Monty Python 40 Years Later: 'The Lawyer's Cut'

TERRY GROSS, host:

Beginning Sunday, IFC - the Independent Film Channel - presents a six evening, six-hour documentary about "Monty Python's Flying Circus," timed to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the groundbreaking British TV series and comedy troupe. It's called "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut)" and our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI: It's good to know after all these years that the surviving members of Monty Python still can't even take themselves seriously. Oh, they have the best of intentions with this new mega documentary called "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut)." They really do want to explain where their peculiar sense of humor came from and how the six of them met and the inspirations for their most famous sketches, record albums, movies and stage shows.

But just as the original "Monty Python's Flying Circus" poked fun at the stiffness of the BBC when it premiered on the BBC back in 1969, this new documentary can't help but send up the documentary form a little. Its individual hours sport such titles as "The Not-So-Interesting Beginnings" and "The Much Funnier Second Episode." And for the theme song of this new production, the Pythons not only resurrected the main title music from "The Life of Brian," but a dead ringer for the original vocalist as well.

(Soundbite of "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut)" theme song)

Unidentified Woman (Singer): (Singing) Python, the brand-new documentary of Python. It's a new documentary. It's about Monty Python. Unlike other Monty Python documentaries, this is brand new. It's a new documentary. It's not complimentary, but it's better than a hysterectomy. It's Monty Python.

BIANCULLI: There's an added joke, in that each hour has its own theme song, which is sung with increased frustration over how endless the documentary is, and how familiar the material. Obviously, the Pythons are sensitive enough to this charge to make a pre-emptive strike. After all, there was a 30th anniversary Monty Python TV special a decade ago, and a 20th anniversary one a decade before that. And home-video collectors have had more than one opportunity to buy a "Monty Python's Flying Circus" mega set on DVD.

But for such familiar terrain and such an old comedy group, there's a lot of new insight here, enough to please hardcore Python fans, and intriguing enough to turn new viewers into probable converts. My favorite installment is the first one, which is generous with its clip from the early radio and TV shows that influenced or featured the future members of Monty Python. Peter Sellers and his infamously unstructured "The Goon Show" was one clear inspiration, the satiric stage revue "Beyond the Fringe," with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller, was another. And the British version of the topical variety series, "That Was the Week That Was," which like "The Office," was Americanized with a new cast, was a third.

Some of the Pythons came from Cambridge, some from Oxford, and American Terry Gilliam came seemingly out of nowhere. But eventually, the six of them: Gilliam, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman, found their own styles and voices. They presented a TV show where sketches were absurd and unpredictable, and where comedy targets ranged from little old ladies and dead philosophers to the Spanish Inquisition.

Insanely imaginative animation linked one sketch to another. Or as an alternative, John Cleese would simply stare into the camera and intone, with the deep seriousness of a BBC announcer: And now for something completely different. And all of it was completely different, then and now, from the "Ministry of Silly Walks" and the "Fish-Slapping Dance" to the "Dead Parrot Sketch." Here's John Cleese returning a recent purchase to pet store owner, Michael Palin.

(Soundbite of TV Show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus")

Mr. JOHN CLEESE (Actor): (As Mr. Praline) I wish to make a complaint.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MICHAEL PALIN (Actor): (As Shop Owner) Sorry, we're closing for lunch.

Mr. CLEESE: (As Mr. Praline) Never mind that my lad, I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Mr. PALIN: (As Shop Owner) Oh, yes, the Norwegian Blue. What's wrong with it?

Mr. CLEESE: (As Mr. Praline) I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BIANCULLI: Except for Graham Chapman who died 20 years ago, all the other Pythons are alive and well, and contribute fresh interviews to this documentary. There also are such well-chosen ingredients as clips from a British TV talk show back when Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" was released. John Cleese and Michael Palin appeared on the talk show to debate an angry bishop and, in these exchanges, Malcolm Muggeridge, a former satirist and author, who had just converted to Christianity. He found the Python's biblical humor positively sacrilegious. In this clip, Cleese and Palin take on Muggeridge, then Cleese in a new interview for the documentary, recalls Palin's atypically biting reaction, which we then hear.

(Soundbite of TV documentary, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut")

Mr. CLEESE: You keep making the basic assumption that we are ridiculing Christ and Christ's teaching and I say that we are not.

Mr. MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE (British Journalist; Satirist; Author): But you imagine that your scene, for instance, of the sermon on the mount. The scene in this -in your film of the sermon on the mount is not ridiculing one of the most sublime utterances that any human being has ever spoken on this earth. Course it is.

Mr. PALIN: Absolutely not.

Mr. CLEESE: No, no. It's making fun of the guy who's remembered it wrong and of the people who don't understand it and miss the point.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: Well, I think…

Mr. PALIN: I think that's really unfair because I think that a lot of people looking in will think we have actually ridiculed Christ…

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: Yes.

Mr. PALIN: …physically. Christ is played by an actor, Ken Colley, he speaks the words from the sermon on the mount. It's treated absolutely respectfully. The camera then pans away, we go right to the back of the crowd to someone who shouts speak up because they cannot hear him.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. PALIN: Now I mean if that utterly…

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: No, no.

Mr. PALIN: …if that utterly undermines their faith in Christ then…

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: No, no.

Mr. CLEESE: That was kind of fun. What was particularly fun, it was the crossest I've ever seen Michael Palin.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. CLEESE: Not a man who's easily upset. He's almost apoplectic.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: I started off by saying that this is such a tenth rate film that I don't believe that it would disturb…

Mr. PALIN: Yes, I know you've started with an open mind, I realize that.

Mr. MUGGERIDGE: …anybody's faith.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BIANCULLI: If I have a complaint about this six-hour documentary, it's that it could have been longer. Eric Idle's recent musical stage triumph, in which he turned the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" into the Broadway hit "Spamalot," is covered but we don't hear from David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria or other members of that show, including Sara Ramirez, now on "Grey's Anatomy." And if "Spamalot" gets its due, why not other Python solo ventures, like Eric Idle's "The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash," Michael Palin's "Ripping Yarns," John Cleese's "Fawlty Towers" or Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" — all of them brilliant.

Yes, there's room for even more. And the DVD version of "The Lawyer's Cut" includes an additional disc, which does feature among other things, the origin of "Fawlty Towers." But even if you just watch the televised version on IFC, you'll be quite entertained. And stay till the very end, because the credits on the last episode close with one final, very solid laugh. It's too good to spoil, but just like Monty Python, it's something completely different.

GROSS: David Bianculli writes for tvworthwatching.com and teaches television and film at Rowan University. You can download podcasts of our show on our Web site freshair.npr.org.

I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.