Very Naughty Boys [EBK]

by Robert Sellers

  It wasn’t just the tax schemes that sent alarm bells ringing within the Python camp. Other aspects of the HandMade setup were beginning to disillusion them. Jones says, ‘My worry with HandMade was always that the tail would wag the dog. It was after about a year of Denis’s management, which was great in many ways, very dynamic, but it was going into his office at EuroAtlantic, these very smart offices, and going into these separate rooms where you had like a dozen people working for us and Denis was showing off saying, “Look, they’re all working on your things,” accountants and lawyers, all that stuff, and I was thinking, My God, have we got to generate enough income to support this enterprise? I just don’t think anyone in the Python team wanted to be saddled with overheads like this. I didn’t want to feel that we had to keep working in order to generate money to keep an office going. So I started getting a bit itchy about this and began making noises that we ought to get out.’

  HandMade’s new distribution arm was also a cause for concern. Since its inception, only films of dubious quality like horror flicks Venom and The Burning had been brought in. Flunking at the box office, they’d brought not one iota of distinction to the company and their exploitative nature had reflected badly upon Monty Python, who Joe Public saw as being very much integrally linked with the HandMade brand name. Gilliam reveals, ‘Python left because HandMade were setting up this distribution arm and buying in shit films that were going to go up under our banner. I mean, it’s understandable if you’ve got a distribution arm you’ve got to have product coming through, but we had no control over what was being bought. So we decided, that’s it, that’s when we split. Literally. We just walked away from it; it wasn’t like we were bought out, we just walked away, that’s what Python does. We never took anything, we just said, “Goodbye.” But I was pissed off they kept my logo. I wanted to take my logo with me.’

  In the spring of 1981, less than two years after the triumph of Life of Brian, a meeting of the Pythons was called. Idle recalls, ‘We went away to a hotel and had sort of a two- or three-day conference about what we felt and where it was going. At that point, they all decided they wanted to leave and then John was wonderful because he said, “Well, look, O’Brien is a bit of a...” John knew what type he was, I think “a narcissist”, and said, “We can’t just leave, we have to make it look like it’s his idea.” So it was very carefully and cleverly orchestrated so that Denis was sort of grateful we left. And I don’t think he ever knew that. It was brilliant, it was the application of intelligence and analytical methods, because John knew what type he was. He was the only one into analysis in those days, and he knew how he would behave and react and how to get away and get what we wanted without making Denis look foolish.’

  The shock of Python’s departure was acute and resonated throughout the whole company, like a stroke. It was also largely unexpected, the disintegrating trust between Python and O’Brien took place behind closed doors, away from the general staff, detectable only to the keenest of observers. ‘What I didn’t personally realise,’ Ray Cooper says, ‘when you join Denis in any shape or form it was total and he couldn’t take questioning. I should have seen the red light; maybe I didn’t want to at that point because life was looking sweet. He was a very intelligent man but secretly I realised later there was an arrogance about him and the Pythons as fantastically intelligent men... they’re not going to sit back and say, “OK, take our lives, run with it,” they’d never been managed in that sense. It was, “Hang on, can we see the contract?” and Denis was like, “You don’t trust me.” One thing you couldn’t do was express that. But I was busy, there was half an ear cocked to what was going on. And I think that was the reason why, early one Monday morning, the Python filing cabinets were literally on the pavement outside Cadogan Square and Python split, rather ignominiously.’

  Contrary to Eric Idle’s view that Cleese’s expertise had enabled the Pythons to leave with O’Brien’s blessing, Abbott saw things quite differently. ‘I think Denis was stunned when anybody resigned from his office and he was certainly stunned with the Pythons. He was staggered when it happened. I don’t think he could believe it. I wasn’t at the meeting but the Pythons have told me since, just stunned disbelief, even when they said, “But, Denis, you used our money.” You see, in his mind, he thought he was doing everything for their joint best interest.’

