| The Crimson Permanent Assurance | |
|---|---|
.png) Opening titles | |
| Directed by | Terry Gilliam |
| Written by | Terry Gilliam |
| Produced by | Terry Gilliam John Goldstone |
| Starring | Sydney Arnold Guy Bertrand Andrew Bicknell John Scott Martin Leslie Sarony |
| Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
| Edited by | Julian Doyle |
| Music by | John Du Prez |
Production companies | Celandine Films The Monty Python Partnership |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 16 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Crimson Permanent Assurance is a 1983 Britishswashbucklingcomedyshort film directed byTerry Gilliam and starring Sydney Arnold and Guy Bertrand.[2] It plays as the prelude to the filmMonty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983).
The film includes actorMatt Frewer's debut performance.
The elderly British employees of the PermanentAssurance Company, a staidLondon firm which has recently been taken over by the Very Big Corporation of America (VBCA), rebel against their much younger corporate masters when one of them is wrongfullysacked. Having locked the surviving supervisors in the safe as hostages, and forced their boss to walk a makeshift plank out a window, they commandeer theirEdwardian office building, which suddenly weighs anchor, uses its scaffolding and tarpaulins as sails, and is turned into apirate ship. The stone office building starts to move as if it were a ship. Leaving theCity of London, they sail to another financial center and then proceed to attack the VBCA's skyscraper, using - among other things - woodenfiling cabinets which have been transformed intocarronades and swords fashioned from the blades of a ceiling fan. On ropes, they swing into the board room and engage the executives of VBCA in hand-to-hand combat, eventually vanquishing them after a long and drawn out battle.
After their hard-earned victory, the clerks celebrate while singing a heroicsea shanty as they once more "sail the wide accountan-sea" in search of further adventures. However, they unceremoniously end up falling off theedge of the world; due to their belief about the shape of the world being "disastrously wrong".
Typically of how the Pythons wouldweave previously "terminated" plot lines into later scenes in their projects (such as "The Spanish Inquisition" inFlying Circus, or the repeated references toswallows inHoly Grail),The Crimson Permanent Assurance suddenly re-emerges in the middle ofThe Meaning of Life. After the donor scene, the film shifts to a modern boardroom in the VBCA headquarters, where the executives debate about the meaning of life (and whether or not people are wearing enough hats). The debate is halted when one executive asks "Has anyone noticed that building there before?", which turns out to be the office building/pirate ship of the Crimson Permanent Assurance. As the beginning of the battle between the clerks and the VBCA is repeated, the raid is suddenly halted by a falling skyscraper crushing the Permanent Assurance Company building, accompanied by a voice-over apologizing for the "unwarranted attack by the supporting feature".
Pirates
Very Big Corporation of America
Having originally conceived the story as a six-minuteanimated sequence inMonty Python's The Meaning of Life,[3] intended for placement at the end of Part V,[4] Terry Gilliam convinced the other members ofMonty Python to allow him to produce and direct it as alive action piece instead. According to Gilliam[citation needed], the film's rhythm, length, and style of cinematography made it a poor fit as a scene in the larger movie, so it was presented as a supplementary short ahead of the film.
It was a common practice in British cinemas to show an unrelated short feature before the main movie, a holdover from the older practice of showing a full-lengthB movie ahead of the main feature. By the mid-1970s the short features were of poorer quality (oftenPublic Information Films) ortravelogues. The Pythons had already produced one spoof travelogue narrated byJohn Cleese,Away from It All, which was shown beforeLife of Brian (1979) in Britain.
The Crimson Permanent Assurance plays a prominent role inCharles Stross's 2013 novelNeptune's Brood, where the CPA is an interstellar insurance company that sponsors space pirates who double as cargo auditors. The CPA also features in the novel'stwist ending.[5][6]