Michael Palin's Super 8mm Film - "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (1971)

Michael Palin’s Super 8mm film from 1971, when the Pythons were filming sketches for the 3rd series of "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" in Jersey. With new commentary from Michael Palin himself (recorded in July 2019). The film shows the Monty Python cast and crew filming sketches for series 3 of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on the island of Jersey, prior to the studio recording sessions for the final 6 shows of the series. Michael Palin rode Mr. Pither's bicycle around the island, which doubled for Devon, in "The Cycling Tour". He also faced a firing squad on the island, and John Cleese held up Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Carol Cleveland aboard a coach and horses as Dennis Moore, in the tight country lanes of the self-governing dependency. Michael says of the film: "I had a morning off and took film of the preparation for a sequence in which John Cleese as Moore holds up a passing stagecoach. Looking back now, I realise that the unique aspect of filming I captured that day was its boredom. In that way it is, at least, an honest bit of footage and remains almost the only movie material of Python at work in those early days of the TV series Michael says of the film: "I had a morning off and took film of the preparation for a sequence in which John Cleese as Moore holds up a passing stagecoach. Looking back now, I realise that the unique aspect of filming I captured that day was its boredom. In that way it is, at least, an honest bit of footage and remains almost the only movie material of Python at work in those early days of the TV series”.