Jabberwocky (film)
Encyclopedia
Jabberwocky is a 1977 British fantasy
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...

 black comedy film
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

 directed by Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

. It stars Michael Palin
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

 as a young cooper
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...

 who is forced through clumsy, often slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...

 misfortunes to hunt a terrible dragon
European dragon
European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...

 after the death of his father. The name is taken from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

" by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

.

The film, Gilliam's first as a solo director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, was not well received by critics or audiences; however, it became something of a cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...

. Despite its unpopularity, Jabberwocky established Gilliam's visual style and dark humour.

Cast

  • Michael Palin
    Michael Palin
    Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

     as Dennis Cooper
  • Harry H. Corbett
    Harry H. Corbett
    Harry H. Corbett OBE was an English actor.Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s...

     as The Squire (Ethel)
  • John Le Mesurier
    John Le Mesurier
    John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...

     as Passelewe
  • Warren Mitchell
    Warren Mitchell
    Warren Mitchell is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part , and its sequels Till Death... and In Sickness and in Health , all of which were written by Johnny Speight...

     as Mr. Fishfinger
  • Annette Badland
    Annette Badland
    Annette Badland is an English actress best known for her work in children's television.-Biography:Her training took place at East 15 Acting School, London...

     as Griselda Fishfinger
  • Max Wall
    Max Wall
    Max Wall , was an English comedian and actor, whose performing career covered music hall, theatre, films and television.-Early years:...

     as King Bruno the Questionable / Voice of Red Herring
  • Deborah Fallender as The Princess
  • Rodney Bewes
    Rodney Bewes
    Rodney Bewes is an English television actor and writer who is best known for playing Bob Ferris in the BBC television sitcom The Likely Lads and its colour sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? , and in the various radio series based on them , and in the big screen film The Likely Lads...

     as The Other Squire
  • John Bird
    John Bird (actor)
    John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...

     as First Herald
  • Neil Innes
    Neil Innes
    Neil James Innes is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for his collaborative work with Monty Python, and for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles.-Personal life:...

     as Second Herald
  • Bernard Bresslaw
    Bernard Bresslaw
    Bernard Bresslaw was an English actor. He is best remembered for his comedy work, especially as a member of the Carry On team.-Biography:...

     as The Landlord (Bernie)
  • Alexandra Dane
    Alexandra Dane
    Alexandra Dane is a blonde haired actress who appeared in many films including Goldfinger, The Ups and Downs of a Handyman, Carry On Up The Khyber, Carry On Loving, other Carry On films and Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky.Her many television appearances include Not On Your Nellie, Alas Smith and Jones...

     as The Landlord's Wife (Betsy)
  • Brian Glover
    Brian Glover
    Brian Glover was an English character actor, writer and wrestler. Glover was a professional wrestler, teacher, and finally a film, television and stage actor. He once said, "You play to your strengths in this game. My strength is as a bald-headed, rough-looking Yorkshireman".-Early life:Glover was...

     as Armourer
  • Derrick O'Connor
    Derrick O'Connor
    Derrick O'Connor is an Irish character actor, mostly known for his roles in Terry Gilliam films. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company....

     as Flying Hogfish Peasant
  • Peter Cellier
    Peter Cellier
    Peter Cellier is an English actor who has appeared in film, stage and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Sir Frank Gordon in Yes Minister and then Yes, Prime Minister in the 1980s.-Biography:...

     as First Merchant
  • Derek Francis
    Derek Francis
    Derek Francis was an English comedy and character actor.He was a regular in the Carry On film players, appearing in six of the films in the 1960s and 1970s. He appeared in Roger Corman's last film of his Edgar Allan Poe series The Tomb of Ligeia...

     as Bishop
  • Gorden Kaye
    Gorden Kaye
    Gorden Kaye is a BAFTA-nominated English comic actor, best known for playing René Artois in the British TV comedy Allo 'Allo!.-Early life:...

