{"id":29080,"date":"2025-12-31T01:18:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T01:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29080"},"modified":"2026-01-01T09:26:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T09:26:43","slug":"film-jabberwocky-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29080","title":{"rendered":"FiLM: Jabberwocky, 1977"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What a strange film this is, to be sure. Or ought that be \u2018to be unsure\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the star-spangled cast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cast is amazing. Max Wall as King Bruno, John le Mesurier as his chamberlain, Passelewe, Michael Palin, doing his innocent bumpkin \u2018everyman\u2019, is Dennis Cooper, Warren \u2018Alf Garnett\u2019 Mitchell, Brenda Cowling (You Rang M\u2019Lord,<\/em> etc), even musician and Bonzo, Neil Innes (and David Prowse as The Dark Knight!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those are just some of the folk in the above photo. The cast also includes cameos for fellow Pythons, Terrys Jones and Gilliam (poacher and man with rocks\/diamonds, respectively), as well as roles for Harry Corbett, John Bird, Bernard Bresslaw, Gordon Kaye and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Businessman Fishfinger, and apprentice cooper, Dennis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was Gilliam\u2019s solo directorial debut, two years after co-directing The Holy Grail<\/em>, with Terry Jones, in \u201875. This movie had twice the budget of The Grail<\/em>, but made less than a quarter of what the latter made at the box office. Actually making slightly less than it had cost to film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two films have a fair amount in common: medieval settings, and Pythonesque humour, as well as Pythons in both filming and acting capacities. But Jabberwocky<\/em> is also a clear departure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visually it\u2019s a lot richer and more artistically shot, as befits Gilliam\u2019s artistic visions. In fact – despite the deliberately grotesque visions of medieval squalor – it\u2019s actually quite a beautiful film, visually. Well, I think it is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Squalor under the city Walls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The plot essentially follows everyman loser Dennis Cooper (Palin), disowned by his eponymous barrel-making father, on his deathbed, and cast out, sundered from his beloved (the grotesque and disinterested) Griselda, heading for the city, to make his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Via a series of ludicrous slapstick adventures, he eventually meets and defeats the titular Jabberwocky, gaining a Princess and half a kingdom along the way, and ultimately losing Griselda and a potato\/turnip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vestiges of the Pythons skit-based humour are strongly evident, and it\u2019s not a particularly slick film, \u00e0 la Hollywood. But it is<\/em> well put together, and well acted, albeit within a style or genre that\u2019s a large part pantomime or farce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The search for a champion knight is costly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The portrayal of medieval or Dark Ages culture is hilarious, in its bloody and bowel movement obsessed way. On one level this is quite a gory film – even if only briefly – but it\u2019s so comedic it\u2019s funny rather than upsetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bloody silly!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The fight at the film\u2019s denouement – first \u2018twixt \u2018Red Herring\u2019 and \u2018Black Knight\u2019, and then Black Knight (and Dennis Cooper) vs Jabberwocky* – is cutely dated, to modern eyes, used to seeing near-seamless CGI. But I don\u2019t mind that at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, to cap it off, our hero returns, triumphant, to the City, and gets his reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s really quite weird, and feels rather lumpen and uneven, at times. And yet I really rather like it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*It\u2019s a pity they didn\u2019t make the movie Jabberwocky more like Teniel\u2019s magnificent beast. Esp\u2019 as they used the latter in such promo imagery as the poster atop this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOOTNOTE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Also worth watching\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I tried embedding the above, via YouTube, but I couldn\u2019t. Jan Svankmajer\u2019s 1973 rendering of Lewis Carroll\u2019s work has both much in common with Gilliam\u2019s, and yet is massively different. Both are well worth watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know Svankmajer at all, you\u2019ll know he\u2019s a famed Czech animator. This early work of his is already brimful of his wildly and surrealistically inventive visual imaginings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clocking in at under 15 minutes, there\u2019s a surprisingly large and rich amount of ideas crammed into this short film. It also includes an English language reading of Lewis Carroll\u2019s poem. Always great to hear. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a strange film this is, to be sure. Or ought that be \u2018to be unsure\u2019? The cast is amazing. Max Wall as King Bruno, John le Mesurier as his chamberlain, Passelewe, Michael Palin, doing his innocent bumpkin \u2018everyman\u2019, is Dennis Cooper, Warren \u2018Alf Garnett\u2019 Mitchell, Brenda Cowling (You Rang M\u2019Lord, etc), even musician and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FiLM: Jabberwocky, 1977”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"FiLM: Jabberwocky, 1977","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-7z2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29080"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29085,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29080\/revisions\/29085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}