The Album
of the
Soundtrack
of the
Trailer
of the
Film
of Monty
Python
and the
Holy Grail
(Everything except excerpts from the film "Monty Python and the
Holy Grail" done by Gustaf Sjöblom May 1995 and "Logic"
sketch.)
Congratulations 1
Welcome to the cinema 1
Professional Logician 2
The Silbury Hill Car Park 2
Bomb Threat 3
Executive Announcement 3
The Story of the Film So Far 3
Description of the Three headed knight 3
Problems with projectionist 4
Interview with Carl French (Marilyn Monroe) 4
Projectionist is well again 5
Tim the Enchanter helps the Knights 5
Great Performances 5
Announcement - Sir Kenneth Clarke 6
End of Record 6
Congratulations
GC: Congratulations on buying the executive version of this
record. You have chosen wisely and we value your discerning
taste in deciding to pay the few extra pence for a product of
real quality. Everything on this record has been designed to
meet the exacting standards which you have naturally come to
expect. The record itself is made from the very finest
Colombian extruded polyvinyl. The centerhole has been created
to fit exactly onto your spindle with all the precision of
finest Swiss craftmanship. The audio content has been quality
graded to give you the finest in listening pleasure. There is
little or no offending material apart from four cunts, one
clitoris, and a foreskin. And as they only occur in this
opening introduction, you're past them now. You can relax and
enjoy this quality product, secure in the knowledge that it has
been specially created for the lover of fine things and man of
good taste. (He farts.) Oh! Sorry! You can edit that out, can't
you?
Recording Coordinator: Yeah, no problem.
Welcome to the cinema
MP: The album of the soundtrack of the trailer of the film of
Monty Pithon and the Holy Grail!
GC: Python, Python...Python...
MP: Live from the Classic Silbury Hills!
MP: Hello, and welcome to the Classic Silbury Hill, for the ---
performance of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I can see
through the door of the gentlemens' thhat the B-feature "Bring
me the head of Don Reavy" has only a few minutes left to run,
just time for me to tell you a few quick words about the
theatre. The Classic Silbury Hill, formerly The Social Club of
The Handover Parks and Burials Department was converted into a
cinema in 1941, by Ken Poulsen, father of John, in the Gothic
renaissance style. The lavatory complies two --- standard
fixtures and a 12-inch enamel wall bar with self-rinsing ---
and were opened by Gary Cooper in 1957. Well, I can see now
Unison Marine Zapper, salesgirls here through two wars and six
different toreath administrations, making their way to the
front of the auditorium with their sales trays, full of ice
creams, lollipops, sweets, dubbin, and broken glass. There are
several people in the audience this afternoon, this is an old
age pensioners' afternoon, and I can see Mrs. Skeleton from the
Customs and Exiles in row G, and away there by the statue of
Pan, is Mr. Hallway, the local Seamen's Union organiser. A
surprise visitor is Mr. Bhutto, the president of Pakistan in
Row K, and up in the circle is Enid Pickles, local
representative of the Baader-Meinhof group. She is the only one
armed here this afternoon. Now, while the film "Monty Python
and the Holy Grail" is being loaded into the huge projectors by
Vincent Wong, the Sino-Scottish projectionist here at Silbury
Hill, let's look back to that never-to-be-forgotten occasion
when the film premiered in London's busy West End. Bob Ghandi
is the reporter.
EI: Hello, and welcome to Old Compton Street, it's a mild night
here, warm for early April, and a large crowd has gathered
outside to watch this great gala night for the stars. The cars
are arriving quite fast now, here's a beautiful Rolls Royce
Silver Corniche, all white, sliding gracefully up to the doors
of the cinema. Commisioner Alf Venables, ex-father of Terry,
steps forward, opens the door, and out steps a radiant Miss
Taylor herself, looking absolutely stunning and off the ---
organs are in silk dress, and next comes Burt Reynolds in a
huge red Ferrari sports car and... My God! Burt Reynolds has
run into the back of the Corniche and Miss Taylor turns and
makes a splendid gesture at... Great heavens! It's Steve
McQueen --- --- somersaulted through the air and --- into the
back bumper of --- And who's this coming through the windscreen
of the Mini...yes, it's lovely star Barbara Streisand flying
through the air in a beautiful build of creation...and she's
landed half on Roger Moore, looking quite well, and half on
Jack Nicholson, who's not so well, and who's that under the
back wheel? It's..yes! It's Faye Dunaway! No, no...it's Victor
--- Yes, all the stars are here tonight...that's --- squashed
inbetween the bonnet and Pete Murray and the box office
door...and Shirley Temple ahead battered out of all
definition...
