Fawlty Towers

“…and now for something completely different.”  I picked up this 1970s’ British comedy show a few months ago on DVD and finally got around to watching it.  There are two seasons, 1975 and 1979, each of only 6 episodes, so the entire series is only 12 episodes.  In fact, The Young Ones, the 1980s British comedy show, was likewise 6x2 in tribute to this one.

The show features a bed & breakfast in Torquay, England, a resort town on the Channel Coast (although not actually filmed there).  Torquay is where Wishbone Ash come from.   As a B&B its staff is limited and extremely overworked, which lends itself some very clever comedy.

Basil Fawlty (John Cleese).   You may recognize Cleese from Monty Python, and here he’s just as tall and arrogant as any upper class twit he may have portrayed on Flying Circus. 

Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales).   His wife is somewhat smarter than him and constantly puts him down – well-deserved, as it is.  They make a good bickering couple.

Polly Sherman (Connie Booth, Cleese’s real-life wife).   The B&B’s waitress and helper.  Frequently she has to cover for Basil or Manuel and typically gets caught in the crossfire of uppity, frustrated guests and Basil and/or Manuel.  She’s good eye candy.  You may remember her from the “Lumberjack Sketch” on Flying Circus, with Michael Palin as the lumberjack.

Manuel (Andrew Sachs).  The B&B’s waiter from Barcelona, somewhat lazy, poor English, and not too bright.  In the last episode, he confuses a rat for an oversized hamster and keeps it as a pet, almost costing the B&B its license. 

Slapstick comedy, double entendres, but nowhere near as saucy as Benny Hill’s shows.  It’s all good fun, I’ve yet to meet anyone familiar with the show who didn’t like it.  PBS used to run the episodes, now they’re available on DVD.  Enjoy!

King Arthur & Camelot (x3)

Recently I acquired “Camelot” on Blu-Ray, the musical about King Arthur.   With no less than three major films on the subject, my blog topic has arrived.

No knows if King Arthur really existed, and if so, when.  We’re just sure it was England and some time in the Middle Ages, probably in that vague time before the definite lineage was conclusively established, after the Roman Empire collapsed and when the Vikings were raiding from Minnesota, minus the horned helmets we know they never wore.  Our best guess is the fifth and sixth centuries. 

The idea is that Arthur somehow united the knights of England into a Roundtable Coalition of chivalry and honor, as opposed to “might makes right”.  The wizard Merlin served as his advisor and supported him with magic. His Queen was Guenevere.  Unfortunately, Arthur’s top knight, a Frenchman named Lancelot du Lac, fell in love with the Queen and this romance doomed the Coalition to collapse from hypocrisy.  Arthur had a half-sister, Morgan La Fey, who seduced him and gave him a suitably arrogant and cynical bastard child Mordred, consistently a villain in the story.  Fairly early in the story Arthur acquired the sword Excalibur, which gave him “supreme executive power” over England without a “mandate from the masses”.  He either pulled the sword from a stone or was distributed by the aquatic tart, the Lady of the Lake – or possibly both.   

Camelot (1967).   Richard Harris, lately Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” films, and father of Jared Harris, the stuffy Brit on “Mad Men”, plays King Arthur.   Vanessa Redgrave is Guenevere, the Queen, and Franco Nero (aka Django!) is Lancelot du Lac.   Lots of song and dance here, very dramatic and fun…until Lance and Jenny fall in love, which screws everything up.

            I thought I recognized Lionel Jeffries, i.e. King Pellinore, was also Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke’s) father, in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.  He was only 40 something at the time and was playing characters much older than himself.  He was younger than Dick Van Dyke.

            Like “Excalibur”, the film bogs down in its second half.  The Roundtable Coalition breaks down and knights are exiled because they tell Arthur about Lance & Jenny.  After telling Jenny he’d never leave her no matter what season it was, Lancelot leaves anyway. Then Arthur is manipulated by Mordred (David Hemmings) into trying and condemning Guenevere.  Of course Lancelot comes to the rescue!  [Someone should do a mash-up which splices in Lancelot from “Holy Grail” slicing through the bridal party to rescue Terry-Jones-as-Prince.]

