The Case of Time Bandits (1981)
This month, we decided to focus on movies all about time travel. Last week, we went back to 1955 with Marty McFly, but this week we’re going even farther back…forward…and maybe even sideways. In November of 1981, Monty Python alums Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin unleashed a chaotic masterpiece about a young boy named Kevin and a band of Time Bandits that hop across the universe, stealing gold and leaving messes in their wake.
Time Bandits is, as its creators say, “intelligent enough for children and exciting enough for adults.” It presents a warped, childlike view of history with strange and fascinating characters; like thugs that spit every two seconds and can rip off limbs in a single tug, or a main antagonist that goes by the name “Evil.” It emphasizes the importance of imagination and the dangers of technology, especially in the wrong hands.
So, come join us on a trip through the ages as we follow the travels of the Time Bandits!
SUMMARY
Kevin is an imaginative child with two appliance-obessed parents. One night while in bed, a group of bandits enter through his wardrobe, and lead him on an adventure through time and space. The gang of thieves have just escaped after stealing a very valuable map from their boss, a supreme being. The map reveals portals through time and space which the bandits intend to use to plunder riches throughout the ages.
MAKING OF
In the late 1970s the comedy group known as Monty Python was trying to finish their film Life of Brian after their film studio axed the project. Luckily, George Harrison (of Beatles fame) came to the rescue. Harrison was great friends with Eric Idle, one of the prominent Python members, and he was also interested in getting into the film industry. Harrison and his business manager Denis O’Brien founded HandMade films, which would produce Time Bandits.
But before that, writer and director Terry Gilliam pitched an idea to the studio for a film called Brazil. When O’Brien wasn’t interested, Gilliam came up with a different idea. He pitched a film called Time Bandits, a family friendly adventure that was too interesting to pass up.
The first thing he imagined was a horse bursting through a child’s wardrobe. He liked the idea, and began building a story from there. This particular image appears early in the film, when the main character Kevin sees this happen in his dreams.
It took weeks of training to get the horse to jump through the wardrobe, and they had to build a gigantic version of it to accommodate the size of the horse.
Gilliam approached Michael Palin, collaborator from his Monty Python days, and asked him to help write the script. Gilliam laid out the plot, and Palin came in to flesh out characters and add funny lines.
The story followed a group of thieves that once worked for God or some divine being. In this universe, God is not perfect and he made a lot of mistakes when creating the universe. For example, there are a lot of holes in time and space. God’s band of helpers get bored with their job, so they steal a map to the time portals and plot to steal treasures from all over history.
Michael Palin felt like he could finally use his history degree when coming up with the time periods featured in the film. It was like several period movies smashed into one.
The main character is Kevin, a little boy that unwittingly joins the Time Bandits on their escapades.
Craig Warnock was chosen for the role. Casting director Irene Lamb suggested the young actor to Gilliam, who liked the boy because he felt that he wasn’t trying to be cute. Gilliam wanted a kid that really felt like a real child with faults and imperfections.
Warnock had fond memories of the film. He was thrilled to meet Sean Connery (who we will talk about later) and Kenny Baker!
The Time Bandits themselves were meant to be a group of little people that worked for a higher being. Casting directors found an incredible ensemble of actors for the roles, but when it came time to do distribution, the production had to fight to allow the actors to appear in marketing materials.
David Rappaport played Randall, the unofficial leader of the bunch. While filming, Rappaport would keep himself distant from the other actors, which created some animosity. Director Gilliam liked this because it added tension to the film and he and Michael Palin actually added a scene in the movie where the characters fought.
Kenny Baker of Star Wars fame played Fidget. He and Jack Purvis (who played Wally) were a duo that often performed together. Late in the film, Fidget gets killed by a falling beam. The writers chose Kenny Baker’s character for the scene because they knew that they could get a strong reaction from Jack after his death.
Tiny Ross played Vermin. Born in 1910, he was the oldest of the Time Bandits and was 71 when the film premiered.
Jack Purvis played Wally. Purvis was a very strong performer and could carry the more emotional moments of the film, like Fidget’s death. Like Kenny Baker, he was also in Star Wars as various characters, including the chief Jawa.
Mike Edmonds played the resourceful and sometimes bumbling Og. Edmunds has had a prolific acting career and even provided the voice for Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Battlefront II.
Malcolm Dixon played Strutter. Dixon appeared in many films and TV shows including Star Wars and Labyrinth.
Jonathan Price was Gilliam’s first choice for “Evil” the main antagonist for the story. Price was too busy, possibly because he was shooting Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. So, David Warner took the role instead.
When Warner showed up to play the part, there was no official sketch or idea of how the villain would look. He and Gilliam walked through a warehouse and pieced together an absurd outfit. Evil’s headpiece and his lair were inspired by Alien (1979). The set and the outfits of Evil and his cronies had a similar gooey texture and substance to the main antagonist of the Ridley Scott film.