  Unfortunately for Denis, there was another shock waiting for him in the wings. The Pythons wanted Steve Abbott to go with them. Cleese says, ‘When we split with Denis, we said, “Look, Steve knows all our affairs, can he come with us and look after us.” I’d always thought that was OK, but I subsequently heard that I don’t think Denis was very pleased about it.’ Something of an understatement. O’Brien had, in fact, pleaded with the accountant to stay on with HandMade.

  ‘Everyone was very polite, right to the end,’ Abbott recalls. ‘On my final day, which was the Friday, Denis said, “Steve, the Pythons and I had a meeting last night, there’s a job for you here, whatever you want to do, get more involved in the films, whatever. They’re going to ask you to go with them.” Everything was done politely. At lunchtime, I went to see him and said, “Look, the only reason I came here was I wanted to work with the Pythons. I’ve developed a relationship with them. I’ve been utterly professional about everything I’ve done and I’d like to go with them.” And I was kicked out of my office an hour later. Denis couldn’t believe it. I mean, he promised me anything I wanted to do to stay. He couldn’t believe people would want to leave the family. It took the Pythons and myself about the best part of six to nine months to work out the divorce. But we did.’ It was a divorce further complicated by the fact that the Pythons were in the process of setting up a new film project. What was ultimately to become their last ever feature, The Meaning of Life, ironically came about at the instigation of Denis O’Brien himself. ‘When Life of Brian was very successful,’ John Cleese states, ‘Denis invited us down to this beautiful island of his, Fisher Island, only about 12 people on it and two golf courses, it was distinctly very rich. He flew us down by helicopter and we had some meetings and he said something which remains to this day one of the most extraordinary things that anyone in a suit has ever said to me, which was that if we made another film again fairly soon, none of us would ever need to work again. And I’ve always desired not to work and just be able to chase my tail and do things that amuse me as opposed to doing things for money which are almost invariably less interesting. So we all pricked up our ears and thought we would do Meaning of Life as a result.’

  It turned out to be a poor decision to plunge headlong into another Python movie before everyone was really ready. Cleese continues, ‘Meaning of Life was as frustrating an experience as Brian was a satisfying one because we could never ever quite figure out what the movie was about and we just spent immense amounts of time writing material without ever having any sense of a real theme. I thought it was bordering on a waste of time at one stage. We then decided to make one big effort and to go off to the West Indies again. But after a couple of days, we were getting nowhere and I said to the others, “I have a plan. Let’s forget about this work and have a really nice 12 days in the sun and then go back to England and tell everyone that we flogged ourselves to death, codgered our brains, burnt the midnight oil and generally strained ourselves and produced nothing that we liked.” And I practically sold the idea to the group. And the next morning, that bloody man Jones was there saying, “Well, you know, I really, I really think...” And he’d worked out this order overnight that made quite a lot of sense; even I had to agree that maybe it was worth doing a bit more work. He’d put the various material we had into quite a good shape, and we worked on that shape and that was the film we eventually made.’

  But this was to be a film the Pythons were determined that Denis O’Brien would have no part in whatsoever. ‘We didn’t do Meaning of Life for HandMade,’ says Michael Palin, ‘because certain of the Pythons didn’t have faith in Denis at all. I think t
he notion of doing the film with HandMade came up at a meeting and was dismissed almost instantly.’

  After the success of Brian, Python were big box office and in the enviable position of being able to broker a deal with just about any of the major studios. When Universal came in with an offer of $8 million to make the film, Python took it, much to the private chagrin of Messrs Harrison and O’Brien, although publicly both men put on a philosophical front. ‘We never had a contract with Python to say that you must stick with us for ever and ever,’ Harrison informed the Sunday Times in 1983. ‘If I can help someone like Gilliam, with his eccentricities which border on genius, I will, subject to Denis putting it on a realistic basis so that we don’t go bankrupt inside six months.’

  Python’s ‘defection’ to a Hollywood studio was a massive set-back for everyone at Cadogan Square. ‘The Meaning of Life, that was a blow them going to Universal for that,’ believes Shingles. ‘We fully expected that Meaning of Life would have been a HandMade film, had the situation been different.’

