Jabberwocky (1977)
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Source: JustWatch
Physical Media
A Python was directing. A Python was starring. It was set in the Middle Ages, arriving right on the heels of Holy Grail. Audiences settled in expecting more coconut-clopping silliness. It was not a Monty Python movie.
JABBERWOCKY (1977) was Terry Gilliam's first film as a director on his own, out from under the troupe for the first time. He announced the break in the opening scene, by having the monster kill Terry Jones, the man he had just co-directed Holy Grail with. Then he showed everyone what he actually wanted to make.
The filthiest, most plague-ridden, mud-caked vision of the Middle Ages ever put on film, following a dim barrel-maker's apprentice named Dennis who bumbles his way into a dragon hunt he wants no part of.
It is grotesque and uneven and often astonishing, and it is where the entire Gilliam universe is born: the little man ground up by absurd systems, the Bruegel squalor, the dread and wonder that would become Time Bandits and Brazil.
About the Film
Jabberwocky: the monster so horrible that people caught the plague to avoid it
- Directed By
- Terry Gilliam
- Runtime
- 105 minutes
- Released
- March 28, 1977
- US Theatrical
- April 15, 1977
- Certification
- PG
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Starring
- Michael Palin, Harry H. Corbett, John Le Mesurier, Warren Mitchell, Max Wall
More Credits
- Genres
- Fantasy, Comedy
- Language
- English
- Origin
- US, GB
- Studios
- Python Films, Umbrella Films
- Written By
- Terry Gilliam, Charles Alverson
- Produced By
- Sanford Lieberson, Julian Doyle, John Goldstone
- Cinematography
- Terry Bedford
- Music
- Modeste Moussorgsky
- Also Starring
- Rodney Bewes, John Bird, Bernard Bresslaw, Deborah Fallender, Derek Francis
- Budget
- $500,000
- Box Office
- $490,000
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Saw it on a double bill with Holy Grail when it first came out. Fabulous.
Phillip Edwards So did I, and it only cost a buck!
I believe I saw it on Tubi for the first time a year ago or so. It was interesting but not his greatest
Think this is an influence on Shrek with it being a parody of fairy tales
The Black Knight was played by Darth Vader himself, David Prowse.
A GREAT FILM !!
!! He’s got a potato!! 😲
Christopher Bergschneider I don’t see why we should let him in, just because he’s got a potato!
T’was brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borrogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe!
Steve Wilkins To me it still sounds like Vogon poetry.
The monster is amazing. Although it’s essentially a giant puppet, it moves as if composed of great mass with all the effect that gravity would bring to bear.
James Robert Smith I thought there was a man inside, going backwards.
My hands down favourite Terry Gilliam film!
The doorbell scene was superb
Brendan Cronin I remember that bit. Also the knights playing hide and seek when the king realises the tournament is turning into a massacre.
She loves you!!! She gave you a moldy potato❤️❤️❤️
Grizelda grew up, moved to London, got a doctorate and is now the Pathologist on Midsomer Murders. She did good for a girl that grew up in a swamp.
I was maybe 13 when I caught this on Channel 100 (very early cable service); I remember thinking how absolutely FILTHY everyone was – like very frame was smeared with poop – while also being mesmerized by the dragon design.
Still traumatized from seeing this as a 7 year old kid. Pretty sure it wasn’t the movie my dad thought it was going to be. It’s one of my favorites now.
David Stenhouse Same! The opening scene freaked the childhood bejaysus out of me! Don’t know how I watched the rest of the show but i did
Sucks
Just one correction… Jabberwocky is not THE filthiest, most plague-ridden, mud-caked vision of the Middle Ages ever put on film…. That honor goes to Trudno byt Bogom – Hard to Be a God (2013), a film that is blessedly in black and white. I do recommend it, but it sure is nasty.
Stephen Breen Definetly a heavy physically annoying monster of a film, a bitter concentrate of humanitys hopelessness.
Grg Klein The fascinating thing is that there’s a German adaptation of the same novel from 1989 (Es ist Nicht Leicht ein Gott zu Sein) and that one is more accurate to the book and totally bland, like a first season episode of Star Trek TNG.
Stephen Breen Mariken van Nieumeghen (1974), from what I remember of seeing it at the NFT 50 or so years ago, is also heavily muddy and plaguey, and may have influenced Jabberwocky?
