 yards a week. Figures issued yesterday by the United Nations showed that the only 2 countries which are actually contracting are the United States and Guatemala, both of which are losing ground at the rate of nearly 20 yards...a...week...hang on...2s into 40...I think I know what's going on...my god yes! Hey! (HE LEAPS UP AND RUSHES OUT) Wait a minute!

THE DOOR IN THE ROOM OPENS AND A MAN LOOKS IN. HE WITHDRAWS HIS HEAD.

ON THE TV A CELTIC SOLDIER WITH A SPEAR COMES IN AND SITS DOWN. CLEARS THROAT AND LOOKS AT THE NEWS.

SOLDIER: In Paris the body of Marshall Petain has been found in a loaf of bread in Avignon. Police say that an ex-national president does not constitute a health hazard. In London, parts of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, leader of the Liberal government and Prime Minister in 1906, have been turning up all day in angel cakes made by the Victor Bakery of Lewes. This is the third British Prime Minister to have been found...

THE STRANGE MAN LOOKS IN AGAIN AND KNOCKS THE TELLY OFF ITS STAND.

NEWS READER STAGGERING OUT OF DESERT.

HE STOPS AND REGISTERS RELIEF.

CUT TO SEE HE HAS REACHED A LONELY SHACK-TYPE SALOON.

HE STAGGERS IN. GOES UP TO BAR.

HE STANDS THERE. LOTS OF COWBOYS SITTING AROUND READING.

NO BOTTLES BEHIND THE COUNTER.

HE WAITS NOTHING HAPPENS.

NEWSREADER: Very hot today.

BARMAN: Yup. 192.

NEWSREADER: 192 degrees?

BARMAN: Yup. 192 degrees.

NEWSREADER: Good god! That's nearly boiling point.

BARMAN: Not around here it ain't. It's what we call lukewarm.

NEWSREADER: Well I'd like a long cool beer, please, and put a couple more on the ice for me.

BARMAN: Ain't got no drink here, sir. This is a bookshop...

NEWSREADER: A bookshop?

BARMAN: That's right, sir. This is the last bookshop before you get to Mexico.

NEWSREADER: Well where can I get a drink?

BARMAN: Well there ain't no bars around here. Not that I knows off. Hey! Mr Scott.

THE READING COWBOYS LOOK UP FROM THEIR BOOKS.

COWBOYS: Sh!

BARMAN: Sorry fellows. Mr Scott. Do you know if there's a bar anywhere around here?

SCOTT: Nope. Nearest bar I know's in Canada.

NEWSREADER: Canada?

BAR: We've got a book on Home-Brewing.

NEWSREADER: I want to drink now.

SCOTT: How about the Indian Trading Post? They usually have a few bottles around.

BAR: Not since they started specialising in Modern European Authors...

SCOTT: Well I guess there's nowhere.

BAR: They got all Graham Greene.

DUDE: Haven't you got some water even?

BAR: Well you see this hyar town's right in the middle of a goddam dried up creek. Ain't no good for nothing but reading.

SCOTT: Yup. Rootin, Ridin and Readin.

THEY SUDDENLY LOOK UP TERRIFIED. SOUND OF DOORS SWINGING OPEN. CUT TO SEE THE KID AND HIS SIDEKICK – BOTH EVIL TREACHEROUS BANDITS.

EVERYONE LOOKS TERRIFIED AND PRETEND TO READ ALL THE HARDER. KID SWAGGERS UP TO BAR.

SIZES UP THE PLACE. BARMAN QUAILS.

KID: Hey you! Come here?

BARMAN: Who me?

KID: Come here. (BARMAN APROACHES. KID LEANS OVER AND DROPS HIS VOICE SLIGHTLY) Do you have "Black Beauty" by Anna Sewell?

BARMAN: Yeah yeah...I think so. I'll have a look.

HE RUSHES OFF TERRIFIED. THE KID AND SIDEKICK STARE ROUND THE ROOM HOSTILELY.

BARMAN COMES BACK WITH A SMALL RATHER SHABBY PAPERBACK.

BARMAN: Yeah. I got it. It's the last one.

KID TAKES IT.

KID: What kind of edition do you call this?

BAR: It's...it's a nice little book, isn't it?

KID: Listen! We gotta ride south tonight. We got another 5 days on the trail. This is gonna get all crumpled and bent.

BAR: It's quite strong.