     as Sister Jessica
  • Ted Milton
    Ted Milton
    Ted Milton is an English poet and musician, best known for leading the Blurt, an experimental jazz-rock group.Milton grew up in Africa, Canada and Great Britain. He published some early poems in magazines like Paris Review...

     as The Puppeteer
  • David Prowse
    David Prowse
    David Prowse, MBE is an English former bodybuilder, weightlifter and actor, most widely known for playing the role of Darth Vader in physical form. In Britain, he is also remembered as having played the Green Cross Code man...

     as Red Herring and Black Knights
  • Terry Gilliam
    Terry Gilliam
    Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

     as Man with Rock
  • Terry Jones
    Terry Jones
    Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....

     as Poacher

Production

The film was shot on location in Wales. There are two castles in the film: Pembroke Castle and Chepstow Castle. The Jabberwocky battle scenes were filmed in an old Pembroke stone quarry.

The film is close in setting and comic style to Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1974 British comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...

, on which Gilliam had worked. As well as Palin, Python Terry Jones
Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....

 and Python contributor Neil Innes
Neil Innes
Neil James Innes is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for his collaborative work with Monty Python, and for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles.-Personal life:...

 appeared in Jabberwocky, giving it a Python-esque feel, with many scenes (such as the "hide and seek
Hide and seek
Hide-and-seek or hide-and-go-seek is a variant of the game tag, in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers.-Variants:Numerous variants of the game can be found around the world...

" jousting
Jousting
Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two knights mounted on horses and using lances, often as part of a tournament.Jousting emerged in the High Middle Ages based on the military use of the lance by heavy cavalry. The first camels tournament was staged in 1066, but jousting itself did not...

 tournament) reminiscent of Holy Grail. For its American premiere the film was advertised as Monty Python's Jabberwocky despite protests from Gilliam.

Commerce

One of the most noticeable themes in the film is the importance of commerce. Dennis Cooper after being gleefully disowned by his dying father, is unable to continue his work as a cooper
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...

. Despite his having good ideas about raising productivity, the merchants and businessmen he meets are unwilling to listen to him. Cooper moves from his village to the enclosed town in search of business opportunity. Dennis discovers that the guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

s and merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...

s control business and that outsiders are struggling to survive. While in the city he discovers Wat Dabney, a legendary cooper and inventor of the "inverted firkin
Firkin
A firkin is an old English unit of volume. The name is derived from the Middle Dutch word vierdekijn, which means fourth, i.e. a quarter of a full-size barrel.Nor need you mind the serial ordealOf being watched from forty cellar holes...

". Despite his skill, Wat is excluded by the guilds and has cut his foot off in an attempt to become a beggar — an act so successful that he ends up cutting off his other foot by the film's end.

The top merchants in the town profit handsomely from fear of the Jabberwock and are reluctant to help the King end the crisis. The Bishop is happy that fear has led to increased donations to the church and increased attendances at mass and confession ("piety ain't never been higher!"). The Bishop is so unimpressed by the King's choice of a champion to slay the monster that he blesses the champion by simply flicking holy water at him with his index finger. The merchants conspire to send the "black knight" to kill the king's champion and are aghast when Dennis comes back with the monster's head.

"Creaking bureaucracy"

King Bruno the Questionable and his aide, Passelewe are aged rulers in a castle that is falling apart. Darkness, dust, cobwebs and fallen plaster lie everywhere. It is so dark and decrepit that the town outside is refreshing in comparison. So entrenched are these two in their misrule that the only way the King can find an answer to the Jabberwock is to emulate the deeds of his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (Max the Vainglorious) and hold a tournament to select a champion; a decision which works because Dennis manages to accompany the champion (Dennis chances to slay the Jabberwock after the champion is killed by the Black Knight).

The "creaking bureaucracy" (found in Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil
Brazil (film)
Brazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...

) also includes the inept behaviour of his herald
Herald
A herald, or, more correctly, a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is often applied erroneously to all officers of arms....

, who is far more concerned with heralding than in the message he is communicating, a process which eventually prevents the King from speaking and ends with the herald losing his head.

Accidental and unconventional happiness

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.

Monster

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
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

, 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.
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