MP: Ho, yes, a great galaxy of stars there, but now here at the
Classic, the lights are dimming, the film is about to commence,
so, from the gentlemens' rest room, over colleague, Dougie Nero
in the rear stalls.
JC: Welcome to the rear stalls! I'm in Row T, just three seats
along from the legendary seat 12. And now, the titles are
coming to an end, as the film finally get well and truly all
your own. I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. Anyway, the
film is now underway. [Clopeti] And it's going quite well at
the moment. Ahh...
King Arthur in film: Whoa, there! (Audience starts laughing
hysterically.)
JC: Ha-ha, very good, very good! Well, the audience here
certainly enjoyed that, uh, visual joke. I only hope the
soundtrack does justice to it, because it certainly was, ha, a
most outstanding joke. Well, it's still all pretty visual so
far, ah, now here is some dialogue. This is the first dialogue
scene, a very funnt little scene this between Arthur and his
servant Patsy there and two unnamed soldiers, standing on the
battlements of this castle. The castle itself is, uh, I'd say
120 to 130 feet high, simple stone walled keep, uh, 14th
century probably, and Arthur is engaged in asking the soldier
standing right up there on the top of the walls, if he knows of
any knights who might be prepared to join King Arthur at the
Round Table and the knight amusingly replies in a cheerful and
quite unexpected ma-
MP: Oh, shut up!
JC: Sorry.
Professional Logician
Good evening. The last scene was interesting from the point of
view of a professional logician because it contained a number
of logical fallacies; that is, invalid propositional
constructions and syllogistic forms, of the type so often
committed by my wife.
"All wood burns," states Sir Bedevere. "Therefore," he
concludes, "all that burns is wood." This is, of course, pure
bullshit. Universal affirmatives can only be partially
converted: all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the
class of dead people are Alma Cogan. "Oh yes," one would think.
However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation
of the conversion of a proposition; consequently, she does not
understand me. For how can a woman expect to appreciate a
professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism
causes her to flounder.
For example, given the premise, "all fish live underwater" and
"all mackerel are fish", my wife will conclude, not that "all
mackerel live underwater", but that "if she buys kippers it
will not rain", or that "trout live in trees", or even that "I
do not love her any more." This she calls "using her
intuition". I call it "crap", and it gets me very *irritated*
because it is not logical. "There will be no supper tonight,"
she will sometimes cry upon my return home. "Why not?" I will
ask. "Because I have been screwing the milkman all day," she
will say, quite oblivious of the howling error she has made.
"But," I will wearily point out, "even given that the
activities of screwing the milkman and getting supper are
mutually exclusive, now
that the screwing is over, surely then, supper may, logically,
be got." "You don't love me any more," she will now often
postulate. "If you did, you would give me one now and again, so
that I would not have to rely on that rancid Pakistani for my
orgasms." "I will give you one after you have got me my
supper," I now usually scream, "but not before" -- as you
understand, making her bang contingent on the arrival of my
supper. "God, you turn me on when you're angry, you ancient
brute!" she now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly
throbbing tongue down my throat. "Fuck supper!" I now
invariably conclude, throwing logic somewhat joyously to the
four winds, and so we thrash about on our milk-stained floor,
transported by animal passion, until we sink back, exhausted,
onto the cartons of yoghurt.