KID: Listen, Mister! When you ride like we do, things get real rough treatment. You don't know what it's like til you've settled down round the campfire to the sound of the wild dogs and the rattlesnakes, and you get out a book to read, and it's bent in the cover, and it's got creases right across the pages, and the paper's got all roughed up...

BAR (LOOKING WITH FEAR FROM FACE TO FACE) We...we're expecting some more in, boys.

KID: Do you have any other stories about horses?

ANDERSON: In hardback.

BAR: Oh...er...yes sure. I got er...um Champion Anual...You know Champion the Wonder...

KID: Read it.

BAR: There's the White Stallion of...

KID: Wichita. Read it.

BAR: There's Chestnut and Sue...

KID: What's Chestnut and Sue?

BAR: Well it's about this little girl...

KID: Sue.

BAR: Right. And she live a kinda lonely life...cose her ole man's died...and her ma's getting a little kind of ill...and the only thing she really loves is this little horse...that her dad gave her afore he died...chestnut...

KID: That so?

BAR: Yeah.

SLIGHT PAUSE

KID: Well go on! (THREATENS HIM WITH GUN)

BAR: And...well...and they're gonna have to leave the little house in the country, cos there ain't no money...and they have to leave chestnut behind...

KID: They leave Chestnut behind?! (GETTING ANGRY)

BAR (CALMING HIM DOWN): They have to...because there's no room where they're going...

KID: They could have found somewhere.

BAR: It's a little apartment...it's dirty and small...there's no room...

KID: And what does Sue do?

ANDERSON: Yeah! What happens to Sue?

BAR: Well, she goes to the stable to say goodbye to Chestnut...and...(HE STARTS TO CRY) he just nuzzles up to her like...

KID AND ANDERSON ARE WEEPING.

BAR: ...and she leaves him...and he runs all the way along the railway line beside her train, with his big eyes looking after her...

THEY ALL BREAK DOWN.

FADE TO BLACK.

CAPTION: BRYCE CANYON. 3 DAYS LATER

MIX THROUGH TO THE CAMPFIRE. THE KID'S READING. HE PUTS THE BOOK DOWN AND WIPES HIS EYES.

KID: That's the most beautiful story I ever read.

ANDERSON: I wish I could read, kid.

KID: Yeah...you write so well.

ANDERSON: I don't know.

KID: How many books you written now?

ANDERSON: I haven't had any published though.

KID: They probably haven't got round to reading them yet...agents are busy.

ANDERSON: I suppose so, Kid...Hey! I got another idea for a story...

KID: Oh yeah?

AND: Yeah...you wanna hear it?

KID: Well...yes sure... Jake...

AND: It's about this guy,,, this ordinary kind of guy...and he goes into a store...you know just an ordinary dime store...and he smashes the whole place up...just kind of smashes it up, and he breaks everything in the store...but one of the things he breaks...about the middle of the book...is an alarm bell...you with me?

KID: Yeah I'm with you.

AND: He's just so busy breaking and smashing things that he don't notice that he's broken the alarm bell. But...

KID: Yeah

AND: The alarm bell is connected to the sheriff's office.

KID: Yeah.

AND: And the sheriff comes down with 5 guys to the store and they really beat him up.

KID: Yeah...

KID: That's it?

AND: It's an allegory.

KID: Oh I see.

AND: I'm gonna call it: "The Guy Who Smashed The Store Up And Broke It".

KID: Get some sleep, Jake. We got a long ride to the publishers tomorrow...

MIX TO DAY. THEY ARE RIDING ALONG SIDE BY SIDE. MUSIC.

THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER AND SMILE.

THEY START SINGING.

We're riding along
To the publishers
Gonna publish a novel.

We're travelling nights
So we get the rights
To the film, the book and the paperback...

There's that Magraw-Hill
Got a wonderful skill
For publishing scientific textbooks,
But for fiction you'll find
You'll have more peace of mind
If Holt, Rinehart and Winston do your next books.

Singing yippity yi
Oh yipity de
Holt, Rinehart and Winston for me.

Now Ballantine books
Ain't no kind of crooks
And Faber are swell at the game.

Doubleday are great
But for books that elate
Holt, Rinehart and Winston's the name!

Now dude boys and saps
Know for publishing maps
It's got to be McNally Rand
But to publish the rest
In all the Wild West
Holt, Rinehart & Winston are grand!

