Monty Python

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

1975.05.23    Movie

Eric Idle  Graham Chapman  John Cleese  Michael Palin  Terry Gilliam  Terry Jones

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England 932 A.D.

First Swallow-Savvy Guard  Where’d you get the coconuts?
King Arthur  We found them.
First Swallow-Savvy Guard  Found them? In Mercia? The coconut’s tropical.
King Arthur  What do you mean?
First Swallow-Savvy Guard  Well this is a temperate zone.
King Arthur  The Swallow may fly south with the sun. Or the House Martin or the Plover may seek warmer climes in winter. Yet these are not strangers to our land.
First Swallow-Savvy Guard  Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
King Arthur  Not at all. They could be carried.
First Swallow-Savvy Guard  What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
King Arthur  It could grip it by the husk.
First Swallow-Savvy Guard  It’s not a question of where he grips it! It’s a simple question of weight ratios.

Dead Collector  Bring out your dead!
Peasant  Here’s one.
Dead Collector  Nine pence.
I’m not dead!
Dead Collector  What?
Peasant  Nothing. Here’s your nine pence.
I’m not dead!
Dead Collector  Here. He says he’s not dead.
Peasant  Yes he is.
I’m not!
Dead Collector  He isn’t!
Peasant  Well he will be soon, he’s very ill.
I’m getting better!
Peasant  No you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment.
Dead Collector  I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
I don’t want to go on the cart.
Peasant  Oh don’t be such a baby.

King Arthur  Old woman.
Dennis  Man!
King Arthur  Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis  I’m thirty-seven.
King Arthur  What?
Dennis  I’m thirty-seven, I’m not old.
King Arthur  Well I can’t just call you man.
Dennis  Well you could say Dennis.
King Arthur  I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
Dennis  Well you didn’t bother to find out, did you?

Woman  Who are the Britons?
King Arthur  Well we all are. We are all Britons. And I am your king.
Woman  Didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Dennis  You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes—
Woman  Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.

King Arthur  I am your king!
Woman  Well I didn’t vote for you!
King Arthur  You don’t vote for kings.
Woman  Well how’d you become king then?
Angelic music plays…
King Arthur  The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
Dennis  Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
King Arthur  Be quiet!
Dennis  You can’t expect to wield supreme excutive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
King Arthur  Shut up!
Dennis  I mean if I went ’round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a simitar at me, they’d put me away.
King Arthur  Shut up! Will you shut up!
Dennis  Ah! Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
King Arthur  Will you shut up!
Dennis  See the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

King Arthur  You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
The Black Knight  Oh! Had enough, eh?
King Arthur  Look, you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left.
The Black Knight  Yes I have.
King Arthur  Look!
The Black Knight  It’s just a flesh wound.

The Black Knight  Right, I’ll do you for that.
King Arthur  You’ll what?
The Black Knight  Come here!
King Arthur  What are you going to do, bleed on me?
The Black Knight  I’m invincible!
King Arthur  You’re a looney.

Sir Bedevere  What makes you think she’s a witch?
Peasant  Well she turned me into a newt!
Sir Bedevere  A newt?
*beat*
Peasant  I got better.
Crowd  Burn her anyway!

Sir Bedevere  There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1  Are there? What are they? Tell us.
Sir Bedevere  Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1  Burn them.
Sir Bedevere  And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1  More witches!
Peasant 2  Wood.
Sir Bedevere  So. Why do witches burn?
Peasant 3  Because they’re made of… wood?
Sir Bedevere  Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1  Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere  Ah! But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1  Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere  Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1  No, no, it floats! It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere   What else floats in water?
Peasant 1  Bread!
Peasant 2  Apples!
Peasant 3  Very small rocks!
Peasant 1  Cider!
Peasant 2  Gravy!
Peasant 3  Cherries!
Peasant 1  Mud!
Peasant 2  Churches! Churches!
Peasant 3  Lead! Lead!
King Arthur  A Duck.
Sir Bedevere  Exactly! So, logically…
Peasant 1  If she… weighs the same as a duck… she’s made of wood.
Sir Bedevere  And therefore?
Peasant 2  A witch!
Crowd  A witch! A witch!
Sir Bedevere  We shall use my larger scales!

