Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A sneak peak of Michael Palin’s never-before-seen super 8mm home movies, with new commentary from Michael Palin himself, from 1972 when the Pythons were filming sketches for the 3rd series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in Jersey.
Michael Palin rode Mr. Pither's bicycle around Jersey which doubled for Devon in "The Cycling Tour". He also faced a firing squad on the island. But he wasn't alone. 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.
By this stage in the production of the 3rd series, 7 episodes are in the can. This film shows the Monty Python crew filming around the island prior to the studio recording sessions for the final 6 shows of the series, the first of which would happen just two weeks after filming was completed.
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".
You can watch the full-length films as part of the BFI Southbank’s Python season “It’s… Monty Python at 50” from 1 September 2019. For more details visit: whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/montypythonat50
A sneak peak of Michael Palin’s never-before-seen super 8mm home movies, with new commentary from Michael Palin himself, from 1972 when the Pythons were filming sketches for the 3rd series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in Jersey.
Michael Palin rode Mr. Pither's bicycle around Jersey which doubled for Devon in "The Cycling Tour". He also faced a firing squad on the island. But he wasn't alone. 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.
By this stage in the production of the 3rd series, 7 episodes are in the can. This film shows the Monty Python crew filming around the island prior to the studio recording sessions for the final 6 shows of the series, the first of which would happen just two weeks after filming was completed.
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".
You can watch the full-length films as part of the BFI Southbank’s Python season “It’s… Monty Python at 50” from 1 September 2019. For more details visit: whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/montypythonat50