THE PINK KNIGHT SKETCH

Arthur 'rides' out of a clump of trees and approaches a bridge across a stream – narrower than the one guarded by the Black Knight. Standing at this bridge in a slightly camp pose is a tall but thin Pink Knight.

Arthur 'rides' up to him....

ARTHUR: Let me pass good sir Knight

P.K MAKES A CAMP BUT DEFIANT GESTURE

P.K: That cannot be.

ARTHUR: I have no quarrel with you Pink Sir Knight, I wish only to cross this bridge

P.K: None shall cross this bridge save he who shall give me a kiss.

ARTHUR: What!

P.K: Give me a kiss...on the lips, none of this sort of pecking the French try and get away with,

ARTHUR: I wish you well good sir Knight but now I am in great haste.

P.K (CLOSING): Come on.

ARTHUR: No.

P.K: Oh just a little one. I won't touch you with my hands.

ARTHUR (TRYING TO GET BY): No no I'm afraid not.

P.K: Come on, it won't lead to anything, I promise.

ARTHUR: No, I don't want to.

P.K: I won't get involved or anything. Just a bit of fun.

ARTHUR: No.

P.K: Oh go on. No-one'll know. We don't have to go all the way.

ARTHUR: Get away.

P.K (TRYING TO MAUL HIM): Come on.

ARTHUR: Stand back!

P.K: You've got super little dimples just there (INDICATES).

ARTHUR SLAMS HIS VISOR DOWN AND STARTS TRYING TO GET AT HIS SWORD BUT THE PINK KNIGHT IS MAULING HIM.

P.K: Come on, come on, it'll be super.

ARTHUR: No no.

P.K: You want to really.

ARTHUR: Leave me alone.

THE PINK KNIGHT TRIES TO EMBRACE HIM AND AFTER A VERY BRIEF STRUGGLE THEY LOSE THEIR BALANCE AND FALL OVER ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. A COUPLE OF BITS OF THEIR ARMOUR GET CAUGHT.

ARTHUR: Get off! Get off!!

P.K: I can't I'm stuck.

ARTHUR: Get off me.

P.K: My knees got caught in your tasset.

ARTHUR: Will you stop it?

P.K: Oh it's no good.

A COUPLE OF PILGRIMS...MONKS AND NUNS PREDOMINATING, HAVE COME INTO SIGHT AND ARE NOW APPROACHING THE HAPPY COUPLE. THEY DISAPPROVE VERY STRONGLY BUT THEY DO NOT OVERACT. NONE OF THEM IS BILL PERTWEE.

P.K: Come on.

ARTHUR: Get your gauntlet out of my Fald[?]

P.K: We might as well now.

ARTHUR: Stop it will you?

NOW ARTHUR SEES THE PILGRIMS.

ARTHUR: Ah! Sorry about this, I'm afraid we've got out armour stuck.

NUN: Oh yes.

P.K: Oh come on don't worry about them.

ARTHUR: Will you get off me?

MONKS: Dirty buggers.

ARTHUR: I beg your pardon?

MONKS: Disgusting. You could at least go indoors. You landowners are all the same.

ARTHUR: No, no, you don't understand.

NUN: Throw a bucket of water over them.

ARTHUR: Please let me go.

THIS UNDIGNIFIED MELEE CONTINUES AS THE PILGRIMS MARCH PAST

FADE THROUGH TO...

[gloria]

NONE OF THEM IS BILL PERTWEE.

I love these little gags in Python stage directions. There's a fantastic one in the Life of Brian table read ("BOB MONKHOUSE IS ARRESTED AGAIN") that cracks Chapman up.

[neveragain]

Wonderful stuff.

[Replies From View]

Lovely; thanks for sharing that.  The Cowboys Sketch in particular should have been used elsewhere.  It would have fitted happily into Meaning of Life.

Does anyone else automatically hear the Python's voices when they read these sketches, even though no names are attributed to the various parts?

[kalowski]

Lovely; thanks for sharing that.  The Cowboys Sketch in particular should have been used elsewhere.  It would have fitted happily into Meaning of Life.

Does anyone else automatically hear the Python's voices when they read these sketches, even though no names are attributed to the various parts?

Yes. The Pink Knight has that campness or even homophobia of the time, a bit like Poovey Judges and I can hear Palin or Idle. I can tell it's funny, but probably of its time.

