Monty Python Scripts

The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker

The cast:

SUPERINTENDENT PARROT

Graham Chapman

STOCKBROKER

Michael Palin

WIFE

Carol Cleveland

FIRST MAN

Graham Chapman

SECOND MAN

Terry Jones

NEIGHBOR

Graham Chapman

The sketch:

Parrot: We present 'The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker'.

(Cut to a nice suburban street. Inside the house a stockbroker is finishing his breakfast. His attractive wife looks on. He picks up his hat, rises, kisses her goodbye, and leaves, As he does so, she takes off her wrap and two men dressed only in briefs step out of the kitchen cupboard. In the front garden the stockbroker bids his neighbor 'good morning,' as he moves off a large African native throws an assegai, killing the neighbor. The stockbroker, not noticing this, moves on. A high street: he walks into a newsagents. Behind the counter a naked young lady gives him his newspaper.)

(Taking his change without apparently noticing her he leaves. A bus queue: the stockbroker is at the head of it; there are four people behind him. As they wait, the Frankenstein monster comes up behind them and works his way along the queue, killing each member as he goes.)

(The monster has just reached the stockbroker - who has not seen him - when the bus arrives and the stockbroker gets on, just in time.)

(On the bus: all the other passengers are uniformed soldiers. The bus drives along a road past explosions and gunfire.)

(A hand grenade comes through the window and lands on the seat next to the stockbroker. The soldiers leave the bus rapidly; the stockbroker calmly leaves the bus and walks down the street, in which the soldiers are engaging in a pitched battle. The stockbroker hails a taxi; it stops... but no driver is visible!)

(The stockbroker gets in the taxi and it drives off. Cut to the stockbroker's office: a secretary is dead across her typewriter with a knife in her back; at the back of the office a pair of legs swing gently from the ceiling; a couple are snogging at his desk.)

(Unconcerned, the stockbroker sits down.)

(Furtively he looks round, then takes from the desk drawer a comic-book entitled 'Thrills and Adventure'.)

(We see the frames of the comic strip. A Superman-type character and a girl are shrinking from an explosion. She is saying 'My God, he's just exploded with enough force to destroy his Kleenex. In the next frame, the Superman character is saying 'If only I had a Kleenex to lend him - or even a linen handkerchief- but these trousers...!! No back pocket!')

(In the frame beneath, Superman flies from side to side attempting to escape; finally he breaks through, bringing the two frames above down on himself. Cut to a picture of a safety curtain.)

(An animated man comes in front of it and says:)

Man: Coming right up... , so don't move!

Monty Python Scripts

Next Scene

web counter