Monty Python and the Holy Grail

(1975) Directed by Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones

'For more of Monty Python, see also: Monty Python's Flying Circus, Life of Brian, and Monty Python's the Meaning of Life''

__TOC__

Peasant 1: How do you know he's a king?
Peasant 2: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Animation sequence
Narrator: In the frozen lands of Nagor, they were forced to eat Robin's minstrels. (minstrel figures get pulled behind a rock, munching noises ensue). And there was much rejoicing.
Knights (unenthusiastically): yay....yay....
Narrator: As the dreaded beast lunged forward, escape for Arthur seemed impossible, when suddenly the animator suffered a fatal heart attack. (cuts to Terry Gilliam the animator keeling over with a hreek)

Table of contents

1 Arthur and Dennis
2 The Black Knight
3 Asking about the Grail
4 Swamp Castle
5 The Witch
6 The Knights who say "Ni!"
7 The Bridge of Death
8 The Holy Hand Grenade

8.1 Cast
8.2 Directed by

9 External links

Arthur and Dennis

Arthur: Old woman!
Dennis: MAN!
Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis: I'm 37.
Arthur: What?
Dennis: I'm 37! I'm not old!
Arthur: Well, I can't just call you "man".
Dennis: You could say "Dennis".
Arthur: I didn't know you were called Dennis.
Dennis: Well you didn't bother to find out, did you?
Arthur: I did say I'm sorry about the old woman thing, but from behind you looked...
Dennis: What I object is to you automatically treat me like an inferior.
Arthur: Well, I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king. That's great. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress...
Woman: Dennis, Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here. Oh, how'd you do?
Arthur: How'd you do good lady? I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose castle is that?
Woman: King of the who?
Arthur: The Britons.
Woman: Who are the Britons?
Arthur: Well, we all are. We are all Britons and I am your king.
Woman: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Dennis: You're foolin' yourself. We're living in a dicatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class...
Woman: Oh there you go bringing class into it again!
Dennis: That's what it's all about! If only people would realize...
Arthur: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
Woman: No one lives there.
Arthur: Then who is your lord?
Woman: We don't have a lord.
Arthur: What?!
Dennis: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week.
Arthur: Yes.
Dennis: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting...
Arthur: Yes, I see.
Dennis:...by a simple majority. In the case of purely internal affairs...
Arthur: Be quiet.
Dennis:...require two thirds majority. In the case of...
Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Woman: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?
Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well, how did you become King, then?
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake,... [Angel chorus begins singing in background] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [Angel chorus ends] That is why I am your king!
Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: —but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
Arthur: Shut up!
Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Arthur: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Arthur: Shut up!
Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Arthur: Bloody peasant!
Dennis: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

The Black Knight

"'Tis but a scratch."
- Black Knight's comment on losing his left arm.
"It's just a flesh wound."
- Black Knight's comment on losing both his arms.
"Come back, you coward -- I'll bite your legs off!"
- Black Knight's comment as Arthur and Patsy leave, after he has lost all his arms and legs.

Asking about the Grail

"Uh, he's already got one you see."
- Notes: French knight's retort to King Arthur's attempt to see the leader of the castle for help looking for the grail

Swamp Castle

"One day, lad, all this will be yours."
"What, the curtains?"
"Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Everyone said it was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. Then I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one...stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands."
"Listen, lad, in twenty minutes you're going to be married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of open land in Britain..."
"I don't want land."
"Listen, Alice..."
"Herbert"
"Herbert... We built this castle on a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get!"
"I don't like her."
"Don't like her? What's wrong with her? She's beautiful... she's rich... she's got huge... (gestures to his chest) tracts of land."

King of Swamp Castle: "This is Sir Launcelot from the Court of Camelot! He is a very brave and influential knight and my special guest today."
Wedding guest: "He's killed my auntie!"
King: "No, please! This is meant to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who... We are here to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of holy wedlock. Now unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death....But I don't want to think I've lost a son as much as gained a daughter for, since the tragic death of her father..."
Shout from back of hall: "He's not quite dead!"
King: "Since the fatal wounding of her father..."
Shout from back: "I think he's getting better!"
King (discreet nod to soldier): For... since her father... who when he seemed about to recover... suddenly felt the icy... hand of death upon him" (scuffle at the back)
Shout from back: "Oh, he's died!"
King: "I want his only daughter, from now onwards, to think of me as her own dad... in a very real and legally binding sense."

(chanting) "Pies iesu domine, dona eis requiem." (whack)
- Notes: Chanted by a group of monks carrying fairly large wooden boards
- Notes: Translated: Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest.

"I fart in your general direction!"

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

Notes: French Knight insulting King Arthur.

The Witch

"What do you do with witches?"

"Burn Them!"

"And what do you burn apart from witches?"

"More witches!" (peasant gets slapped)

"Wood!"

"So why do witches burn?"

"Because they're made of... wood?"

"Good! So how do we tell whether she is made of wood?"

"Build a bridge out of her!"

"But can you not make a bridge out of stone?"

"Oh ya."

"Does wood sink in water?"

"No, it floats."

"Throw her into the pond!"

"What also floats in water?"

"Bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, gravy, cherries, mud, churches, lead..."

"A duck!"

"So..."

"If she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood."

"And therefore?"

"A Witch!"

The Knights who say "Ni!"

"Ni!"
We are no longer the knights who say NI!, we are now the knights who say "EKKE EKKE EKKE PTANG ZOO-BOING!"
We dine well here in Camelot!
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot!
- The Camelot Song