"The Holy Grail" was Monty Python's first narrative feature film, 1971's "And Now for Something Completely Different" being essentially a rehash of skits from the sextet's British TV show. And after more than a quarter-century, "The Holy Grail" is still the best spoof of medieval times since Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

Recently, Terry Jones (who co-directed "Holy Grail" along with American Python Terry Gilliam) and the ubiquitous John Cleese teamed up for this, uh, conversation. They played off each other's wit like some old married couple -- Cleese doing his daft, upper-crust English bit and Jones sniveling and scraping like a snide underling. We open with Jones in the room sans Cleese, which is bad enough, but when Cleese arrives, things really go to pieces.

Did Monty Python's style emerge from the irreverence of the era?

Terry Jones: It seems like it. We were doing it in the late '60s, early '70s. So we were coming from a feeling that the world ought to change a bit. That the establishment had got away with it for too long.

How has your humor remained fresh after all these years?

It's a mystery. I remember a U.S. journalist explaining how he caught his first show while living in Dallas. He thought it was amazing because he couldn't imagine anyone else but him laughing at it. He felt like he was part of this private club. Maybe that's because it wasn't designed for a mass audience. If the six of us laughed at it, then that's what we did. That was always the keystone for us.

Why are you rereleasing "The Holy Grail" now?

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I don't know -- maybe it's all a big mistake. Since someone's putting up money for a DVD, we thought we could put a stereo soundtrack on the film, because it was originally shot in mono. Figured we might as well see it up there on the big screen.

Are you planning to rerelease the other Python films?

I think so. This one mainly came about because of the DVD.

The story is "The Holy Grail" was a difficult film to make. What was the worst day of shooting?

The worst day was when we were filming in this Scottish gorge. We actually had to climb this mountain and carry all this bloody equipment up with us. We had only five weeks to shoot the film, and Terry Gilliam and I were very nervous, as it was the first time we'd actually directed. Then Graham Chapman couldn't stand by the edge of this mountain. He was shaking all over. He was our mountaineer, and we couldn't figure out what was the matter with him. Turned out he was actually having D.T.s, trying to get himself off alcohol. Then we were halfway through the take, and we couldn't shoot any sound for some reason. We thought, "We've got a mute camera, let's do some silent stuff." But the only silent shots were on the other side of the gorge via this rickety "Bridge of Death" we had. I kept running across it, saying, "Come on, it's perfectly safe." But no one wanted to cross it. We had to walk all the way around. That was the worst day. Or one of them, anyway.

On the flip side, what was the most enjoyable part of making the film?

Script conferences. We really looked forward to those. It was such a thrill going into one, knowing that you were going to hear things no one had ever heard before. Mike [Palin] and I would have a couple of sketches we wanted to read to the others. It was a thrill to make them laugh, and hear their stuff as well.

The press kit mentions 23 seconds of additional footage. What is that, exactly?

My answer's a bit roundabout here, but the very first showing of the film was in a theater in Soho for about 200 people. We had all our investors there: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and various other rock groups. They'd all put money in. Everybody laughed for about the first five minutes. Then suddenly the audience died. Nobody laughed. We sat through the whole film, and everyone was silent. We couldn't believe it. It was awful.

One of our producers said, "There must be something wrong." We had this very thick soundtrack full of winged birds, atmospheric fire crackles, that kind of stuff. So I remixed it, and took out [those sounds] when anyone starts speaking. That seemed to help.

Look out, it's the headmaster!

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