Why Python failed to amuse film censors

BRITAIN: Think of a Monty Python film with blasphemous content and Life of Brian springs to mind.

Yet previously unseen files from the British Board of Film Classification show that the comedy team’s earlier offering, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, fell foul of the censors for repeated use of the words ‘‘Jesus Christ!’’

A scene in which King Arthur encounters a taunting Frenchman played by John Cleese - ‘‘I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries’’ - is followed by shots of the French catapulting cows over the ramparts at the king and his men.

In the version that appeared in cinemas on the film’s 1975 release, Arthur yells: ‘‘Jesus Christ!’’ as a cow missed him by inches. But in the uncut original, he said it three times, and the BBFC was not impressed.

‘‘We are less than enchanted by your funny Frenchman,’’ wrote Stephen Murphy, then BBFC secretary, in a letter to Cleese.

‘‘The repetition of ‘Jesus Christ’ in the film seems to us unnecessary.

‘‘There is good evidence that this does distress people who would otherwise enjoy the film.’’

The Holy Grail is considered a British classic - the Knights who say Ni, the killer bunny rabbit, and the riding of pretend horses (the budget would not stretch to real ones) are all beloved by comedy fans.

But Murphy wrote that the film has ‘‘one or two places where, in our view, the humour is not very effective’’.

The letter also listed a number of scenes considered too gory - including the dismembering of the Black Knight, complete with copious amounts of spurting blood.

The BBFC initially saw a script for the film and advised an X certificate, as it was deemed to have crude sexual references and very strong language.

The script was duly toned down and submitted for classification in early 1975. At this point Mr Wright wrote his letter, which resulted in two incidences of ‘‘Jesus Christ’’ being removed. - Telegraph Group