Evil’s minions were also covered in plastic to mirror the plastic-covered furniture of Kevin’s home, further driving home the evils of materialism.
Kevin and the Time Bandits travel to various periods of time and encounter famous historical figures. These figures were people that Kevin studied or read about in his books.
The first figure they come across is Napoleon
We meet Napoleon, played by actor Ian Holm, as he is watching a puppetry performance. Holm was wanted in the film from the beginning and since he seemed very Napoleon-like it was an easy fit!
Holm was such an incredible actor that the writers and director didn’t want to cut any of his scenes. He felt like making cuts would undermine the performance.
The section with Napoleon is foreshadowed by a miniature theater within young Kevin’s room.
To create the illusion of his stature, other actors would stand on boxes.
The Time Bandits utilize time holes to get from one point to the next. When the actors would “jump” into the next time hole they were actually jumping into pieces of black velvet. If the scene required them falling through the sky, miniatures of the actors were used.
Time Bandits is filled with familiar characters from history and lore, including Robin Hood himself, played by Monty Python alum John Cleese.
Before meeting a famous heroic outlaw, the characters come across Shelley Duvall who came onto the project because of her friendship with Eric Idle.
When Gilliam went to demonstrate how safe it was to jump off a scaffold into the carriage he accidentally caught Duvall’s headpiece cracking her neck and, according to Gilliam, nearly killing her. She recalled the incident in an interview saying, "I could have been paralyzed. As it is, there's just a pain that comes through my ears to my eye, and then goes away."
John Cleese was interested in doing the scene because Robin Hood was meant to be portrayed like the duke of Kent. Gilliam and Palin let him rewrite the scene for his appearance.
The Time Bandits weren’t short enough so they had to sit down so John Cleese could bend down and tower over them
As the characters navigate a rainy and miserable Sherwood Forest, Kevin falls through a time hole into Mycenae, a desert-like landscape. He accidentally interrupts the Greek legend, King Agamemnon, as he’s slaying a beast.
In the screenplay, Agamemnon was meant to take off his helmet to reveal a man similar to Sean Connery. They never dreamt that the real actor would appear in their movie, but it turned out that Connery was golfing buddies with Denis O’Brien, who was funding the film. Connery was also a fan of Monty Python, so he decided to do the role.
The Sean Connery scenes were shot on location in Morocco during the first days of filming. Craig, who played Kevin, was intimidated by Connery at first, but the actors were able to portray a meaningful relationship. Kevin sees a true father figure in Agamemnon, who takes him in as his own. When Kevin wants the legendary warrior to teach him how to fight and kill, Agamemnon decides to show Kevin magic tricks instead. This was actually Connery’s idea because he could do some slight-of-hand tricks.
Just as Kevin settles into life with King Agamemnon, the Time Bandits arrive to take him away. The group lands on the Titanic and lives the high life until the ship suddenly sinks. The group flails around in the water until they decide to use the map once again to find the most fabulous object in the world.
The Titanic scene was filmed using only one set and the rest was stock footage.
Randall orders a drink with “Plenty of ice” just before the ship crashes.
The actors did their own stunts, even falling off the Titanic. Some of them couldn’t swim and they were endangering themselves for the movie.
After the Titanic, the group enters “The Time of Legends”
When The Bandits are first brought into The Time of Legends they come upon a large boat and beast that was inspired by a Brian Froud drawing! (The same awesome guy that drew goblins for Labyrinth.)
Peter Vaughn played the beast character that’s now middle aged and grumpy but with a beautiful adoring wife. His wife, Mrs. Ogre was played by Katharine Helmond.
After The Bandits cure the beast and he can cough again, the cough sets the boat sailing. The ship itself does not move, instead camera trickery is used along with movement from the actors.
When the boat begins lifting from the water we see it is atop a giant’s head. Originally tall actors were used but they found that it was better with a wrestler that wasn’t very tall, but the low wide angle lens made him look huge. He was running because they shot the scene at 4X the speed and then slowed it down. They also pumped out condensed milk around his mouth when he was in the water to make it look frothy.
When the actors reached an invisible wall, they just had the actors mime a wall and added sound effects, except for the close up shots.
Just beyond the invisible wall is The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, the lair of Evil and his minions.
The fortress was a plastic model 12 feet high and 25 feet across. They painted it black, which ended up being too dark. So, they had to use extra lights that melted and warped the plastic model.
Instead of super-imposing the bandits on the model, they used miniature figurines that moved on a magnetic track.
Evil throws the bandits into a cage after tricking them with the very same TV show that Kevin’s parents watched from their couch in his home. Jim Broadbent plays a cameo as the host of “Your Money or Your Life.”
