Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. 1983 Universal Pictures.
Written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Director: Terry Jones

The Crimson Permanent Assurance. 1983 Universal Pictures.
Featuring: Matt Frewer, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam (uncredited)
Director: Terry Gilliam

Available at Amazon: Single DVD. Two-disc special edition.

The final Python film is a return to the sketch format seen during their television days, and those sketches are following the progressing ages of a human life from conception to death. Reportedly, writing the film proved to be very hard until Eric Idle blurted out that the movie was about "the meaning of life" during a meeting. Terry Gilliam also did not want to contribute much animation aside from the opening credits, and he offered to direct one sketch, which evolved into The Crimson Permanent Assurance, and its production grew quite ambitious and elaborate. The sketch was cut from the main film and used as a supporting feature before it, although the sketch's participants did attempt to try to attack the main film halfway through. Gilliam justified his excesses by saying "Nobody told me to stop".

Anyway, a brief summary of the main film:

Part I: The Meaning of Birth, which features a woman in labor and the machine that goes PING!, followed by a poor Catholic family singing "Every Sperm is Sacred" before deciding how many children get sold for medical experiments.
Part II: Growing and Learning, where school children are subjected to a sexual education lesson, and the teacher (Cleese) gives a live demonstration with his wife (Patricia Quinn). A rugby match follows with students playing teachers, which segues into...
Part III: Fighting Each Other. Military themed sketches, where an officer (Jones) tries to rally his troops, but they insist on celebrating his birthday, complete with gifts and cakes. We next travel back to 1879 and the Anglo-Zulu War, where the British have been decimated in a Zulu attack, but the more pressing issue is an office has had his leg stolen during the night. A tiger is blamed, and two men in a tiger costume are quickly rounded up.
The Middle of the Film. Drag queens (Palin & Chapman), a playboy (Jones), and a man in blackface (Gilliam) interact with an elephant-headed butler. The famous fish also make an appearance.
Part IV: Middle Age, where an American couple vacationing at a bizarre resort order a conversation about "the meaning of life", but they send it back, since it's not very good.
Part V: Live Organ Transplants sees two paramedics showing up at the doorstep of an organ donor (Gilliam) wanting his liver. The donor is still alive, and refuses, so the paramedics kill him and take the organ "under condition of death". The man's wife is unsure when asked about donating her liver, so a man who lives in the refrigerator (Idle) comes out to sing the "Galaxy Song". The boys from the Crimson Permanent Assurance attack the main film, but they are dispatched by a skyscraper.
Part VI: The Autumn Years. Two words: Mr. Creosote. Three more words: wafer thin mint. This may be one of the most vile scenes ever made, but damn, it's funny! There's a brief discussion of racism after the cleanup, and a French waiter (Idle) leading the camera on a long walk to where he grew up, and that's where he delivers his philosophy on life, which degenerates into profanity.
Part VII: Death. First, a criminal (Chapman) convicted of making gratuitous sexist jokes in a movie is killed in the manner of his choosing: chased off a cliff by topless women. Next, the Grim Reaper (Cleese) visits an isolated house in the country where the dinner guests argue with him before they are persuaded to join him on the way to the afterlife, which is the resort from part four. We find out that in Heaven, every day is Christmas.
The End of the Film: One of the drag queens from the Middle (Palin) reads out the meaning of life ("It's nothing very special really!") before promising sexually graphic pictures to annoy the censors.

Highly recommended.