Stephen Breen that was my first thought.. what a film!!
Stephen Breen Nice PFP there Hastur
I knew he did Brazil, but I never knew he was behind Time Bandits. No wonder my 10yo brain couldn’t comprehend it. 🤣
I remember it as being profoundly unfunny. It has only one good line. A piece of plaster falls into someone’s soup. He tastes it, chews, and says something like, “Hmm… Twelfth century.”
As I read long time ago, it was one of the inspirations of Warhammer fantasy games.
Krzysztof Grzesik I absolutely had that thought looking at the third picture with the old man.
“Wait, is this from the Warhammer Fantasy RPG source book!”
Krzysztof Grzesik Yep! I came here to say this. <3
Saw this as a matinee double feature with Holy Grail back in 1977 for $1.00! Can you imagine?
I think Jabberwocky (and Holy Grail) shook me out of he sanitized image of hollywood medieval visions of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood and the 1950’s Prince Valiant movies (both which I love). And like Holy Grail, he named Michael Palin’s character “Dennis”. “Dennis’ was also the peasant who gave infamous “No King” rant in Holy Grail. I feel a kinship.
Dennis Woodyard from Dionysius
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves�Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;�All mimsy were the borogoves,�And the mome raths outgrabe.��”Beware the Jabberwock, my son!�The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!�Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun�The frumious Bandersnatch!”��He took his vorpal sword in hand:�Long time the manxome foe he sought—�So rested he by the Tumtum tree,�And stood awhile in thought.��And as in uffish thought he stood,�The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,�Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,�And burbled as it came!��One, two! One, two! And through and through�The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!�He left it dead, and with its head�He went galumphing back.��”And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?�Come to my arms, my beamish boy!�O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”�He chortled in his joy.��’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves�Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;�All mimsy were the borogoves,a�And the mome raths outgrabe.
Keith Rogers The one poem I can recite from heart.
Don Lawson Tis more glorious in the original Klingon. Yet less perhaps less poetic.
remember the scenes with the monster having a real evil dead energy, a good few years before raimi came along
‘Father’s raving!’
‘No he isn’t …’
I had forgotten all about this film. I will have to search for it now.
This film is visual amazing and even smells rotten. I had a copy of it on VHS in the 1980s and brought it into secondary school to watch in a 4th year (yr10) O level English lesson when the teacher had given up on us. I won instant kudos
Pure undiluted Gilliam. Marvellous.
Underrated fantasy film that was released before the 1980’s fantasy classics. I’d love to see a restored film releases
I think it’s hilarious! The ridiculous faces Terry Jones makes as the Beast bites him in half, then, Flop! a hideous steaming corpse kills the laughs.
Brilliant film, honestly, my Gilliam film.
This movie ’twas brillig.
13 when it came out. Went to see it because it was as close as I could get to Monty Python at the time. I was not disappointed. While set in medieval times, it said a lot about how the world works. I have a copy on DVD. Time to watch it again.
I particularly remember the jousting scenes with the blood showering the gleeful spectators.
Patrick Thomas Conlin, I rewatched it after seeing Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and the portrait of chivalry in each was exactly the sort I wanted to see.
I love this movie so much. It is so unique and different and hilarious.
We loved it and saw it in a theater in Houston. <3
Great moments, but boring for long stretches.
Fishfinger!
Some of the humor falls a little flat, especially in light of the Monty Python pedigree, but this is an amazing movie that stands above the nonsense and non-sequiturs people expected. I can’t help feeling this movie inspired some of the set and feel of ARMY OF DARKNESS.
I’ve never been able to get even halfway through it.
I loved this more than Star Wars when I saw them both in theaters way back then!!!
Grizz, my heart pines for thee!
Better than Gone With The Wind
A Brilliant start to Terry’s career.
I always wished the Jabberwock featured more in it of course, and I was probably too young to watch it, as I am older I get it was far more intended of satire on a lot of modernity through a very grimy medieval lens and that Jabberwock really isn’t quite the actual focus of the film.
Honestly, this movie is a train wreck. Unpredictable, unfocused, and often incoherent. I love Gilliam’s work. But this pie got pulled out of the oven way, way too early. Difficult to watch, a real slog to get through, and an ending so disappointing I wanted the last 3 hours of my life back.