Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The 1975 film, directed together by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, sends King Arthur and his knights after the Holy Grail. Neither had directed a feature before. Two weeks before shooting, the Scottish environment department refused permission for the castles in its care, fearing damage, and left the production with almost one building. Doune Castle was shot from different angles to serve as Camelot’s great hall, the walls the French knights shout down from, the inside of Castle Anthrax and Swamp Castle’s wedding courtyard. Bodiam supplied the Swamp Castle exterior and Castle Stalker became the Castle of Aaargh. Rock musicians put up much of the money, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd among the investors; Gilliam explains the appeal by noting that British income tax then topped out near ninety per cent. The ending was a surrender rather than a choice: John Cleese says it finishes that way because nobody could think of another, and the battle drafted in Palin’s papers was dropped as too costly. Spamalot followed in 2005. A good fit if one castle standing in for four reads as a joke the film is in on, not a flaw. Not for anyone waiting for the quest to resolve, since it stops rather than closes.