I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original
brief. But in a nutshell: sex is more fun than logic -- one
cannot prove this, but it "is" in the same sense that Mount
Everest "is", or that Alma Cogan "isn't".
Goodnight.
The Silbury Hill Car Park
JC: Well, as Arthur rides off through this stunningly
beautiful, oh, but mainly visual Scottish countryside, a word
about the car park here at Silbury.
MP: Well, the Classic Silbury Hill is very fortunate in 'aving
--- adequate parking facilities adjacent to the cinema. The car
park itself has an asphalt base rimmed with a foreign concrete
strips --- --- and brick nugging to a depth of six feet. The
parking area could accommodate up to 65 vehicles arranged in a
crescent formation. Typical of the skill and architecture used
by Enid Poulsen, mother of Ken, father of John, is that the
park is self-draining. Over to you, Dougie.
JC: And here we are back with the film as Arthur approaches
another castle, uh, oh, 170 to 180 feet high, I should say,
with an inner and outer bailey in the...
MP: Oh, shut up!
JC: Oh.
[Loimbard etc ...a second time]
Bomb Threat
TJ: The management of this theatre wish to announce that they
have received certain information to suggest that there may be
a bomb located on the premiseses. Patrons are requested to
evacuate this theatre as quickly as possible. While evacuating,
the audience may wish to avail themselves at the extensive
range of facilities offered in our foyer cells display. Soft
drinks, chocolates, and boiled sweets, a variety of dairy, ice
cream... (Bomb explodes.) ...hot dogs, rosted peanuts, old
copies of Newsweek, big profylactics, dubbin, broken glass...
Executive Announcement
GC: The announcement to which you are now listening is
available only on the executive version of this record and is
not available on any other version.
MP: This is Side Two! If you want to play the record from the
beginning, please turn over! Do not play this side if you want
Side One! This is Side Two!
GC: We would like to apologize to purchesers of the executive
version of this record for the paremptory nature of that
announcement. The brusk tone was intended for buyers of the
cheaper version.
The Story of the Film So Far
MP: The story of the film so far:
Doug and Bob are metropolitan policemen with a difference. Doug
likes nothing more than slipping into little cocktail frocks,
while Bob bouffants his hair for a night on duty. Still, as the
art immace, no one gives their last names.
The *Real* Story of the Film So Far:
Pucky Reginald Vas Deferens is a nuclear scientist in love with
mafia boss Enrico Marx, who is himself married to Conchito
Macbeth, a lively belly-dancer at the Belgian disco whose
manager, Burly Ivan Crapp, has a naked daughter Janice engaged
to J.J. Spinman, New York private detective, employed by
elegant Laura Herron to trace the missing million-pound bidet
that Hitler gave to Eva Brown as a bar mitzvah present during a
state visit to Crufts, and which remained hidden until a World
Cup referee, Horse Jenkenson, was found hanged in a New Jersey
tenement with the plans of a Russian secret weapon partially
tatooed on his elbow.
In Brisbon, the Brain brothers, Nicky and Vance, torture a
Mayfair psychologist, who reveals to Dora Brain in a tender and
emotional death scene that his hair is not his own.
Meanwhile, the Kent Touring Eleven have trapped husky Matilda
Tritt on a sticky near Hastings, and she reveals all before
enforcing the follow army.
Peter Niesewand and Cyril Garfunkel arrive just in time with
the Welsh Police, and the Harry Orchestra, and proceed to sing
a love song which allows Dr. Indira McNorton *just* enough time
to cross the alps into Geneva, where he meets Kon Rapp, a kung
fu fanatic and cat lover, who frivilously shoots him, but not
before introducing him to lively intelligent Norweigan widow
Lanny Krimt, who shows him her inner thighs, where he finds the
address of a good French restaurant, and unexpectedly meets
Gabriello Machismo, an ex-Korean plastic surgeon whose frankly
blond assistant Sally Lesbitt is now the half-brother of a
distant cousin of Ray Vorn Ding-ding-a-dong, the Eurovision
song, and *owner* of the million-pound bidet given by Hitler to
Eva Brown as a bar mitzvah present during a state visit to
Crufts, and which remained hidden, etc. etc. etc.
