Running Python interpreter in Emacs

[Rex Eastbourne]

Hi,

I'm interested in running a Python interpreter in Emacs. I have Python
extensions for Emacs, and my python menu lists "C-c !" as the command
to run the interpreter. Yet when I run it I get the message "Spawning
Child Process: invalid argument." What do I need to do/download to fix
this?

I read in a post in this group from a while back where someone had the
following lines in his .emacs file:

 (setq interpreter-mode-alist
        (cons '("python" . python-mode)
              interpreter-mode-alist))

Does that have something to do with it? Do I have to set my load-path
to my python interpreter?

Thanks, 

Rex