[Spudgun]

The Pink Knight has that campness or even homophobia of the time, a bit like Poovey Judges and I can hear Palin or Idle. I can tell it's funny, but probably of its time.

How to kill a discussion about newly-discovered Monty Python material stone dead in one easy step.

[kalowski]

How to kill a discussion about newly-discovered Monty Python material stone dead in one easy step.

...and I waggled my wig! Just ever so slightly, but it was a stunning effect.

[Spudgun]

...and I waggled my wig! Just ever so slightly, but it was a stunning effect.

I was expecting you to tell us the thread wasn't dead, but just resting.

In all seriousness, I'm inclined to give the Pythons the benefit of the doubt over this, and I thought the Pink Knight sketch was very funny. I mean, it's a little obvious in concept bordering on clichéd (possibly why they ditched it), but I can definitely imagine Graham Chapman and (say) Michael Palin putting in performances that would have made it transcend what we read on the page, to the point that it would just look daft and therefore still stand up today. Or maybe I'm being too generous - I don't know. I honestly don't detect any hatred or anything, though.

[Revelator]

Yesterday's Times also had an article titled "Why Pink Knight satire could never have been written today"--here's the meat of the text:

Palin's archive includes minutes from a script meeting that describe the Pink Knight as "not an obvious poof or anything". The notes continue: "Only when we see Arthur's reaction to him are we aware of Arthur's very old-fashioned and defensive attitude to pooves."

Palin said that the sketch would not be written today. "I think probably it wouldn't be quite the same because the establishment attitude has changed quite a lot," he said. "When we were writing Python in 1973 there was much more homophobia — or rather not homophobia exactly, but awkwardness of dealing with the whole subject of homosexuality.

"That was the key point to writing comedy. It was to find a point where people were a bit confused or had contrasting views, and [that included] people making rather absurd remarks about gayness. Nowadays that may not be as funny because we've changed a lot in our attitude since then."

Palin noted that Graham Chapman, who played Arthur, was gay and would not have disapproved. "Graham was one of the first people in the entertainment business to actually come out as being gay. That was at the very start of Python. He would probably have written [that type of sketch] himself."

The file held at the British Library contains minutes of a script meeting held in 1973 that states that the sketch should be discarded because it was too similar to the Black Knight scene. "You had to have one or the other," Palin said.

***

There was also a small article in the Times titled "Not enough money for a climactic battle," which states:

Draft scripts show that the film was meant to end with the knights of Camelot engaging the French in an epic fight scene that included the reappearance of the fearsome killer rabbit. A theme running through the film was that Sir Galahad, the purest of all the knights, was the key to finding the grail and there is "great rejoicing" when he finally arrives at the battle. He is killed immediately.

Michael Palin said that the grand finale was replaced with an anticlimax in part because they could not afford to film the scene. "We had quite a bit of discussion over the ending. It's always the hardest thing to do, to round off a film as loose as that.

"There was an idea that there should be a battle and that everyone should be involved. Then the idea came up to follow through with the historian, who was in there quite early on. In the end, we thought, let's carry that through. We had this idea that at the very end, before we get into an expensive battle which we had no money for, that the police should come on and arrest Arthur."

The ending still provokes controversy, with some viewers irritated by the lack of a final confrontation and others saying that it was a daring joke.

***

And yet another small article I missed, "Unrestrained swearing by some very naughty boys":

The most memorable insults in Monty Python and the Holy Grail featured no swearwords, although King Arthur and his knights had to endure threats of "farts in your general direction" as well as the suggestion that their mothers were hamsters and their fathers smelt of elderberries.

Early drafts were not so restrained and contained language that appears nowhere else in the group's recorded work. One scene, written for Holy Grail but abandoned before it took shape, features a series of policemen in the Protection of Rich People Squad with increasingly silly names. It begins with Sergeant Squitters and Superintendent Smellybotty, who for the punchline call upon Constable C***.

The sketch is one of several that place Arthur in a modern setting, almost all of which were excised from the finished film. The constable reappeared in a scene that shows Arthur travelling in a car with Hamlet, who has become a private detective. When the car crashes, amid much swearing, the police arrive. One officer tells another: "Alright, C***, I'll take over."

Michael Palin said that the group had a more liberal attitude towards swearing than most people realised. Asked if they had an "anything goes" attitude, he said: "Absolutely. It wasn't exactly trying to shock, but we were trying to push the boundaries — trying to shock each other. I remember hearing the sketch about the funeral parlour and someone bringing their mother along in a bag and I said, 'Oh, no, we can't have that.' And then I heard it a second time and I thought it was very funny, in a quite shocking way."