This they now do.
Meanwhile, Harold and Victor Medway III discover a newfound
love for each other in an flashback near Devon, where they meet
up with Doug and Bob, the metropolitan policemen who
suprisingly turn out to be in this film at all, who kill
everyone, and live happily ever after.
[...after] [Halt!]
Description of the Three headed knight
MP: Yes! It was the dreaded three-headed knight! The fiercest
creature for yards around! For a second after second, Robin
held his own, but the onslaught proved too much for this brave
knight. Scarcely was his armour damp whaen Robin suddenly,
dramatically changed his tactics!
[He buggered off!] [...herring!]
Problems with projectionist
JC: Oh, uh, well, uhm, welcome back to the rear stalls. There
seems to have been a slight hitch with the film here at Silbury
Hill. I can see Vincent Wong, the Sino-Scottish projectionist,
uh, lashed to his projector, beating himself with a stick as he
tries to put on the next reel, which the enormous grizzl is
trying to --- from his grasp, and I guess, yes, yes, he's on!
It's on and I think we're all right! I'm sorry about that delay
and back to the film...
Interview with Carl French (Marilyn Monroe)
Cast:
Interviewer: Michael Palin
Carl French: Graham Chapman
MP: (Man) --- --- --- --- Well, this time you've crawled too
far!
Woman: Oh, Jake, Jake! Why did you do it? You could have
desrtoyed the tapes and none of this leftist would have
happened!
Interviewer: An excerpt from Carl French's latest film. Carl,
we're all a little mystified by your claim that your new film
stars Marilyn Monroe.
Carl French: It does, yes.
Interviewer: Who died over ten years ago?
Carl French: Uh, that's correct.
Interviewer: Are you lying?
Carl French: No, no, it's just that she'e very much in the
public eye at the moment.
Interviewer: Does she have a big part?
Carl French: She is the star of the film.
Interviewer: And dead.
Carl French: Well, we dug her up and gave her a screen test, a
mere formality in her case, and...
Interviewer: Can she still act?
Carl French: Well...well, she-she's still has this-this
enormous, ah-ah, kinda indefinable, uh...no.
Interviewer: Was decomposition a problem?
Carl French: We did have to put her in the fridge between
takes.
Interviewer: Ah, what sorts of things does she do in the film?
Carl French: Well, we had her lying on beds, lying on floors,
falling out of cupboards, scaring the children, ahm...
Interviewer: But surely Miss Monroe was cremated?
Carl French: Well, we had to use a standin for some of the more
visible shots.
Interviewer: Ah! Uh, another actress.
Carl French: Dead actress. But Monroe was in shot the whole
time.
Interviewer: How?
Carl French: Oh, in the ash tray, in the fire grate and vacuum
cleaner...
Interviewer: So Marilyn does not appear in the film?
Carl French: Not as such.
Interviewer: Mr. French, you're on of the film world's most
arrogant queens. I mean not just homosexual or gay or anything,
I mean you are a raving queen.
Carl French: Well, yes.
Interviewer: I mean, a real screamer, a real "Whoops! Get out!
Don't mind me dear!" limp-wristed caricature.
Carl French: Is that not in order?
Interviewer: No, no, that's fine. And I understand that you
married the beautiful black heiress Hueyna Tanoy partly for the
publicity but mostly to cover up the fact that you prefer going
out with little boys.
Carl French: Look, really!
Interviewer: Carl, you're an offending little poof, a mincing
gay-bar loiterer, a winnet-covered walking perfume shop and an
evil perverter of innocent little boys!
Carl French: What!? Really! Is this part of the interview?
Interviewer: No, no, I just wanted a few contacts.
Carl French: Well-well, shouldn't we be talking about the film?
Interviewer: --- for ages. Now, where'd you find them?
Carl French: Look, I think we are still on the air.
Interviewer: Oh, sod the fucking air! I just still get locked
up with that sort of thing.
