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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
"Monty Python And The Holy Grail" is 50. This version of the classic King Arthur story takes some unexpected turns.
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JOHN CLEESE: (As Taunting French Guard) I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.
INSKEEP: Did we just play that on the radio? I think we did. NPR's Kaity Kline takes a look at the film's legacy.
KAITY KLINE, BYLINE: "Monty Python And The Holy Grail" followed up on the troupe's absurd TV sketch show "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
KLINE: Kim Howard Johnson is a Monty Python historian. He says the film put the group on the map internationally.
KIM HOWARD JOHNSON: They were known in Britain, and Michael Palin came up with the idea of doing a medieval film.
KLINE: It starred core members John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, playing nearly every character from King Arthur...
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GRAHAM CHAPMAN: (As King Arthur) Well, on second thoughts, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
KLINE: ...To the Black Knight.
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CLEESE: (As The Black Knight) Tis but a scratch.
CHAPMAN: (As King Arthur) A scratch? Your arm's off.
CLEESE: (As The Black Knight) No, it isn't.
CHAPMAN: (As King Arthur) Well, what's that, then?
KLINE: Johnson says the film was produced on a shoestring budget, around $400,000, according to the Pythons - not a lot when you want your movie to end with a huge battle scene, which they couldn't afford. So instead, the movie suddenly ends with the cast getting arrested by modern-day police.
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JULIAN DOYLE: (As Police Sergeant) All right, sonny, that's enough. Just pack that up.
KLINE: Eric Idle talked about the absurdity of the ending on "Late Night With Seth Meyers" last year.
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SETH MEYERS: But your daughter does not love the ending to "Holy Grail"?
ERIC IDLE: No, she said to me at about the age 8, Dad, that ending's crap.
MEYERS: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
IDLE: No, and she's right, actually.
KLINE: Johnson said the Pythons also wanted to use real horses.
JOHNSON: And they realized this is going to be very difficult to film. This is going to be very difficult to wrangle these horses. So what can we do that can save us money?
KLINE: So the knights of the round table pretend to ride horses instead, while a servant runs behind them banging coconuts together.
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JOHNSON: They saved a fortune. They got great visual laughs right from the get-go.
KLINE: When the film was released, it had moderate success in the U.S. and U.K. and got mixed reviews from critics. But over time, the "Holy Grail's" reputation grew, and now it's considered one of the greatest comedy films of all time.
ANNE LIBERA: It's impossible to think of modern comedy without the Pythons as an influence because it shows up everywhere.
KLINE: Anne Libera is the director of comedy studies at Columbia College Chicago and The Second City, the Chicago-based comedy troupe. You can see the "Holy Grail's" chaotic comedy style in shows like "Saturday Night Live," "The Simpsons," and "South Park." Libera says part of what's so wonderful about the Pythons is they're incredibly smart but also brilliantly silly.
LIBERA: They're using what they know in service of something that is sometimes really, really dumb.
KLINE: Like in this scene from "Holy Grail" where a peasant challenges King Arthur's authority.
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MICHAEL PALIN: (As Dennis) But you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
CHAPMAN: (As King Arthur) Shut up.
KLINE: We asked listeners to share their "Monty Python And The Holy Grail" memories, and a lot of you did. A recurring theme was how much the film brought people together, like when Robert Lloyd Jones (ph) started college at a small Christian school in Texas.
ROBERT LLOYD JONES: And I felt like such a little weirdo who never really fit in anywhere. I was unsure if I would ever find my people.
KLINE: One day, he was sitting in the cafeteria, and he started hearing familiar Gregorian chanting from "The Holy Grail."
JONES: There's a line of five young men who are walking directly towards my table with empty food trays in their hands. And every time they finished a line of the Pie Jesu, they smacked themselves on the forehead with their trays.
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KLINE: And they're still some of his closest friends. And maybe you can make a close friend at a screening of the film, which is back in select theaters this week to mark the 50th anniversary.
Kaity Kline, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUN AWAY SONG")
MONTY PYTHON: (Singing) Every noble knight will fight for what is right. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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