John Cleese Says Monty Python Was ‘Very Lucky’ with Success of ‘Holy Grail’ ArticlePure

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was released in the United States 50 years ago, on April 28, 1975. And though it’s now a comedy classic, co-writer and star John Cleese says his comedy troupe mostly got lucky.

“We had no idea what we were doing,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published April 28. “We were very lucky. There was some extremely funny material in Holy Grail, and we somehow got it together because [Terry] Jones and [Terry] Gilliam managed to co-direct it.”

The comedy troupe Monty Python was founded in the 1960s, with members including Cleese, 85, Jones, Gilliam, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Carol Cleveland. Neil Innes joined in 1974. The group first found fame in Britain thanks to their sketch comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which premiered in 1969. Their 1971 film And Now for Something Completely Different reshot some of their most iconic sketches, but Holy Grail was their first original film. All the members of the troupe were credited as writers on the film.

“[There was] the usual Python chaos with one of them creeping down to the editing room and re-editing something while the other one was asleep upstairs, this kind of thing,” Cleese said with a laugh about the editing process for the film. “Then it opened and was a complete surprise hit. We were thrilled because it was the last thing we expected. When we started Python, the general feeling was, ‘What on earth are these people doing?’ ” 

Cleese remembered a department head at the BBC, where the series aired, asking one of their directors, “Is this show supposed to be funny? I think it’s awful.” He added, “One consistent theme to almost everything I’ve done is that 85 percent of the people at the top have no idea what they’re doing.”

As for the long-term cultural impact of Holy Grail — which has been eminently quotable for generations of comedy fans — and Monty Python generally, Cleese said he was “terribly impressed” when a U.S. political cartoon referenced one of their jokes. “I remember suddenly thinking, ‘Whoa, we’ve arrived! We’re in the political cartoons,’ ” he said. 

Then there’s the Black Knight bit in Holy Grail, in which Cleese’s knight is attacked by King Arthur (Chapman), and though he’s mortally wounded, he tells him, “‘Tis but a scratch.” Cleese said, “I had a small precancerous thing cut out of my arm in L.A. a few years ago, and when the guy sewed it up, he said, ‘‘Tis but a scratch,’ as he walked out of the room. It’s very nice when these things appear in people’s conversation. Python is quite well-known, although I think the younger people don’t know about it, really.”

Though Holy Grail received mixed reactions when it originally hit theaters, it became a cult classic over the decades. In 2005, the movie was adapted into the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Monty Python’s Spamalot.

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Cleese said that the movie’s legacy is “extraordinary” and noted a 2017 BBC poll of the greatest comedies of all time. Holy Grail was ranked No. 15, while 1979’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian was ranked No. 6. “You feel proud and pleased,” he said. “I don’t take rankings very seriously, but there’s some sense one knows one was up there with the best, and that’s very satisfying.”