The Princess Bride (film)

The Princess Bride
File:The Princess Bride (NA movie poster).jpg North American movie poster.
Directed by	Rob Reiner
Written by	William Goldman
Produced by	Rob Reiner Andrew Scheinman
Starring	Cary Elwes Mandy Patinkin Chris Sarandon Christopher Guest Wallace Shawn André the Giant Robin Wright Peter Falk Billy Crystal Carol Kane Fred Savage
Cinematography	Adrian Biddle
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	September 25 1987 (USA)
Running time	98 mins
Language	English

The Princess Bride is a 1987 film, based on the 1973 novel The Princess Bride by William Goldman, combining comedy, adventure, romance and fantasy.

The movie was directed by Rob Reiner from a screenplay by Goldman. The story is presented in the movie as a fairy tale being read by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his sick grandson (Fred Savage), thus echoing the book's narrative style.

This film is number 50 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It is consistently placed in the Internet Movie Database's top Top 250 list of films, with over 73,000 votes. This list is derived from the votes of IMDb registered users.

Taglines:

• Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair. - True love has never been a snap.
• It's as real as the feelings you feel.
• Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards. True Love.
• Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale.
• She gets kidnapped. He gets killed. But it all ends up okay.

Plot summary

The main narrative of the movie is framed by a scene between a grandson and a grandfather. The grandson is home ill, and the grandfather has come to read him a story. The plot of the movie is the enactment of the story as it is being read.

Buttercup was raised on a farm in the fictional country of Florin. She delights in verbally abusing the farm boy Westley by demanding that he perform chores for her. Westley's only answer is "As you wish." After they realize they love each other, Westley leaves the farm to seek his fortune so they can marry. He promises to return, but Buttercup later receives word that his ship was attacked at sea by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who is notorious for taking no prisoners. Five years later, Buttercup is forced to become engaged to Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin. Heartbroken by the loss of her true love, Buttercup accepts her fate.

File:PrincessBride02.jpg

Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik.

Before the wedding, Buttercup is kidnapped by a trio of outlaws: the stunted Sicilian genius Vizzini, the expert Spanish swordsman Inigo Montoya, and the enormous and mighty Turk Fezzik. A masked man in black follows them across the sea and up the Cliffs of Insanity, so Vizzini orders Inigo to stop him. Inigo arranges a fair fight, letting him rest before the duel, during which Inigo reveals that he is seeking revenge on a six-fingered man who killed his father. The Man in Black wins their duel, but leaves the Spaniard alive.

Vizzini, stunned, leaves Fezzik behind with orders to kill him. Fezzik, also honorable, throws a rock as a warning, and challenges the Man in Black to a wrestling match. The Man in Black chokes Fezzik until he blacks out from lack of oxygen.

The Man in Black catches up with Vizzini, who holds Buttercup hostage and proposes a battle of wits. The Man in Black produces a vial of "iocane powder" and takes two goblets of wine behind his back to poison one of them, then instructs Vizzini to choose a goblet. Vizzini drinks from one and dies. The Man in Black then reveals to Buttercup that he had poisoned both, but he was not affected because he had "spent the last few years building an immunity to iocane powder."

File:PrincessBride05.jpg

Westley and Buttercup emerge from the Fire Swamp.

With Prince Humperdinck's rescue party in hot pursuit, the Man in Black flees with Buttercup, and upon further questioning reveals to her that he is the Dread Pirate Roberts, Westley's murderer. Enraged, she shoves him down a gorge, yelling "Die!", only to hear him call "As you wish!" back. She realizes he is the former farmboy Westley, who reveals that the Dread Pirate Roberts did attack his ship, but kept Westley alive after hearing the depths of his love for Buttercup. Westley signed on as his apprentice, learning to sail, fence, and fight. Eventually, Roberts secretly passed the name and the ship on to Westley.

Westley and Buttercup travel through the Fire Swamp to evade Humperdinck's party but are captured by Humperdinck and his menacing six-fingered vizier Count Rugen. Buttercup negotiates for Westley's release and is returned to the palace to await her wedding. Rugen has no intention of releasing Westley but takes him to the Pit of Despair, where he is tortured.

