The Crimson Permanent Assurance - Behind The Scenes

Behind The Scenes

• According to the 2003 Monty Python's Meaning of Life DVD, this short immediately won over the audience at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Gilliam shot the film with a different cast and crew than the Meaning of Life main production (five of the members of Monty Python can be seen in brief cameos in the short: Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin washing the windows; and Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman early in the board room when the attack starts). Reportedly it went significantly over budget; almost double. Gilliam has defended himself by saying "nobody told me to stop". Initially planned as a five-minute sketch, it eventually expanded to half an hour. In the movie, it was edited down to 16 minutes.
• At the beginning, the building used for shooting was the Lloyd's Register (of Shipping) No.71 office in Fenchurch Street, not to be confused with the Lloyd's of London Insurance Building.
• The film's score was based on the works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, mainly his work The Sea Hawk.
• The title is a reference to The Crimson Pirate, which was itself a comedic spoof of traditional pirate films of the period.
• The names of the various subsidiaries of the Very Big Corporation Of America are displayed in the board room, as a seemingly endless list covering the walls; the list was in fact a repeating sequence. Some of the names contain puns, or intentional in-jokes referencing other events in The Meaning of Life (such as the Live Organ Transplants sketch, which cuts to a shot of the sign painter in the board room inscribing "Liver Donors Inc." on the wall). Some of the company names that can be seen on the list are:

• Money Factor Printers Ltd
• Super Big Ltd
• Dawking's Mining Co.
• Horace Mann and Yure Ltd
• Vast Holdings (Europe) Ltd
• Star Bright Merchandise Org.
• Black and White Picture Co. Ltd
• D.Odgey Enterprises Ltd
• Consolidated Steel Co.
• Acme Construction Company
• Doneys (Florence)
• Universal Amalgamations Ltd
• Rubber Goods Incorporated
• The All Enveloping Co. Ltd
• Walker, Walker and Jones Bros
• Better Plastics Corps
• Space Propulsion Lab
• Lange and Sons (International)
• R. Devious Inc.
• Phil Thevich Consortium
• X. Tortion World Wide Ltd
• Mirage Land Co.
• E. Normons and Sons
• Micro Computer Inc.
• Payne, Bickers and Dogood Ltd
• World Wide Wine Corp.
• A. Maze and Lee Huge
• Dickinson Kincain Association
• D. Crepid Holdings
• Interstellar Travel Corp.
• Cooper's (Purveyors)
• Wakefeld and Daughter
• Fastness and Vast Co. Ltd
• Cartwright Tutorials
• Arctic Geo. Lab. Co.
• R. J. McArthur Parks Ltd
• Stn. Pendons Ltd
• V. Rich and Son
• Liver Donors Inc.
• Moonscape Products Ltd
• Data Travel and Experiments
• O. Verpaid Associates Ltd