Carl French: What about the film?
Interviewer: Just a few addresses, please...
Carl French: Look, we got James Dean in it, in a box!
Interviewer: I-I can turn the microphone off if you...
Carl French: And bits of Jayne Mansfield...
Projectionist is well again
JC: Ah, well, back here at the Classic I have good news that
Vincent Wong, ah, horribly mutilated, though he is his partly
dismembered shoulder bound together with an old --- top hat,
has managed to select the correct reel and we're back with
Monty Python and the Holy Grail once again.
TJ: As Sir Lancelot, the boldest and most expensive of the
knights lost his way in the forest of Ewing, at nearby Swamp
Castle, a celebration was underway.
[One day, lad... ...glass of water]
Tim the Enchanter helps the Knights
TJ: Tim, the bizarre and oddly dressed enchanter provides the
knights with a final clue that leads them to the Holy Grail.
[Yes, I can help you...]
Great Performances
JC: A fine performance there in the role of Tim the Magician
GC: (Starts talking simultaneously) Vernon Tate, drama critic
of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
JC: by Harry Krepps, formerly of --- now with --- (Simultaneous
talk ends) and a performance that will live in the memory along
with Sir John Gielgud's "Lire" at Stratford in 1952, Burt
Lancaster's extraordinary "Tinker Bell" in Peter Pan at the
Globe in -65, Norman Hunter's uncompromising "Polonius" at the
Nationals three years ago and most recently, by Claire Bloom's
breathtaking portrayal as Jackie Charlton in Peter Hall's
"Romeo and Juliet", where Miss Bloom's delicate command of the
rokoko intricacies of Jordy Abuse was matched only by her tight
ball control in the balcony seat. But of all these, Sir John
Gielgud's "Lire" stays longest in the memory. Many peolpe still
recall his brilliant performances at Stratford that year, but I
prefer to remember him one autumn afternoon in front of a
hostile crowd at Monalow. The play had been getting pretty
rough, with --- and Kent both booked before the interval, and
Albany, Edgar and Regan, sent off on the --- But the trouble
really began when Cornwall blazently blinded Gloucester in the
penalty area and referee Ken --- Swansea waved "play on",
unleashing a storm of booing from the incensed Gloucester
supporters which reached a crescendo as Sir John stepped
forward.
Crowd: Boo!
MP: --- is not the king?
SJG: I, every inch a king, When I do stare, see how the subject
craves, I pardon that man's life.
Man: Offside!
SJG: What was the cause? Adultery? Thou shalt not die, no, die
for adultery, no --- let copulation cry. For Gloucester's
bastard sons ---
JC: An outstanding performance there. Sir Alf?
JC: Yes, he's certainly very tremendous in terms of his talking
and moving and gesturing and being an actor in general, in
fact, in terms of his acting I would say...
JC: Chou En-Lai?
MP: I was tempted to recall the --- in the role of MacBeth.
All: (Marsching) Oh, is this the dagger that we see before us?
The handle's towards our hands! Come! Let us touch thee! We
have been ---
JC: The finest mass Shakespearean tragic hero I've certainly
ever seen. Sir Alf?
JC: Well, we're going back to join the film in the sixty second
minute in the terms of the, ah, where there's been fighting and
killing of the knights by the rabbit in general.
[Run away! ... Boom!]
Announcement - Sir Kenneth Clarke
GC: For the purchasers of the cheaper version of this record:
it has already ended. For purchasers od the executive version,
there are three more minutes of thsi album. These three minutes
are introduced personally by Sir Kenneth Clarke.
GC: Hello. This is a very nice record, this is. It's a very,
very nice record. That's why I like it, because it's very nice.
(Telephone rings)
GC: Ah, no, that was him. Yes, oh, yes. What? Well, well, he
had a bit of a cold. No, I promise you it was. Lo-look, please.
We'll miss the end of the story.
[The Castle Aarrgh!]
End of Record
GC: Well, that's about it, really. The film ends mainly
visually. (He walks away and closes a door behind him.)
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