  Some of the staff could at least take quiet satisfaction from the fact that the end result was nowhere near in the same league as the venerated Brian. Cleese suggests, ‘I think Life has got some absolutely terrific things in it, but also some really not very good material and I thought it was a shame to go back to a sketch format film, like our first. It didn’t add up to much, I felt. And I found the filming, unlike Tunisia on Brian, a terrible grind. I remember towards the end of it I felt very tired and quite depressed. I didn’t enjoy a lot of it very much. Individual bits, yes. But I’ve never enjoyed the filming process very much, there has to be something special about it like Tunisian sun to get you up at 6.00am.’

  The reason why it was essential that Python broke all ties with HandMade prior to cameras rolling on Meaning of Life — ironic, given O’Brien’s sphere of expertise — was purely for reasons of tax. Abbott explains, ‘Why the split had to happen in 1981 was that they’d set aside 1982 to make the next Python film. And this really pissed Eric Idle off that they only made movies in World Cup years because he liked watching football. They did Holy Grail in ’74, Brian was shot in ’78 and, fuck me, they were going to do Life in ’82 and Eric was really angry about it. Anyway, if Python had stayed within HandMade, the financial and tax structure would have had them completely meshed in the EuroAtlantic-HandMade group of companies and it would have been very hard to extricate them from it. As it was, when we left in ’81 it took a long, long time; contracts had to be reversed, flows of money had to be untangled, service contracts had to be redone, and so on. If that film had gone through the HandMade apparatus, it would have been hard to untangle, so it really had to happen pretty quickly. It was essential that Meaning of Life was not a HandMade film. It had to come to an end before then.’

  Abbott now became responsible, along with Anne James, for the business and financial management of Python, and his first priority was to repatriate contracts and sums of money on their behalf, determined that everything should be above board and beyond reproach. ‘I must be the only person in this line of business who, as a selling point to potential clients said, if you come with me you’ll pay more tax. But that’s what I did and all the Pythons agreed to do it. I spoke to them all individually. Denis’s way of tax dealing so bewildered someone like Terry Jones. I remember a conversation I had with him the first year after HandMade. He was directing Meaning of Life and he phoned me one day and said, “There’s a real problem, we can’t do one of the sequences. I think we should do it in England... the best way to do it would be to make it in England.” So I said, “Well, make the fucking film in England.” And he said, “But then we won’t be abroad, you’ll need us to go abroad for tax.” I said, “Terry, you’ve been around Denis O’Brien too long, you know... what the fuck are you talking about? You do the film where you have to do it and I’ll take care of the contracts, but even if you have to do every film for the rest of your life in England and the tax rate’s 99 per cent and you could make them in France and the tax rate will be 1 per cent, what are you going to do? Are you going to make films to suit the tax man or are you going to make films that you want made?”

  ‘He’d been so bewildered by Denis, and he was apologising to me, the director of a movie is coming to some guy who is a fucking accountant to apologise that he wants to shoot a sequence of a film in England. Terry was completely bewildered by dotted line drawings of where money flowed, and so it was great to be able to disabuse him of this myth, take as good care as I could of his companies, but everything’s fair, everything’s traceable, everything’s in this country, everything is back under your control. It was a question of, yes, you pay your bloody tax, nothing wrong with that.’

  Python’s split with HandMade also had a profound effect upon George Harrison. Not just a happy and willing supporter of their collective and individual talents but a huge fan, too, it must have been a painful personal wrench to see them go. Not as emotionally unhinged about it as O’Brien, Harrison was actually fairly pragmatic about their decision to leave. ‘Well, do what you want to do,’ is how Michael Palin remembers him reacting to the news. It seems that he was almost resigned to it happening, having by this time understood how the group operated, his fan’s eye view of them corrupted pretty early on in the messiest of ways. Gilliam says, ‘When we did Life of Brian, there was one meeting that George came to. We’d done the first or second cut of the film and we’d looked at it. It’s funny, it’s like if you’re a fan of The Beatles you want to feel that The Beatles all worked wonderfully well together, an ideal working relationship, and George came to this meeting of us talking about what to do with the film and I could just see his eyes getting wider and his disappointment getting greater ’cos none of us seemed to agree on anything and it was not clear at all how we were going to salvage this fucking mess. And I think it was the last time he ever came to a meeting... he just didn’t want to see this side of Python.’

