McCartney Times

Easter is synonymous with many things, but one of the most recent is ‘Brian’s life’, the great comedy of the Monty Python released in 1979. However, it was about not to be, since the mythical comic group was about to not be able to make the film and only the intervention of George Harrison allowed the film to go ahead.

The problems came a year earlier, with everything ready to start filming. It was then that Bernard Delfont, CEO of EMI at the time, read the script that the company had acquired and decided to withdraw the funding necessary to be able to make ‘Brian’s Life’ just a couple of days before the recordings began. He thought he was blasphemous and didn’t want to get into trouble, so He decided to wash his hands and leave the Monty Python to their fate.

George Harrison’s miraculous intervention

As if the situation was not already problematic enough, the Monty Python had already started to spend the money they had been promised and there were already people in Tunisia leaving everything ready to get down to work. Everything pointed to a historical disaster – after all, what they had spent had to come from somewhere – and a movie without being able to do it, but that’s when Harrison came on the scene.

The former component of The Beatles had been a fan of the authors of ‘The Life of Brian’ for years, eventually sending a letter to the BBC after the broadcast of the first chapter of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ in 1969 declaring himself a fan of the Program. They did not get to receive it as clarified Michael Palin years later, but several members of the group began a friendship with Harrison soon after and it was Eric idle who thought of asking for help as a desperate measure to be the richest person he knew.

It didn’t take long for Harrison to react after receiving the news, as he also had the opportunity to read the script and was delighted. They soon got in touch with their manager in the United States and both concluded that the best they could have was to finance Brian Brian’s life ’themselves. That led to re-mortgage your home to get a loan of 5 million dollars with which he covered all the costs of the film.

In addition, to do so he created his own production company: HandMade Films, a company that later also participated in titles such as ‘The Long Good Friday’, ‘The Heroes of Time’, ‘Shamghai Surprise’ or ‘Lock & Stock’. None of this would have been possible without the enormous success of “The Life of Brian”, a film that Harrison financed “because I wanted to see her”

The bid to Delfont

Having saved an issue that nearly brought the movie down, the Monty Python couldn’t resist including a joke at Delfont’s own expense in the film’s final scene. Surely you all remember the sequence of the crucifixion and how everything ends at the rhythm of the already mythical song ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Things’, but now we have to go right to the end of it, already with advanced credit titles

During the last moments of the song you can hear the following “Who do you think pays for this garbage? They will never get the money back. I told Bernie that they were never going to get the money back.”A direct bid to Bernard Delfont -and surely also to the person in charge of advising him to change his mind at the last moment-, responsible for almost running out of seeing ‘Brian’s life’.

Luckily, in the end we had a happy ending thanks to George Harrison, who also featured a small cameo in ‘Brian’s Life’. That some believe that today it would be impossible to make a film like ‘Brian’s life’, but at the time it was also about to be.

Source: how George Harrison saved the legendary Monty Python comedy – Asap Land