The climactic battle in the fortress mirrored Kevin’s bedroom from the beginning of the film. The knights, the cowboys, the chess board floor, and the set built from gigantic lego blocks all reference Kevin’s toys.
The final battle ends with the entrance of the supreme being, God, played by Sir Ralph Richardson. Richardson had a lot of idea about the role and wasn’t sure if he should take it. He argued with Terry Gilliam about the type of suit God would wear. He also forced the writers to take out certain lines that quote, “God would not say.” He has such a command of the scene and the role that the other actors really felt like God was on set with them.
As the Supreme Being agrees to let the Bandits work for him again, he sends Kevin back home. He wakes to find that his home is engulfed in flames, and a group of firefighters bring him to safety.
Kevin is shocked to discover that one of the firefighters is King Agamemnon played by Sean Connery. He appears at the end of the movie to signify that he’s a type of guardian angel looking out for Kevin.
It was actually Connery’s idea to play one of the firefighters at the end. Gilliam liked the idea so he convinced Connery, who happened to be in London at the time, to “see his accountant” that day and come to the studio for two quick shots as a firefighter.
Kevin’s parents, who have been arguing about whether they should run back in for the blender, find a piece of pure evil that God and the Time Bandits forgot to clean up. Kevin warns them not to touch it, but they ignore him and explode.
Terry Gilliam explained that the reason the parents died was because they didn’t listen to their son. It was a lesson for the parents, not the children in the audience.
Among audience members, young girls tended to be more upset than boys. They were worried about who would take care of Kevin. Gilliam explained that little boys weren’t upset because they “know they can take care of themselves.”
Costumes
Jim Atcherson did the costumes
They spent a lot of time on the detail of the Time Bandits because they wanted to give the impression that they had been traveling through time for a while and just salvaged what they could
Music
The score was composed by Mike Moran, a musician known for scoring many comedy films. His most recent project is called “Gateway to the West” and is set to release in 2023.
George Harrison wanted to write several songs for the film, but Terry Gilliam didn’t think that it would make sense with the content. Harrison was disappointed and he had a lot of thoughts about what could have made the movie better. He aired these frustrations in the one song he did write for the film, which plays during the credits
RECEPTION
The film opened at number one at the box office for its first weekend, grossing $6.5 million. It stayed at number one for four weeks and made about $36 million in the US and Canada. With a budget of £2.2 million (~$5 million), it was the 13th highest grossing film of the year in North America.
A re-release of the movie the following year brought the total up to $42.4 million.
The movie currently sits at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 original reviews. Many critics agree that “Time Bandits is a remarkable time-travel fantasy from Terry Gilliam, who utilizes fantastic set design and homemade special effects to create a vivid, original universe”.
Vincent Canby of The New York Times said it was "a cheerfully irreverent lark - part fairy tale, part science fiction and part comedy".
However, there were some critics who gave the film less praise. Our good friend Roger Ebert said: "I'm usually fairly certain whether or not I've seen a good movie. But my reaction to 'Time Bandits' was ambiguous. I had great admiration for what was physically placed on the screen ... But I was disappointed by the breathless way the dramatic scenes were handled and by a breakneck pace that undermined the most important element of comedy, which is timing."
The film is ranked No. 22 on Empire magazine's "The 50 best kids' movies" and is number 7 on Time magazine's "Top 10 Time-Travel Movies".
The movie has had a lasting impact and has garnered many new fans thanks in part to multiple re-releases from The Criterion Collection, in 1997,1999, 2010, and 2014.
An Apple TV series based on Time Bandits is in the works, but whether or not the production will move forward remains to be seen.
FUN FACTS
Because production regularly fell behind schedule, the crew was often referred to as “The Over-Time Bandits.”
Originally, Sean Connery’s character, Agamemnon, was meant to be squashed by the pillar in the final confrontation. However he was only available to film for 14 days, so it was rewritten for fidget to take the fall.
There was a scene where the bandits try to rob a 22nd-century bank, but it was sadly cut. And unfortunately, the footage has supposedly been destroyed.
Time Bandits is a wild adventure that runs at a break-neck pace. This film has managed to confuse, enlighten, and delight audiences for forty years. It has made an incredible contribution to film, earning a place in the Criterian Collection. There are hundreds of films about time travel, but very few of them contain this level of pure, unadulterated creativity.
Time Bandits is one of those films filled with little treasures you didn’t notice from the watch before. So if you’ve seen this classic once, maybe watch it again. It only gets better with time.
SOURCES:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoUkoxBJXjoRBFCN3edj3KQ/featured
Audio Commentary with Terry Gilliam
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3395-time-bandits-guerrilla-fantasy