            My parents loved this film and we had it on VHS.  Even as non-music-lovers they still had the soundtrack tape.   Again, reviewing the movie with the benefit of 2014 knowledge… I see:

            A)         Richard Harris’ resemblance, not merely by face but also voice, to Jared Harris.  No way I had seen “Mad Men” back in Paris in the early 80s.

            B)         Guenevere is kind of slutty!  “Lusty days of May?”  Manipulating three knights to take on Lancelot?   The palace whore indeed.  If her promiscuity was common knowledge, why burn her at the stake for romping around with Lancelot?  “Now you’ve gone too far.”

            C)         Mordred.  I never noticed him at all before.  Funny, I had seen “Blow Up” and several other movies Hemmings was in.  However, I had noticed Merlyn, who called him “Wart”, and this business of pretending to be animals.  “What do you see?”  That stuff.

            D)         Did Arthur really NOT know?  I believe he did, but decided the shame of being the cuckold was the price he had to pay to avoid fighting Lancelot and burning Guenevere.  He was even willing to effectively disband the coalition and exile all those knights whose sole crime was telling him what he didn’t want to hear but already knew anyway.  Mordred simply forced his hand. 

Monty Python & the Holy Grail (1975).  The English comedy troupe put its own spin on the story, focusing on the quest for the Holy Grail and completing omitting Guenevere, Mordred, and even Merlin.  The French role here is not Sir Lancelot (John Cleese) but a French castle somehow in England, full of nasty rogues who taunt them from above.   Cast: Arthur (Graham Chapman), Sir Galahad (Michael Palin), "brave" Sir Robin (Eric Idle), Sir Bedevere (Terry Jones in perpetual falsetto) and the aforesaid Lancelot.  Add in also a bit of animation from Terry Gilliam, who also stars as a squire.  Amazingly funny!  Really, this should be mandatory King Arthur viewing.  Hits include “Just a Flesh Wound”, “the Grail Shaped Beacon”, “Huge….Tracts of Land”, “Answer these Questions Three”, “Some Call Me…Tim”, “The Vorpal Bunny”, “The Knights who Say Ni”, “Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant” (my favorite) and many, many more.  And how can we forget that meaningful ending which resolved all the issues and closed the story so conclusively?  Not likely. 

Excalibur (1981).   “Camelot” was a musical, “Holy Grail” was a comedy, now we had “Excalibur”, which was serious, bloody, cynical, confusing, plus some naughtiness thrown in for the ladies – you know, the crowd who hates “Lord of the Rings” but loves “Game of Thrones”. 

            Arthur (Nigel Terry) pulls the sword from the stone.  Arthur consults Merlin (Nicol Williamson).  Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) joins the gang.  Morgana (Helen Mirren) seduces Arthur and pops out Mordred.  Lancelot falls in love with Guenevere (Cheri Lunghi), much to their shame, so he runs away.  Arthur and his knights go off in a vague and confusing quest for the Grail.  Mordred returns and fights Arthur.  Lancelot returns.  Everyone dies.  Sorry.  Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne, and Liam Neeson all have minor roles as they started out their careers.

           

Which is best?  Well of course you should watch all three, and they tend to complement each other.  As you can tell, “Excalibur” was bloody and naughty, but those otherwise redeeming elements are compromised by a story which drags on interminably and disappears into a vague and confusing plot fog.  “Holy Grail” has little pretense of giving us a real story as opposed to a linear progression of highly funny scenes bordering on super ludicrous.  “Camelot”, as cheesy and musical as it may have been, actually tells the story in the most direct and simple manner.  So that one might be the best to cap off the trio.  Enjoy.