  Harrison remained on good terms with the group, with some more than others, like Idle and Palin. To the rest, he always remained a distant figure. Cleese admits, ‘I think I probably met George about four or five times. I got the impression that he was a very low-key guy. I remember I went down once to Henley with him and had a very pleasant dinner, sitting opposite Barrie Sheen for the entire evening without having the slightest idea who Barrie Sheen was. He just seemed a very nice guy. In the end, I said to George, “Who was that nice guy?” and he said, “That’s Barrie Sheen!” I said, “Who’s he?” and he said, “Only the motorbike world champion.”’

  But the Pythons’ vanishing did leave a gaping hole in Harrison’s ambitions, his vision of what he wanted HandMade to be, a small film-making entity with the Pythons at the heart of its output. ‘I’ve a feeling George would liked to have done Python films,’ Palin thinks, ‘films suggested by the Pythons, that’s what he enjoyed. Getting Life of Brian done, he probably hoped that would be the start of a number of Python movies, and probably he was a bit hurt by the fact that we didn’t do Meaning of Life for HandMade.’

  This notion of HandMade as a sort of creative head office for Python film projects appealed to other group members, too. Gilliam thinks, ‘If Denis had been smarter and just kept Python and then we could just bring in the odd other film to keep it going, it could have been fantastic. If he had just stayed back. The group was always great at looking at each other’s scripts and things, or in the case of Time Bandits John coming in and doing a part. We could have continued to do that kind of work. But I think, in the end, it probably would have collapsed because even Prominent Features, which we set up as our own operation, doesn’t work. We don’t work that way, there’s too much internecine warfare going on.’

  Maybe Python as a working unit is simply unmanageable, whether by O’Brien or anyone else, they’re free spirits and thinkers who won’t allow their wings to be clipped. John Goldstone believes, ‘Python was always a unique and independent group of people, very strong ideas about things, on
having complete control over what they were doing. And the fact there were six of them, to actually handle six people that have got such different characters, ambitions and needs was pretty difficult to take on. It wasn’t like taking on a band who somehow act more as an entity. I think, in the end, it was just probably too much for Denis to cope with.’

  The Pythons themselves recognise this, that the situation at HandMade was untenable almost from the beginning. Jones suggests, ‘In the end, I felt Denis was too active, that really Python didn’t want somebody who was going to come up with projects and push us into doing things. All we needed was somebody who would react to us... we wanted somebody who was rather more reactive than active.’ And John Cleese adds, ‘Denis was prepared to be very protective and very generous to you if you were “family”, as he called it, but I was always a little worried even at that stage about how tough he was being with people who weren’t family. And once we began to realise that the price of being family was that he had to be daddy and we had to be the children, it became obvious that it wasn’t going to work, because none of us would want to work like that, we’d want a more equal relationship.’

  And what a shame. Handled properly, HandMade and Python might well have co-existed, perhaps not harmoniously but certainly to the mutual benefit of both parties. But O’Brien was always dreaming up various master plans and mega deals for the group to exploit and they just weren’t interested. ‘Denis was always too keen to push ahead,’ Idle says, ‘there’s a fine line between leadership and enabling people who are creative to go ahead. I think, in a sense, he was responsible for the Pythons not making many more films because he tried to get not only a Python film every four years, because we said, “Look, it’s every four years, if you just leave it be,” but he would try to get individual films in the middle which was like trying to get individual albums while you’re trying to get a Beatles album out. It destroys the point of having a group work.’ And Palin adds, ‘No one bought Python, and I think Denis felt perhaps he could and this was the mistake he made.’