He added: "The idea was not to be restrained until you got to the point of putting the material into a show."

The C-word does not appear elsewhere in Python films or programmes, although Eric Idle came close during a sketch when he played a character with a speech impediment that causes him to replace Cs with Bs. He refers to himself as a "silly bunt". Idle also used the word in a version of his Naval Medley that has been performed live.

[McChesney Duntz]

Didn't Cleese call Jonesy a cunt in the "Albatross" bit in Live at the Hollywood Bowl? I mean, it's both semi-obscure and semi-obscure(d) due to laughter, but c'mon, journalists...

[Revelator]

Didn't Cleese call Jonesy a cunt in the "Albatross" bit in Live at the Hollywood Bowl? I mean, it's both semi-obscure and semi-obscure(d) due to laughter, but c'mon, journalists...

Indeed he did. Error aside, it's nice that the Times even devoted an article to swearing on Python. Its coverage of Palin's archive has been surprisingly generous, and I especially appreciated the sketch transcripts. I assume those were probably readied for the current British Library exhibit on Palin's archive, but I hope they also mean an effort is underway to collect, catalog and publish all that lost Python material. And next year I really hope we'll get the Flying Circus on Blu-Ray for its 50th anniversary, in a definitive edition that includes the deleted/censored sketches and obscurities like the group's corporate training films (the Bird's Eye film is practically a lost episode).

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Aside from The Hollywood Bowl cunt, Reg rather obviously calls Brian a Cunt in Life of Brian, but it's dubbed in as Klutz, as they decided the profanity distracted the audience's attention from the point of the scene.

[Shaky]

There's an excised sketch from Life of Brian doing the rounds today, although it seems to be behind a paywall anywhere I look. Oz's big right-wing rag ("The Australian") also has an article entitled "Infighting, claims of selfishness dogged Monty Python team as they worked on Life of Brian" but it's behind a paywall as well.

Bloody paywalls.

[St_Eddie]

There's an excised sketch from Life of Brian doing the rounds today, although it seems to be behind a paywall anywhere I look. Oz's big right-wing rag ("The Australian") also has an article entitled "Infighting, claims of selfishness dogged Monty Python team as they worked on Life of Brian" but it's behind a paywall as well.

Bloody paywalls.

Life of Brian was Monty Python's crowning moment as satirists, with the group both delighting cinemagoers and landing a blow on the establishment.

So great was its cultural impact that the closing number, in which victims of crucifixion sing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, has become the most popular choice for British funerals.  Chapman wanted the Pythons to "make a statement" with the film.

The path to success was not always harmonious, however. An intemperate memo found in Michael Palin's recently deposited archive at the British Library discloses details of infighting and accusations of selfishness among the team.

The discovery of the memo follows the publication in yesterday's Times of two previously unpublished sketches from their earlier film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Graham Chapman, who played the title character in Life of Brian, upbraided his fellow writers in a typewritten note on pink paper circulated to Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Terry Jones.

The memo, which is undated but was written after the 1979 film had been shot, begins by declaring that the group should not be afraid of "making a statement" and that their aim should be nobler than making "huge quantities of money to be incredibly comfortable and so cut off from the nastiness of the world".

He continued: "Neither is personal stardom a laudable aim. I have noticed at recent meetings how very cleverly each one of us has been at disguising the fact that he is really more concerned with how he (or his material) fares in the film than with the film itself.

"The only exception is Terry Jones and I would like him to be given a real opportunity as a director to produce the version he would like without one or other of us pestering for more of his action — or for less of so-and-so's action. We could have a film with a little subtlety and emotion as well as laughs... Fuck the number of minutes — at this minute it is not the magnificent film it could be."

Chapman did not single out any contentious scenes, but one that Palin remembers as being difficult was a sequence in which Idle portrayed Otto, a Jewish racial supremacist with a Hitler moustache. The deleted scene, which introduces the "suicide squad" that turns up at the end of the film, was later released as a DVD special feature.