Monty Python

This is the famous British comedy troupe most active in the 1970s.  Their humor was definitely oddball, different, over the top, surrealistic, irreverent and “out there”.  I find it MUCH more enjoyable than the excessively dry humor of Christopher Guest & co. in his “Best of Show”, “Waiting for Guffman”, and “A Mighty Wind” movies with his pals Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Fred Willard and Martin Mull.  It’s also commonly claimed that Monty Python serves as an inspiration to Saturday Night Live, though I don’t find any of that humor, no matter which cast, to be nearly as oddball as the Python’s, with the possible exceptions of “Landshark” and the various “samurai” roles of John Belushi. 

 John Cleese.  The tallest, Cleese was usually the choice to portray stiff, humorless, serious civilian authority figures such as bankers.  He’s a real handful as Sir Lancelot in “Holy Grail.”  He uses his impressive height to impart comic gravity to his roles.  I really liked him as the newscaster whose desk gets kidnapped, but he continues reporting the news all the way across town, through traffic, and off the dock into the sea.  In more recent years Cleese has played “Q” in the James Bond films.

 Eric Idle.  Gives Palin competition for the “smarmy” one…”nudge nudge wink wink say no more.”  He plays “brave, brave” Sir Robin in “Holy Grail.”   In “The Rutles” he plays the Paul McCartney character, Dirk.

 Graham Chapman.  He could be counted to bring life to various colonels (stiff, humorless, serious military authority figures), stopping the sketch for being too silly – e.g. “vicious gangs of KEEP LEFT signs”.   Excellent as “Arthur, King of the Britons” and Brian.

 Michael Palin.  The host of “Blackmail”, the German accented Queen Victoria, and Sir Galahad.  And of course, responsible for the “Spanish Inquisition” which Chapman was not expecting. 

 Terry Jones.  Often the straight man, but can be funny as well, e.g. nude pianist.  Sir Bedevere in “Holy Grail”. 

 Terry Gilliam.  Actually American, and mainly responsible for the bizarre animation in the serious, with the exception of a “fatal heart attack”.  He does appear in some sketches and as Sir Lancelot’s faithful squire, Concord.

 Flying Circus.  Several seasons worth of complete insanity now available in a deluxe 16 DVD set, from 1969-74 (with all the imperfections in dazzling crystal clarity).  Pink Floyd and King Crimson were big fans of the show.  It starts off with “Liberty Bell”, Sousa’s march in the public domain, with animation ending in the foot squashing down.  To this day, I think of Monty Python when I hear that tune, most often in some parade with a marching band blissfully unaware of how their beloved Sousa has been warped and corrupted in this absurd context. 

            The most popular sketch has to be “Dead Parrot”, with Cleese as an unhappy customer and Palin as the evasive pet store owner desperately trying to convince Cleese, to no avail, that the parrot is not quite dead.  Some episodes have one story which last the whole show, like when the alien blancmanges turn the world into Scotsmen in a bid to rig Wimbledon in their favor, as everyone knows Scots are useless at tennis.  My favorites include:

            the quiz show in which various Marxist leaders (Lenin, Marx, Mao, Castro) are asked soccer questions by Eric Idle (“sorry, it’s a trick question, Wolverhampton has NEVER won the FA Cup”);

            the soccer game between the Greek philosophers and the German philosophers, complete with Karl Marx (yet again, Terry Jones) doing jumping jacks on the sidelines as a substitute;

            the cricket match between pieces of furniture

            the lumberjack sketch (thank you, Michael Palin!)

            various knockoffs of BBC announcements

            “The funniest joke in the world”, a joke so funny that anyone who hears it will literally die laughing, it’s translated into German as the Allies’ secret weapon against the Nazis

            Dennis Moore, the Cleese character who takes lupins (flowers) from the rich and gives them to the poor…who aren’t particularly appreciative of the transfer