Sir Bedevere  Right, remove the supports!
Crowd  A witch! A witch!
Accused Witch  It’s a fair cop.

Sir Bedevere  …and that, my liege, is how we know the earth to be banana-shaped.

Sir Lancelot the Brave  Look, my liege!
King Arthur  Camelot!
Sir Gallahad the Pure  Camelot!
Sir Lancelot the Brave  Camelot!
Patsy  It’s only a model.
King Arthur  Shh!

King Arthur  On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.

King Arthur  Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
Taunting French Guard  Well I’ll ask him, but I don’t think he’ll be very keen. Ah, he’s already got one, you see!
King Arthur  What?
Sir Gallahad  He says they’ve already got one!
King Arthur  Are you sure he’s got one?
Taunting French Guard  Oh yes. It’s very nice!

King Arthur  Now look here, my good man—
Taunting French Guard  I don’t want to talk to you anymore, you empty-headed animal food trough whopper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Sir Gallahad  Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
Taunting French Guard  No! now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

All  Run away! Run away!

Dingo  Where are you going?
Sir Gallahad  I seek the Grail! I have seen it here, in this castle.
Dingo  Oh no. Oh no. Bad bad Zoot!
Sir Gallahad  What is it?
Dingo  Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot! She has been setting light to our beacon. Which I’ve just remembered, is grail-shaped. It’s not the first time we’ve had this problem.

Leader of the Knights Who Say Ni!  We shall say “Ni!” again to you, if you do not appease us.
King Arthur  Well what is it you want?
Leader  We want… a shrubbery! {jangling music}
King Arthur  A what?
Knights Who Say Ni!  Ni! Ni!
King Arthur  Please! Please, no more. We shall find you a shrubbery.
Leader  You must return here with a shrubbery. Or else you will never pass through this wood… alive.
King Arthur  Oh Knights of Ni, you are just and fair. And we will return with a shrubbery.
Leader  One that looks nice.
King Arthur  Of course.
Leader  And not too expensive.
King Arthur  Yes.
Leader  Now…. go!

Concorde  Quickly, sir! Come this way!
Sir Lancelot  No, it’s not right for my idiom. I must escape more…
Concorde  Dramatically, sir?
Sir Lancelot  Dramatically!

King Arthur  Where could we find this cave, oh Tim?
Tim the Enchanter  Follow! But! Follow only
if you be men of valor. For the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel, that no man yet has fought with it and lived! Bones of four and fifty men lie strewn about its lair! So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength come no further. For death awaits you all with nasty big pointy teeth.
Sir Bedevere  What an eccentric performance.

Tim the Enchanter  That’s no ordinary rabbit! That’s the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on.
Sir Gallahad the Pure  You tit! I soiled my armor I was so scared.

Bridgekeeper  Stop! What is your name?
King Arthur  Sir Arthur, King of the Britons.
Bridgekeeper  What is your quest?
King Arthur  To seek the Holy Grail.
Bridgekeeper  What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
King Arthur  What do you mean? African or European swallow?
Bridgekeeper  What? I don’t know that.
Sir Bedevere  How do you know so much about swallows?
King Arthur  Well you have to know these thing when you’re a king you know.

Taunting French Guard  I unplug my nose in your general direction, sons-of-a-windowdresser! So, you think you could outclever us French folk with your silly knees bent running about and dancing behavior. I’ll wave my private parts at your aunties! You cheesy load of secondhand electric donkey bottom biters!

King Arthur  French person! Today the blood of many a valiant knight shall be avenged. In the name of God, we shall not stop our fight ’til each one of you lies dead. And the Grail returns to the one whom God has chosen.