Life of Brian by Terry Jones (1979)

In this scene movie pokes fun at revolutionary groups and 70s British left-wing politics. The groups in this movie all oppose the Roman occupation of Judea, but fall into the familiar pattern of intense competition among factions that appears, to an outsider, to be over

Distinctions so small as to be invisible, thus portraying the phenomenon of the “narcissism of small differences.”

Michael Palin said that the various separatist movements were modeled on “modern resistance groups, all with obscure acronyms which they can never remember and their conflicting agendas.”

For this scene John Cleese used to be a Latin instructor so, when the Roman centurion gives Brian a lesson in Latin, he’s grammatically spot-on.

Stan wants to be a woman, and insists on being called “Loretta.” As a member of The Beatles, executive producer George Harrison performed the song “Get Back,” which included the lyrics “Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman/But she was another man.”

The famous ‘Biggus Dickus’ scene required a fair bit of planning. Michael Palin, John Cleese and Graham Chapman rehearsed it many times the day before the shoot, with other extras playing the Roman centurion guards

So as to get their timing and movement right and to allow director Terry Jones to ensure the lighting, camera and positioning were all correct. On the day of shooting the extras were changed at the last minute, as Jones knew that the only way the scene would work was

If the extras did not know in advance what was going to be said to them so as to capture their reactions to the dialogue and Palin’s delivery of it. The resulting comedy gold from this scene is mostly due to the unrehearsed reaction of the new extras who were told that

Under no circumstances were they to react to what Palin would say to them. The new extras really did break down laughing on set and the ones who were ordered to take the laughing guards away were the ones who had been present at the rehearsals the day before

So were less likely to crack up laughing. In order to keep these reaction shots as fresh and natural as possible, Jones made sure that the whole scene was shot in just two takes. It is believed the second take for most of the setups were the ones used in the film.

The Python team had a first draft of the screenplay ready by Christmas 1976, and the final draft all done-and-dusted by January 1978. But days before production was due to start, EMI suddenly got cold feet about the whole thing.

Despite Jesus himself not being a target of the gags, were worried about the potentially controversial subject matter, and pulled the rug out from under the whole production just before they were due to fly to Tunisia.

It’s believed that late in the day, Chairman of EMI Lord Bernard Delfont finally thought it was worthwhile to perhaps look at the screenplay of the film his company was about to make.

So what do you do when you need about four million dollars in a hurry ? You go to California, apparently, which is what producer John Goldstone and Python Eric Idle did. It just so happened that ex-Beatle, Python fan and pal of Eric’s

George Harrison was in Hollywood, because of course he was. Eric got in touch to share his woes, and George calmly assured him that he’d find the money to get the film made.”I sort of put that out of my head,” Idle said years later.

“I just didn’t believe anybody could actually pay for it. Then eventually he said, ‘Look, I’ll pay for this. I’m going to set this up”. Apparently, what happened was that Harrison had spoken to his US business manager Denis O’Brien who urged him to fund the film himself.

But even a Beatle doesn’t have a couple of million quid lying around. He had to mortgate his Henley-on Thames mansion and O’Brien’s London offices.

Goldstone was dumbstruck. “I can’t remember whether he’d read the script already or not… it didn’t really seem to matter. I just couldn’t believe it. I felt… rock ‘n’ rollers, no sense of reality at all.”

Idle agreed that it was “really unheard of” and acknowledged that without the cash “Life of Brian would never have been made”. As John Cleese later told us here at Gold: “Eric couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘Why are you doing this?.’ “George said, ‘I want to see the movie’.

Shooting got underway on September 16, 1978, and we ended up with a masterpiece of comedy and British filmmaking. George apparently called his investment “the most expensive cinema ticket ever issued” but, we’re pretty sure he made his money back.

On a budget of around $4 million, Life of Brian went on to gross over $20 million at the box office.

Terry Jones said: “When Eric rang George and asked, ‘What can we do?’, George said, ‘Well, you know, when the Beatles were breaking up, Python kept me sane, really, so I owe you one.’

Sources:

1-Life of Brian by Terry Jones (1979)

2-https://www.goldradiouk.com/news/tv-film/george-harrison-monty-python-life-of-brian/

3-https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_8_nm_0_q_life%2520of%2520brain