Always Look on the Bright Side: Iconic Monty Python Scenes Almost Lost – For Being ‘Too Silly’

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Some of Monty Python’s most famous sketches, including the ‘Black Knight’, were almost lost to the cutting room floor because the stars thought they were “too silly, too dull, or too offensive”, the films’ editor has revealed.
Julian Doyle, who worked on Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, and The Holy Grail, said several of the films’ signature scenes were nearly canned over concerns they were not funny.
The stars were “sticklers for perfection” and feared certain gags could damage the films by falling flat with audiences.
The Pythons thought the sword fight between King Arthur and the Black Knight should be removed from The Holy Grail because it was “so bloody that it was killing the rest of the film”.
The skit shows the defiant Black Knight, played by John Cleese, losing all four limbs during a duel with Graham Chapman’s King Arthur but still refusing to yield.
Cleese’s lines – “tis but a scratch”, “I’ve had worse” and “Alright, we’ll call it a draw” – became instant classics and helped catapult the movie to worldwide acclaim.
With Life of Brian, Cleese believed the famed ‘Biggus Dickus’ scene, in which he co-stars with Michael Palin and Chapman, became “too silly” and wanted to cut the end section. from the film.
In it, Palin plays a clueless, lisping Pontius Pilate who fails to see why the name of his “fwend, Biggus Dickus” makes his centurions laugh out loud.
The joke went on to become one of the movie’s best-loved scenes and is frequently ranked as one of the funniest moments in big-screen history.

The cast – Cleese, Idle, Palin, Chapman, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam – went on to receive a BAFTA Award for their outstanding contribution to British cinema.
Many precious moments of comedy gold were saved thanks to Doyle’s “fanatical persistence” which Michael Palin would later mention in more polite terms: “Julian won’t let anything go unless he thinks its right.”
Doyle, whose feature film credits also include Time Bandits, Brazil and Wind In the Willows, and who has shot music videos for Kate Bush and Iron Maiden, said he fought “tooth and nail” with the stars to keep the scenes safe.
Speaking at the launch of his new novel The Jericho Manuscript, which was inspired by his work on Life of Brian, he said: “The Monty Python films are known today as comedic masterpieces, and rightly so.
“But what no one knows, and has never known until now, is that several scenes that would go on to become iconic, side-splitting institutions in their own right, were in fact destined to suffer a brutal edit.
“The Pythons were sticklers for perfection, and thought some of these skits were too silly, too offensive or too dull.
“They and the producers wanted to cut the Black Knight sketch because they thought the scene was so outrageously bloody that it would kill the rest of the film.
Doyle continued: “In the Biggus Dickus scene in Life of Brian, John Cleese believed that after he, as the centurion, left the scene it became too silly for words with Michael Palin teasing the soldiers to make them laugh.
“He originally felt Michael was moving out of character. And although John was probably right, when we ran the finished film the audience were in such hysterics as the scene progressed that they did not care about the finer details, they just wanted
it to go on and on.”
With the Black Knight scene Doyle says that he was particularly happy to have it reinstated as he had himself shot this complex operation using Cleese, a one-legged man, and a puppet in London’s Epping Forest.
Doyle, 80, who made a cameo appearance as a policeman in the closing scene of The Holy Grail, added: “Thankfully, they changed their minds and the rest, as they say, is history.”
The three feature-length Python films – released in 1975, 1979 and 1983 – followed the success of the troupe’s cult comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

They continue to top polls of the funniest movies of all time, and their influence on comedy been compared to the Beatles’ impact on music.
But according to Doyle, who worked on all three movies either as editor or special effects designer, at London’s Neal’s Yard studios, the six Pythons were “tenacious in their pursuit of timeless gags” and would ask him to cut out anything that they felt
wasn’t “100 per cent perfect”.
Eric Idle, he says, lost confidence in two of his most famous characters – Otto, and Harry the Haggler – and asked for them to be cut entirely from Life of Brian.
The film – an irreverent biblical romp in which an ordinary man spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah – already looked set to offend Christians.
Otto is the hapless leader of the ‘Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad’ and Idle feared the character’s satirical Nazi overtones would upset Jewish viewers.
Two scenes featuring Otto were ultimately removed from the film but the Suicide Squad are later seen tapping their lifeless feet to the film’s closing song, ‘Always look on the bright side of life’.
Idle also disliked Harry the Haggler, a market trader who insists on bartering with Brian over the cost of a fake beard, because he thought the scene was “too slow”.
Another minor scene that narrowly avoided the cut was ‘The Three-Headed Knight’, played by a bickering Chapman, Palin, and Terry Jones in The Holy Grail.
Doyle said: “We watched the early edit together and, after doing so, the Pythons asked for the Three-Headed Knight to go because they felt the scene was too stilted and slow.
“The problem was the costume, which proved impossible for Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, and Michael Palin to move in.
“I loved the scene and was able to save it through several imploring conversations, editing it into a shorter, faster version which they were happy with, and which fans know and love today.”
“On Life of Brian, Eric was worried about the Harry the Haggler scene being too slow, and about Otto, who he believed could cause too much offence.
“I was able to speed up the haggling scene and managed to convince Eric that it should stay, and with Otto, we did end up cutting some scenes, sadly, but we had to save his last appearance as Otto and his men were in the shots at the foot of the
cross and it would have been too costly to reshoot.

“I’m especially pleased that we kept a glimpse of Otto and the Suicide Squad because watching them tap their toes to ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ is a favourite with all.”
Doyle, who went on to work with Terry Gilliam as both the editor and SFX photographer for his cult ’80s flicks Time Bandits and Brazil, and on Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a stage show recorded in Los Angeles for the big
screen, said budget issues were also to blame for almost scuppering other iconic Python moments.
He said the opening scene in The Holy Grail, which sees King Arthur riding into shot through the mist banging coconuts, was nearly never filmed because the film’s entire £175,000 budget (approximately £1.5million today) had already been spent.
And he revealed the film’s unforgettable ending, where King Arthur is arrested just before claiming the Holy Grail, only came about because the production ran out of money.
Doyle, who also directed the movies Love Potion (1987) and Chemical Wedding (2008), co-written with Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, has since penned three books based on or inspired by his time with the Python troupe, including his
new novel The Jericho Manuscript.
“I shot the opening scene of The Holy Grail on Hampstead Heath because the budget was used up and we couldn’t return to Scotland where the rest of the filming took place,” Doyle said.
“The original ending, meanwhile, was meant to be King Arthur wading through thousands of dead bodies holding the Holy Grail and saying, ” Best Grail I’ve ever seen!” but we couldn’t afford a helicopter for the aerial shot or to pay for lots of
extras.
“So, the closing scene of The Holy Grail was changed by the Pythons on the hoof and became the anarchic, brilliant ending it is today.”