Buttercup asks Humperdinck to send out four ships to locate Westley. He agrees on the condition that if the ships fail, she will marry him. Humperdinck secretly reveals that he arranged Buttercup's kidnapping in order to start a war with neighboring country Guilder, but decides it will be better propaganda if she is strangled on her wedding night.

On the day of the wedding, Inigo and Fezzik meet up again by chance and Inigo learns of the the existence of Count Rugen. Inigo decides he must kill Rugen, so they seek out the Man in Black, hoping his brains will help them overcome the guards. Buttercup learns that Humperdinck never sent the ships, and taunts him with her enduring love for Westley. Enraged, he tortures Westley to death. Westley's screams draw Inigo and Fezzik to the scene, and upon finding Westley's dead body, they enlist the help of Miracle Max. Max is initially reluctant to help but changes his mind to spite Humperdinck. He pronounces Westley to be merely "mostly dead" and resurrects him. Westley then devises a successful plan to invade the castle during the wedding. Upon hearing the fighting, Humperdinck finishes the ceremony abruptly. Buttercup decides to kill herself as soon as she reaches the honeymoon suite.

Inigo pursues Rugen through the castle and finally kills him. Westley manages to reach Buttercup before she kills herself and then bluffs his way out of a swordfight with Humperdinck. Instead of killing him, Westley decides to leave him alone with his cowardice. The party rides off into the sunset on white horses conveniently brought by Fezzik.

Cast

• Cary Elwes as Westley/Dread Pirate Roberts/Man in Black/Farm Boy
• Robin Wright as Buttercup
• Chris Sarandon as Prince Humperdinck
• Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya
• Christopher Guest as Count Tyrone Rugen
• André the Giant as Fezzik
• Wallace Shawn as Vizzini
• Peter Falk as The Grandfather/Narrator
• Fred Savage as The Grandson
• Billy Crystal as Miracle Max
• Carol Kane as Valerie
• Peter Cook as The Impressive Clergyman
• Mel Smith as The Albino
• Anne Dyson as The Queen
• Margery Mason as The Ancient Booer
• Malcolm Storry as Yellin
• Willoughby Gray as The King
• Betsy Brantley as The Mother
• Paul Badger as The Assistant Brute

Filming

Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin learned to fence (both left- and right-handed) for the film, reportedly spending all their free time during the production practicing with an instructor and with each other. They performed all of the fencing in the swordfight scene; the only stunt doubles used were for the two somersaults. This amount of time spent practicing came in handy for Elwes, who later starred—and used his fencing skills—in the film Glory and in the Mel Brooks movie Robin Hood: Men In Tights, notably against Roger Rees, and even going so far as to call out, 'Parry, parry, thrust, thrust—good!'.

André the Giant had undergone major back surgery prior to filming, and despite his great size, could not support the weight of the much lighter Cary Elwes or Robin Wright for a scene at the end of the movie. For the wrestling scene, when Elwes was pretending to hang on André's back, he was actually walking on a series of ramps below the camera during close-ups. For the wide shots, a stunt double took the place of André; on close examination, it is apparent that the double is much smaller than André.

André the Giant had trouble with both the speed and clarity of his lines, prompting Mandy Patinkin to actually slap him in the face to get him to concentrate harder. On one shoot, Patinkin slapped Andre in the face and screamed at him, "Faster, Fezzik!" It worked.

Billy Crystal's meeting André the Giant later inspired Crystal to create the movie My Giant.

When Count Rugen hits Westley over the head, Cary Elwes told Christopher Guest to go ahead and hit him for real. Guest hit him hard enough to shut down production for a day while Elwes went to the hospital.

Reception

The movie was initially a modest success, though not a huge blockbuster, grossing twice its $15,000,000 (USD) production costs at the US box office. It received highly favorable reviews from some critics, including Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel who gave "Two thumbs up" on the television show Siskel & Ebert & The Movies. Roger Ebert also wrote a very favorable print review. Over the years, the film's reputation has grown and it has become a cult film, with frequent television and occasional big-screen showings. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Princess Bride the 38th-greatest comedy film of all time. In 2006, William Goldman's screenplay was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 84th best screenplay of all time. The film has a percentage of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes. Additionally, the screenplay introduced a number of quotations into popular culture, including the lines "As you wish," "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," and "Inconceivable!", all of which are uttered several times in the film. Mandy Patinkin has also stated that his role as Inigo Montoya was by far his favorite role.

