The Pythons', and particularly Gilliam's, successful jump from short-form to long-form comedy

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2013)

Before Holy Grail, the Pythons had not shown that long-form comedy was within their range. The longest sketches on their Flying Circus TV show, like "Scott of the Antarctic" or "The Piranha Brothers," ran at most ten or fifteen minutes. Terry Gilliam, unquestionably the sixth of the six main cast members, had filled some of the more outlandish bit parts in the show but was best known for creating its often-perverse animated sequences. Holy Grail changed all of that. The troupe's stock-in-trade, satirical setups that devolve almost instantly into absurdity, proved so adaptable to the feature-length format that Holy Grail became arguably their most widely-recognized and beloved work. Most of the individual vignettes, like the Black Knight and the witch- weighing scene, derive from the medieval setting, but the cadence of the delivery and the flair for wordplay are distinctly Pythonian. The film was also the springboard for Terry Gilliam's surprisingly-successful directorial career, and is a good example of his ability to create an off-kilter, vaguely-creepy atmosphere.