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The Princess Bride (1987)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
9/03, 7/17
7/17:
The Princess Bride is a highly memorable fantasy picture that's far better than
The Wizard of Oz.
What I love is the storytelling format: the voice-over narration, the fantasy story, and the occasional interruptions by the
grandson. They all make the movie special. In fact, it's the best demonstration of reading books.
The most famous player of the cast is André René Roussimoff, otherwise known as André the Giant. He was a unique figure,
and I saw him wrestle a lot during the 80's. Believe it or not, Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually small compared to him.
Wallace Shawn will forever be remembered for yelling "Inconceivable!" I like when Inigo Montoya criticized him, "You
keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
What a job the makeup team has done for Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Mel Smith, and Christopher Guest who sort of
looks like Guy of Gisborne from The Adventures of Robin Hood. I almost
can't recognize them all. Hence, it's a joke that nobody earned an Oscar nomination for it.
The Princess Bride started out as a novel by William Goldman, the double Oscar winner for the screenplays of
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and
All the President's Men. He made it up as an oral story for his
daughters and then wrote it down for posterity which was done in 1973, but the screenplay had been rejected for years.
It was going to be Robert Redford's first film as a director while he played Westley on screen. All of this is shocking
because it's a terrific story with charming, witty lines.
Again, it's hard to get over how good the cast is: the Errol Flynn-like Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Mandy
Patinkin, André the Giant, Chris Sarandon, Peter Cook, Mel Smith, Billy Crystal, and Peter Falk, among others. However,
the film can drag at times. Letting Prince Humperdinck go to become a loose thread at the end is a mistake as well.
According to IMDb, "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." Count how many
fingers in total Christopher Guest has while playing Rugen. That's right...these go to 11!
All in all, The Princess Bride is terrific filmmaking.