Musical adaptation

• Tony Award-winning composer Adam Guettel spent much of 2006 working with William Goldman on a musical adaptation of The Princess Bride. The project was abandoned in February 2007 after Goldman reportedly demanded 75 percent of the author's share, even though Guettel was writing both the music and the lyrics. Some of Guettel's music for the production has since surfaced in concert performances and workshops.

Script

- The line by Vizzini: "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" is probably an adaptation of the quote by the British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery "The U.S. has broken the second rule of war. That is, don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. Rule One is don't march on Moscow. I developed these two rules myself.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was originally released by Warner Bros. Records in 1987. It was written and recorded by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, the only person Rob Reiner felt could create a soundtrack to capture the film's quirky yet romantic nature. Reiner was an admirer of Knopfler's work but did not know him before working on the film – he sent the script to him hoping he would agree to score the movie. Knopfler agreed on one condition: that somewhere in the film Rob Reiner include the USS Coral Sea baseball cap he wore as Marty DiBergi in This is Spinal Tap. Reiner was unable to produce the original cap, but did include a similar cap in the grandson's room. Later Knopfler said he was joking.

The song "Storybook Love" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 60th Academy Awards.

Track listing

1. "Once upon a Time...Storybook Love"
2. "I Will Never Love Again"
3. "Florin Dance"
4. "Morning Ride"
5. "The Friends' Song"
6. "The Cliffs of Insanity"
7. "The Swordfight"
8. "Guide My Sword"
9. "The Fire Swamp and the Rodents of Unusual Size"
10. "Revenge"
11. "A Happy Ending"
12. "Storybook Love" (composed and performed by Willy DeVille)

Filming locations

The film was shot in various locations in England and Ireland:

• Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire, England
• Castleton, Derbyshire, England
• Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland (for the Cliffs of Insanity)
• Haddon Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire, England

Home video

In North America, the film was released on VHS and laserdisc in 1988 by Nelson Entertainment, the latter being a "bare bones" release and in unmatted full screen. In 1989, The Criterion Collection also released a bare bones laserdisc of the film however, the film was presented in matted widescreen as shown in theatres and included liner notes. In 1997, the laserdisc was rereleased by Criterion in a widescreen "Special Edition" which included: audio commentary by Rob Reiner, William Goldman, Andrew Scheinman, and Billy Crystal and Peter Falk, excerpts from the novel read by Rob Reiner, behind the scenes footage, a production scrapbook by unit photographer Clive Coote, design sketches by production designer Norman Garwood and excerpts from the television series "Morton and Hayes," directed by Christopher Guest. By 2000, MGM had acquired the rights to all home video releases of the film and subsequently released the film on VHS and DVD, the DVD release featured the soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 and both widescreen and full screen versions as well as the theatrical trailer. In 2001, the film was rereleased by MGM as a widescreen "Special Edition" which included: two audio commentaries, one by Rob Reiner and the other by William Goldman, an "As You Wish" featurette, a "Making-Of" featurette, a "Promotional" featurette, a "Cary Elwes Video Diary", both the US and UK theatrical trailers and four TV spots, a photo gallery and a collectable booklet. The latest DVD release from MGM in 2006 came in a two disc set in either a "Dread Pirate Edition" or "Buttercup Edition" and features the same audio commentaries, photo gallery, "Cary Elwes Home Movies", "As You Wish", "Promotional" and "Making Of" featurettes TV spots and trailers. New material includes "Dread Pirate Roberts: Greatest Legend Of The Seven Seas" featurette, "Love Is Like A Storybook Story" featurette, "Miraculous Make Up" featurette, "The Quotable Battle Of Wits" game and Fezzik's Guide To Florin booklet.

External links

• The Princess Bride on the Internet Movie Database
• Reconstructivist Art: The Princess Bride