Fight Clip Club: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I’ve had worse.

I have no idea what possessed me to analyze this fight, but I am so glad I have revisited it – it’s been so long since I’ve seen Holy Grail and boy does it remain hilarious. And I forgot that when we first encounter the infamous Black Knight, he’s fighting off a Green Knight in what’s actually a pretty cool looking, if slow, fight scene before we get into the limb-hacking shenanigans that the fight is famous for.

Of course, if you’re a nerd like me, especially a Gen X aged nerd, you’ll have most of this movie memorized, as well as Life of Brian and several of Monty Python’s more popular sketches (Spam, anyone?) so this fight scene will be familiar. What I’d forgotten, though, with this scene and movie as a whole so deeply embedded in my psyche, what an actually well-put-together scene it is, from the buildup of the fight flashes, to the Green Knight’s worthy demise, to the silly blood effects. And of course, the lines are all iconic.

Is the Black Knight invincible, or a loony? Let’s go watch both fights, and talk about it.

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