            The Ministry of Silly Walks

            Game shows such as Blackmail! And the All-England Summarize Proust Competition

            John Cleese as anti-Masonic architect (“no, I’m sorry, we’re not looking for an abattoir”)

            (“NO ONE EXPECTS”) The Spanish Inquisition      

            Crunchy Frog (spots Harry Potter’s bizarre confections by several decades)

            Hell’s Grannies (featuring the aforementioned gangs of “keep left signs”)

            “your cat needs to be confused!”, in which Graham Chapman advises a couple on how to solve their cat’s apparent ennui

            Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things

            How Not to Be Seen (a guide to camouflage for ordinary people)

            The Hospital for Over-Actors, full of “a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” actors overdramatically indulging in Richard III portrayals, although Idle, with his deadpan delivery of the line, “appears to be making some progress”

            RAF Banter – in which various RAF pilots from WWII can’t seem to understand each other’s war-jargon banter

            The dueling documentary narrators (Cleese & Idle) chasing each other across the countryside each trying to do a different documentary with only one microphone between the two of them;

 In addition to several seasons of Flying Circus, Monty Python also have several movies! 

 "And Now For Something Completely Different” and “Live at the Hollywood Bowl”.  Nothing more than the sketches redone in a different context, albeit fairly faithfully.

 “The Holy Grail” (1975).  The first real movie, subsidized by Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Led Zeppelin (unfortunately, none of them appear in the film).  This is their “adaptation” of the King Arthur story, with clopping coconuts in lieu of real horses (transported to temperate England how? By swallows?  European or African?), ample animation, and hilarious misadventures.  At one point Palin portrays a local noble eager to marry his fairy prince to a girl from a family with better land, and has to tell his guard, “YOU stay ‘ere, and make sure ‘e doesn’t leave”, and “let’s not bicker about who killed who”.   There’s a killer rabbit and a Holy Hand Grenade.  “And there was much rejoicing….”

 “The Life of Brian” (1979).  The Bible story told…a little differently.  The People’s Front of Judea (“what have the Romans ever done for us?”) is worth the price of admission.  Other moments include stonings (“…even if they say ‘Jehovah’!”), haggling over a disguise in the market, “Romanus Eunt Domus” (later copied in “Canadian Bacon”), “welease WOGER!”, and the snobby Jewish couple aghast at being crucified next to Samaritans.

 “The Meaning of Life”.  A series of sketches loosely strung together going from birth – comparing Catholics and Protestants – to death (Death: “You English are so fucking pompous!”).  I could do without “The Autumn Years” featuring Mr Creosote (Jones) vomiting obscene amounts of food everywhere.   

 And now for something, not quite so completely different:

 “A Fish Called Wanda”, which features John Cleese and Michael Palin, teamed up with Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin K-K-K-Kline.   

 Fawlty Towers.  John Cleese’s mid 70s English series about a buffoonish bead & breakfast proprietor.  My favorite was when the B&B has German guests, who he can’t help offending with countless WWII references.

 Terry Gilliam.  His movies frequently include Python members, but he’s hit or miss.  I couldn’t stand “Jabberwocky” (which featured Palin), but I loved “12 Monkeys” – which had no Python members, but had outstanding performances by Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.  “Brazil”, “Baron Munchhausen”, “Time Bandits”, “The Fisher King” (w/Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges) and “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas” (with Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson) were so-so.

 The Rutles.  This is the humorous documentary obviously spoofing the Beatles.  As mentioned earlier, Eric Idle played the Paul McCartney character, Dirk McQuigley, as well as various narrators.  Michael Palin has a minor role, and even George Harrison has a brief role as well.  It’s sad, but “Magical Mystery Tour” was so low budget, that the Rutles version, “Tragical History Tour”, actually looks better.  “Ouch” replaces “Help!”, “All You Need is Cash” subs out for Love, and the other songs are fairly well done.  Lennon loved the movie so much he refused to return the copies given to him for his approval.