Monty Python and the Holy Grail [Original recording remastered] [Soundtrack] [Import]

To be clear, this soundtrack includes much more than what you heard in the original film. After all, this is the Executive CD Edition, a fact that you are reminded of at both the beginning and the end of each "side." Then, before the movie actually "starts" you have a tour of the classic Silbury Hill Theater and a live broadcast from the premier of the film, including a narration of the film's opening and the "You're Using Coconuts" routine. Then they finally shut up and get to the bits from the film. My favorite remains "King Arthur and the 'Old Woman': Lesson in Anarcho-Syndicated Commune," which I tried without success to work into several papers in graduate school. The episode involving "A Witch" is followed by a "Lesson in Logic," which proves, unless you are using intuition, that just because a woman weighs as much as a duck does not prove she is a witch. Not everything is here, with the encounter with the Black Knight being the most obvious omission. But you do have the songs for "Camelot" and "The Tale of Sir Robin," and the almost song from the sequence regarding Sir Lancelot at Swamp Castle.

There are intrusions from the Python gang throughout the album, including a "Bomb Scare" and "A Shakespearean Critique" provoked by the appearance of Tim, the Enchanter. None of these are as good as the sarcastic French soldiers at the "Castle of Louis de Lombard," the instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from Armaments, Chapter 2, Verses 9 to 21, for dealing with "A Foul-Tempered Rabbit," and the exchange at the "Bridge of Death" that inspired the message on my brother's answering machine. Fortunately, now I have my DVD of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and can watch what I want, when I want, without resorting to this audio version. However, I must commend this album for sounding like the movie and not for sounding like a movie on a record, which is what we were saddled with in the old days.

Well here's why - cos it wisely covers over the more, erm, 'visual' aspects of the film with loads of hilarious extra audio material that's completely and utterly unavailable elsewhere.

Eric Idle's ludicrous 10 minute recap of the 'story so far' at the start of two is a work of genius ("...plucky Reginald Vas Deferens..."),
the film breaks down at one point as the projectionist is attacked by a ferocious grizzly bear,
and yet again when there's a bomb in the cinema.

But my *personal* favourite is when Michael Palin interviews Dr Chapman as a film director, who's "one of the film world's most screaming queens - I mean, not just 'gay' or 'homosexual', but a real screaming limp-wristed caricature, a real 'whoops! Get 'em! Don't mind me dear' gay-bar loiterer, and evil perverter of little boys...", whose new film stars Marilyn Munroe... who died 10 years ago. ("Are you *lying*?" - "No, but we did have to use a stand-in for some of the more *visible* shots") etc etc etc

I got this before the film, which I bought on 2 disc DVD, and it is brilliant.

It gives highlights of the film but the real gem is all the other bits that Python did to fill the gaps up. One of the highlights is a professor of logic pointing out the floor in the Witch made out of wood scene.

Buy this and be the envy of the person looking over your shoulder.