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In case you didn't know it, Terry Gilliam is one of the most imaginative directors of his generation.
Having graduated as animator on the Monty Python series, it didn't take much for him to go off and forge an impressive career as a movie-maker.
Though 1977 offering Jabberwocky had been a flop, he struck gold with this 1981 classic.
Funded by the late George Harrison, it's a wild ride through the ages which looks like it cost 10 times more than its minute budget.
Craig Warnock plays little Kevin who is transported from era to era by the eponymous thieves.
Star names include Sean Connery, Ralph Richardson, Shelley Duvall and Ian Holm.
The latter loved working on the movie.
"I played Napoleon in Time Bandits and I loved the line where there's that long speech in about all the little people in history and then he finally slumps down. They get out his arm and it's gold and this little fellow says: 'Isn't he interesting?' That always made me laugh."
Well, quite.
Twenty one years later and there's a tinge of sadness attached to the project. The recent loss of Harrison left millions of fans bereft while David Rappaport committed suicide in 1990 and Jack Purvis was killed in 1997 in an automobile accident.
Gilliam's career was beset by problems for the rest of the 1980s.
His sublime Orwellian drama Brazil incurred the wrath of the company which backed it, and 1988 comic fantasy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen became one of the biggest flops in history.
Thankfully he has fared better since with The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas paving the way for his upcoming project, Good Omens.
© 2002 Roger Crow
