It is the middle of the dark ages, ages darker than anyone had ever expected.
If there is a constant theme running throughout all of Terry Gilliam films it is the little man taking on the big man (in one film that is literally the case), the dreamer fighting the realist and the bullied taking on the bully. Jabberwocky is no different. Despite the fact that it is in essence about a giant monster roaming around medieval England eating people, it is actually about true love, and being a pain the arse.
Dennis Cooper (Michael Palin) is a tragic sort. His father is the best cooper in town and the most practical of men. He would think nothing of putting a barrel together in minutes, if the price was right. However his son Dennis is an accountant, a stocktaker, a bean counter, an idiot obsessed with logistics, but without the intelligence to be any good at anything. He has no practical skills and barely deserves the name of Cooper. To his father's eternal disappointment Dennis is not interested in making barrels, or anything else that would be beneficial or helpful for that matter, he is only interested in one thing. A girl. Not a pretty girl either, Griselda Fishfinger (Annette Badland), the daughter of Mr. Fishfinger (Warren Mitchell), Dennis' hero and mentor. Mr. Fishfinger it would seem only puts up with Dennis to get discounts on barrels for the fish he transports, and Griselda has absolutely no interest in Dennis. However Dennis is too stupid to take any kind of hint and will not be deterred from courting his bride to be. Sadly Dennis' father has a massive heart attack (in hilarious Gilliamesque fashion) and dies, but not before telling Dennis how much of a disappointment he is to him. Dennis decides to go to "the city" and seek his fortune proclaiming that he will return for Griselda and marry her.
However upon reaching "The City" Dennis finds it hard to achieve his dream, especially as the whole kingdom is threatened by a terrible monster called the 'Jabberwocky'. Will Dennis make his fortune? Is anyone brave enough to defeat the monster? Will Dennis achieve true love with Griselda?
Jabberwocky was marketed abroad as "Monty Python's Jabberwocky" and you can understand why. Obviously it isn't a Python film, but with Palin, Gilliam's humour and even a cameo from Terry Jones, you can understand how people confused it as such. There is also the fact that in 1977 the US was beginning to embrace Python, so by labelling this as a Python project, there would already be a fan base there. The look of the film is also something that could confuse people as it looks exactly likeMonty Python and the Holy Grail both in terms of the darkly lit scenes (some nearly totally dark) and the same Welsh locations. However seeing as Gilliam designed and co-directed Holy Grail, some similarities are really no surprise.
The film is extraordinarily silly and fun. Though it sags a little in the middle, for the most part it is a joy to behold, especially given that the cast contains the bastions of past British comedy such as Max Wall - hilarious as King Bruno the Questionable, John Le Mesurier - his usual elegant laconic self, Harry H. Corbett as a shag-happy serf and Bernard Bresslaw as a jealous and violent husband.
It is stuffed full of wonderful visual jokes (such as Dennis attempting to improve the speed of work in the blacksmiths) and impossibly silly sketches (such as knights playing hide and seek instead of jousting) that once seen will forever live in the psyche. One such visual joke is a house with a unique door bell. It has an old fashioned bell pull outside, which is connected to a frail old man (an extension of the clapping, wall mounted slaved during the 'Knights of the Round Table' song inHoly Grail)who is then hung and lets out a rasping "URGH", which is then immediately followed by a ladies voice saying, quite calmly, "Someone at the door, dear".
There is no one on Earth better equipped at playing a pain in the arse better than Michael Palin. Anyone who has seenMonty Python or Ripping Yarns will know that it is obviously a role he enjoys playing. Dennis is a massive goon and has absolutely no idea what he is doing from one minute to the next in this film. He hurts more people than he helps and equally only wins the day by total accident. He is such a fool that at the end when he has the Queen throwing herself at him, he still yearns from Griselda. This is truly the biggest schmuck ever recorded on film, and Palin plays him with relish. An important theme that Gilliam cited on the film's audio commentary is happiness. By the end of the film Dennis gets everything a fairy tale hero would want (recognition for killing the beast, the princess' hand in marriage and half of the kingdom) by accident. All Dennis wanted was to live a humdrum life, with an overweight peasant girl who didn't even like him.
Another Gilliam trope is explored in Jaberwocky, and that is the subject of big business. The business men of the city find that the monster is good for business and are therefore reluctant to do anything to stop it. In fact so powerful are the businesses in "The City" that Dennis encounters a cooper (THE Wat Dabney, legendary cooper and inventor of the "Inverted Firkin") who has fallen foul of them and is forced to cut off one of his feet and become a beggar to make any money at all. A moment that is so funny and well constructed that it feels like it is actually from Python.
Being a Gilliam film, it has its fair share of creepy and eerie visuals. I remember seeing it as a youngster and finding the opening sequence fairly spooky. Though on the surface it is fairly amusing (with animals in a bag being given big personalities), Terry Jones' horrified face when he is first attacked and then dumped as an eaten skeleton was a visual image that stayed with me for a few years after seeing this film on video.
The monster itself now looks laughably bad, but at the time, as a child I found it to be pretty scary and it seemed to have a real weight to it. Despite the fact that it looks like a giant chicken. The Jabberwock is a man in costume similar to the classic Japanese Godzilla film effects. In order to recreate the illustrated monster of the 19th century storybook, the costume is designed to be worn by a man walking backwards. Hip and knee joints are reversed giving it a bird-like gait. The actor's head is hidden within the monster's torso, the large marionette head on a serpentine neck is controlled by an offscreen pole and lines, which are unfortunately visible on the print. Long bird-like claws extend out of his shoe heels and his arms become the Jabberwock's wings. Film speed is altered in some scenes to slow the monster's movements and camera angles manipulate perspective in scenes with live actors to depict the monster's immense size. Director Terry Gilliam, during the DVD commentary, stated that the Jabberwock's 'Death Fall' came about accidentally when the actor tripped during filming, but because the fall was so natural it was used in the final print.
If you haven't seen Jabberwocky, I suggest you watch it as soon as you can, if you haven't seen it for a while I suggest you re-watch it. It is a brilliantly underrated film.
