Terry Gilliam

The bandits are back

Terry Gilliam’s riotous adventure Time Bandits is to be re-released to mark it’s 25th anniversary. Dan Carrier talks to the director and former Python

OF all the actors cast in Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film Time Bandits, bagging the biggest name was the easiest. Sean Connery was playing golf when he was told here was a script written by the Monty Python star. The notes said: “Greek hero removes his helmet to reveal the face of Sean Connery – or an actor of similar stature, but cheaper.”
He was so intrigued he decided he wanted the part. Gilliam recalls: “It was when his career was going through a low point. He was no longer Bond and he had done other films that had not been successful. “
He brought experience to the set.
“He was with us for 14 days in Morocco,” Gilliam says. “I had a story board with 25 shots for one day and Connery was not convinced. It was him and a kid who had never acted before.”
“Craig (Warnock, the child actor who played Kevin, the film’s hero) froze. There he was, in the desert, with James Bond. Connery said: do my stuff quickly, and then I’ll get out of the way.
“There was a scene where he had to get on the horse – he said, ‘I’ll look stupid doing that and I am meant to be a Greek hero. Instead, I’ll just rise up and settle down on the saddle.’ That was the type of input he brought.”
It is 25 years ago this week that Gilliam thrilled audiences with his tale of a gang of time travelling robbers. For those who don’t remember, the leading troupe stole a time map from God which allowed them to skip through the decades, carry out thefts and disappear into the past – before the crime had been committed.
To celebrate its silver anniversary, a new edition has been released.
Time Bandits started because Gilliam was struggling to raise the money for his most artistically successful film, Brazil.
He says: “I had reached a dead end with the Brazil idea, and I decided I wanted to make a film for all the family. I had the idea about Kevin and then made a pragmatic decision to bring in all these other characters.
“I did not think the boy alone could hold the film, but I didn’t want to take anything away from him – so I thought, I need lots of people the same height – eureka! dwarves! Then the idea came together of them working in Heaven but wanting a more exciting life… I called Michael Palin and we knocked it out very quickly.”
Casting Kevin came about by chance.
“I wanted a normal kid,” recalls Gilliam. “Kevin’s brother was a child actor and they came along to the audition. Craig was in the corner, keeping himself to himself. That was more interesting.”
And the same thinking brought in the Time Bandits themselves.
“I wanted these little guys to be the heroes,” he says. “I didn’t see why these actors should always be cast as Wombles.
“Kenny Baker was R2D2 – but here he was the leader of a gang of cut throat robbers. We never commented on their height, but this was a good chance for them to do something different.”
Other big names came on board. Ian Holm, who plays Napoleon, had been due to make a film about the French general with Stanley Kubrick – a serious bio-pic.
“He had not been given a comedy part before,” Gilliam says. “Kubrick had been working on the idea but it fell through, so this was Ian’s chance to play Napoleon after all.”
And once it was complete, they had to sell it to studios for distribution. But no one wanted it.
Former Beatle George Harrison came to the rescue. Gilliam says: “He mortgaged his offices to pay for it. The smallest film company in Hollywood, Avco-Embassy – they had not had a hit for 10 years, since The Graduate. We told them we’d use their distributors and do the advertising – George Harrison would guarantee it to $5 million.” And it was a hit.
“It was still the most successful film I have done in the States, which was an incredible surprise,” says Gilliam.
“It wasn’t as big here. It was marketed as a Python film, and sold to an older audience but it was for children. People said we couldn’t end it with the parents getting blown up: I said the children will love it.”
The tale of the naughtiest of God’s creations may one day be revived.
Gilliam reveals he has written a sequel – but backers got cold feet after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. The script, which he would like to revive, uncovers what happened to the disgraced band of thieves.
He says: “Some of the original Bandits were in it – but we’d focus on their daughters. They were getting ahead in heaven for once… they were embarrassed by their parents. But then there are changes in heaven, and so they decide it is time go out and do some pillaging, to save their jobs. It was a cheap joke – little people getting downsized.”

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