Palin's Life of Brian file includes a memo from Idle in which he concedes that the scene should be cut. "I think Otto is definitely hurting the end of the film in his present position," Idle wrote. "I think that Otto is not really worth the trouble and misunderstanding that he causes, for the laughs that he gets. Were it the funniest sketch in the world it would be worth fighting for, but since it is only fairly amusing my feeling is that we should cut it to improve the film." Palin called his ditched Lazarus scene "pat and predictable"

He argued, unsuccessfully, that the film should retain Otto's song, which was not released until long after the film. The song begins: "There's a man we call our leader/ He's fine and strong and brave/ And we follow him unquestioning/ Towards an early grave."

Palin recalled that the disagreements had become heated but they had kept this private. "Oh gosh, [the public] weren't aware because [they] didn't really know these things," he said. "The outside world didn't, necessarily, because with every productive group you don't rush to the papers and say: 'Oh, by the way, we're having a quarrel.' "

He said that Python members came out of various test screenings and lobbied for some scenes to be replaced with others. "Graham seemed to think that this was becoming rather selfish.  Graham chooses to personalise it, rather, but that's what happens with any creative group, I think. There's always difference of opinion."

[Revelator]

Another short article from the Times:

Blasphemy risk from old ending

The offence of blasphemous libel was abolished in 2008 but for the creators of Life of Brian it was a threat to their livelihoods and could have resulted in jail. Early drafts of sketches for the film reveal material that was far more inflammatory than the final script and would have undermined their defence that the story had nothing to do with Jesus Christ or the Christian church.

Their argument, approved by their barrister, John Mortimer, was that Brian was merely a man who was born on the same day and was mistaken for the messiah.

One notebook in Michael Palin's archive features an alternative ending in which Brian is rescued from the cross and reluctantly becomes the founder of the Roman Catholic church. A rough plan for the film, then titled Monty Python's Life of Christ, does not end with Brian's death, but with his disciples Norman and Ralph sawing through his crucifix. Ignoring Brian's pleas to be left to die, Norman says: "You're not going to die, Brian. We've got great plans for you. We're going to found a church."

These scenes were dropped before the Python team hired Mortimer.

Palin said that the Pythons never sought to criticise Christ: "[Eric Idle] came up with the wonderful title: Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory. Everyone did quite a bit of reading ... and generally came back convinced that Jesus was a good bloke and a revolutionary of his time and against all hypocrisy and the cant of the official Jewish church of the time and that was the kind of figure we wanted. So that put him in the clear."

[Shaky]

Thanks chaps!

[Autopsy Turvey]

Also "There is little or no offensive material, apart from four cunts, one clitoris and a foreskin"

[Attila]

Bringing this thread back up to the surface to say if you're in London any time soon, go check out the Michael Palin exhibition at the British Library. First time in my life as either a history student or now  a lecturer that i've actually been moved to tears at one of the BL's exhibitions, oddly enough. I think it's seeing the drafts and handwritten versions of sketches and films that had such an impact on my life, dunno. Plus, seeing the page from the original draft of Brian's 'Biggus Dickus' scene and noting that it has a bona fide assession number/shelf mark just like Beowulf and Magna Carta and all that is just too cool for words. :)

On display are the handwritten drafts for what became the Spam sketch, the original version of Arthur - or Alfred the Great in the original draft -- being called out for having coconuts in stead of horses, and a couple of Brian scenes. That's just the Monty Python stuff -- they have a really lovely display from MP's earliest writing work up through Monty Python, the Python films, Ripping Yarns, Palin's later films, loads of stuff.  It's really neat, and since it's iin the treasures gallery, it's free to view.

[neveragain]

Wow. How long will it be there, d'ya know?

[Attila]

Wow. How long will it be there, d'ya know?

Til 25 November -- dunno if any of the pieces will become part of a smaller, permanent display like they have for the Beatles (the latter display gets updated on a regular basis, too, which is cool -- they now have a handwritten piece from George Harrison, the only document in his handwritng in their entire Beatles' collection -- although interestingly, there's a letter from him to Michael Palin in the MP exhibition).

I think he donated like 45 boxes of papers and documents -- so all of that will stay in the BL (it's all got shelf marks! I know I've said that, but it's brilliant), and can be accessed by researchers and stuff.

[Replies From View]

Til 25 November -- dunno if any of the pieces will become part of a smaller, permanent display like they have for the Beatles (the latter display gets updated on a regular basis, too, which is cool -- they now have a handwritten piece from George Harrison, the only document in his handwritng in their entire Beatles' collection -- although interestingly, there's a letter from him to Michael Palin in the MP exhibition).

WHAT I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS "BAEYLES".