On this date in 1979, Monty Python's Life of Brian premièred. 10 facts about the film.
Life of Brian was first conceived in Amsterdam, was written in Barbados and filmed in Tunisia. Tunisia had been used not long before as a location for Star Wars and also Franco Zeffirelli’s TV miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth. Conveniently for the Python Team, Zeffirelli’s crew had left behind a load of props and costumes, which could be used again.
An idea the Monty Pythons considered was to make Brian the 13th Apostle who would miss all of the critical moments of Jesus' life, like the Last Supper. That they intended to call the film Jesus Christ's Lust For Glory was only a rumour, however, and they stated the intention was never to ridicule Jesus or his teachings. “What He's saying isn't mockable, it's very decent stuff," Eric Idle said.
Even so, the film was banned in many countries as blasphemous. Norway banned it for a year before finally allowing it with an 18 certificate and a content warning. Sweden responded by marketing it as "The film that is so funny that it was banned in Norway!" It was 1987 before anyone in Ireland could see it. Frank Hall, the Irish movie censor, said: "offensive to Christians and to Jews as well, because it made them appear a terrible load of gobshites.” The soundtrack album wasn’t banned, however, and become the biggest selling soundtrack album of 1980, which didn’t impress the Catholic Church at all. Some more local bans were enacted as well. Torbay Council, Devon, refused to show this film until September 2008, and in Aberystwyth, Wales, the local ban wasn’t lifted until 2009 when Sue Jones-Davies, who was actually in it, was elected Mayor. Jewish people didn’t like it either. A council of rabbis complained because in one scene, John Cleese was wearing a sacred prayer shawl, and the name of God was taken in vain. In response to various denominations protesting, Cleese joked "We've brought them all together for the first time in 2000 years!"
The film almost didn’t get made at all when Bernard Delfont, the head of EMI Films at the time, finally read the script at the last minute, and deciding the film was too controversial to make a profit, withdrew funding. In the end, Beatle George Harrison bankrolled the production, by setting up a film company HandMade Films and stumping up $4 million of his own money. When asked why, he said "Because I want to go see it."
John Cleese wanted to cast George Lazenby for the cameo appearance of Jesus, simply because he fancied the idea of the poster saying '...and George Lazenby as Jesus Christ'. That didn’t happen, of course. The actor who took on the role of Jesus was Kenneth Colley, who also played Admiral Piett, an Imperial officer, in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
There’s one scene where Brian appears in a window naked, accidentally exposing himself to a crowd below. Since Graham Chapman, who plays him, wasn’t Jewish, and Brian was, Director Terry Jones pointed out this was a definite “costume” flaw. Chapman, therefore, had to use an elastic band on his member to make it look as if he’d been circumcised. Another issue with this scene was the crowd of extras. They hadn’t been told what was going to happen so their reactions would be genuine. However, many of the extras were Muslim women who are banned from looking at naked men they aren’t married to, so at the sight of Chapman’s naughty bits, they screamed and ran away. Chapman recalled, "When I flung open the shutters, half the crowd ran away screaming. That had a profound effect on my psyche."
The character Stan, who wants to be a woman, asks to be called “Loretta”, a name which was used as a tribute to Marty Feldman’s wife. Executive producer George Harrison then used the name in the song Get Back, which includes the lyric "Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman/But she was another man."
Members of the Monty Python team put their former day jobs to good use during filming. John Cleese used to be a Latin teacher, which came in handy when he was playing a Roman centurion who tries to give Brian a Latin lesson; and Graham Chapman had trained as a doctor, and so doubled as the on set medic.
Brian’s scene with the aliens and the UFO caused a few problems, too. The scenes inside the UFO were to be filmed in London, but this was an issue because Graham Chapman at the time was a tax exile who could spend no more than 24 hours in the UK for tax reasons. He had to rush to the set and film his scenes in a hurry before he had to leave the country. The other problem was the black smudge caused by the UFO crashing. Terry Gilliam, production designer, believed the substance used to make the mark would wash off easily. Only it didn’t. This meant members of the crew had to go out at dead of night and paint over it in the hope nobody would notice.
The famous song from the film is of course Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which was intended as a nod to the British “stiff upper lip”. Which British people got on board with easily. For example, during the Falklands War, the HMS Sheffield was struck by a cruise missile and started sinking. The crew gathered on deck and sang Always Look on the Bright Side of Life as they waited to be rescued. RAF pilots would also sing it before going on their missions during the First Gulf War.
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