Dead Parrot Included

Movie Review:
And Now for Something Completely Different

1971 / 1 hr., 28 min. / PG

Director: Ian MacNaughton

There are times when it is completely pointless to review a movie.  And if I weren’t attempting to manage a blog with regular content in the hopes that someday someone will actually read it, And Now for Something Completely Different is a film I would not review at all.  Not because of the film’s quality, good or bad – indeed, the trashing of a truly awful diseased piece of celluloid can provide some wicked relish – but because of what the film simply is: Sketch comedy.

The one question anyone wants answered regarding a sketch comedy film is, “Is it funny?”  As regarding this particular example, I would say, “Yes.  Yes, it is.”

End of review.

But since I’m here, and it’s a movie I’ve seen, and I manage a blog with regular content in the hopes that someday someone will actually read it, here are some deeper (relatively speaking) thoughts on the product.

Younger audiences may have passing acquaintance with the names of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, as all of them have been involved in one degree or another with Hollywood productions in the past thirty years.  But before they were individual comic talents visiting America, they were a sextet of sketch performers in Britain known collectively as Monty Python, and their television show was “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

With a wit that surpassed “Saturday Night Live” or “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”, these six spent the early part of the 1970's skewering all things British (and occasionally American) with uproarious success.  But it is a simple reality that while Brits satirizing British customs and public figures works for British audiences, Americans to this day are in the dark about why the laugh track hits a crescendo at certain moments in the various “Flying Circus” episodes.  I’ve even had some of the more obscure gags explained to me and I still don’t get them.

In an effort to expand their popularity across the Atlantic, Monty Python assembled some of their best (and nationality-neutral) skits into one film, which is titled after the show’s famous introduction: John Cleese in a formal suit, seated at a desk in some absurd setting, looking at the camera in all seriousness and saying, “And now for something completely different.”  Following the traditional opening sequence involving Sousa’s “Liberty Bell”, we find the marriage counselor who lusts after the wife of one of his nebbish counselees, the accountant who wants to become a lion tamer, the enthusiastic instructor of self-defense against violence involving all manner of fresh fruit, the mountaineering expedition helmed by a man with double-vision, the talk show host who can’t decide what to call his guest, the documentary exposing the increase in street gangs of old ladies, the joke so funny that people literally die laughing, the talent show featuring trained mice, and the restaurant staff who go into self-destruct mode when a customer complains of a dirty fork.

Also included are the skits that have endured to become true classics.  If you know nothing of “The Dead Parrot”, “Nudge, Nudge”, or “The Lumberjack Song”, this movie is not only recommended but required.

The Pythons were all versatile performers, and for this first film effort they reprise their usual habit of playing multiple roles throughout.  Sometimes two of one actor’s characters even appear on screen at the same time thanks to stand-in actors.  Within the course of any ten minutes of the film, we can see all six of them go from snobby upper-class Brits to lower working-class Londoners with ease – with a brief stint as Canadian Mounties thrown in for good measure.  Fellow “Flying Circus” regular Carol Cleveland reprises many of her roles as well – especially the buxom ones, which she was naturally suited for.

Indeed, in the history of modern comedy, I would say the Pythons are a benchmark.  They understood comic delivery and comic characterization.  Almost everything in their repertoire tops anything found on the “Best of Saturday Night Live” specials.  And their repertoire was vast – sometimes overacted and with terrible accents, but vast nonetheless.  Seeing John Cleese, for instance, play both a subdued arts show host and the manic self-defense instructor gives a sample of how diverse any one of them could be.  Or take note of the fact that Eric Idle performs the rather complicated dialogue of “Nudge, Nudge” in one single shot – no easy feat for a script that follow no logical order, making one’s lines a pain to memorize.  Talented men, all of them.

The film also includes many of Terry Gilliam’s animation sequences for the show, linking sketches together in surreal and absurd ways.  At times the animation takes over and becomes its own sketch entirely, as with the fairy tale adventure of the cancerous black spot or the advertisement promoting American Defense against the evil infiltration of Communism.

Overall, the film is a notch up from the show.  The nature of shooting film is that more time is taken on production value, and scenes are cleaner in their delivery.  This is not to say that And Now for Something Completely Different is any sort of high-brow masterpiece, but it is definitely an improvement over the wobbling sets and improvised shots found on the “Flying Circus”.

So there it is: The review that has nothing to say.  If you’re aware of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, this is all old news.  If you’re not, the most important part of the review was where you asked me if it was funny and I said, “Yes.  Yes, it is.”

Artistry: 7
Entertainment: 8