This week marks The Princess Bride’s 30th anniversary! But before you break out your favorite fire swamp and brute squad quotes, let’s take a moment to properly appreciate what is easily one of the greatest fantasy films of all time (and also one of the funniest). Then you can quote it. Or act out the entire Westley-Inigo duel. Or fight someone To The Pain. In fact, let’s just instate a yearly tradition where we all get together and recreate the whole movie on September 25. We’ll call it Project Dread Pirate Roberts.
The genesis of this gem was simple enough: Rob Reiner’s father Carl handed him a book by William Goldman called The Princess Bride. (Charmingly, the title of the novel came when Goldman asked his two daughters what sort of story they would prefer, and the first asked for a tale about a bride, while the other wanted one about a princess.) Eventually, Reiner started making movies of his own, and after successfully helming classics like This Is Spinal Tap and Stand By Me, that book got dusted off and brought to the table. Then it was just a matter of assembling the right team of people.
And it’s the people that really make The Princess Bride so special. Here are a few fun stories about what happened on and off set, all of them contributing to what makes this movie stand out a quarter of a century later….
Cary Elwes was chosen for the role of Westley because he reminded Reiner of the swashbuckling heroes of early cinema, specifically Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks. Which is ironic yet unsurprising when you consider that all three actors played Robin Hood at some point. At one point during filming, he told Christopher Guest (Count Rugen) to actually hit him on the head with his sword hilt to get a take—Guest listened to him, and filming came to a halt for the rest of the day while they took Elwes to the hospital. He and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya) did perform the entirety of their duel (minus the somersaults). They were taught by swordmaster legend Bob Anderson.
Billy Crystal was apparently too funny to work with: Rob Reiner claimed that he had to leave set whenever they shot Crystal’s scenes because he couldn’t hold his laughter in. Mandy Patinkin admitted that the most serious injury he got on set was a bruised rib, which he obtained while trying not to laugh at Miracle Max. (Bonus book trivia: Miracle Max and his wife Valerie were named after William Goldman’s parents.)
André the Giant was Goldman’s first pick to play Fezzik when the film was being optioned in the 70s, but he could not make the commitment. As a result, Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered, but he was happily too famous by the time the movie got made. Andre was available, although he had undergone back surgery prior to the film shoot; Robin Wright (Buttercup) recalled that he was in far too much pain to be able to hold her at the end of the film, so she was held up with wires to prevent him from having to take the weight. When asked about his favorite part of shooting, André said, “Nobody looks at me.” Being just another actor on a set full of quirky talent, where no one made issue of his height, made the Giant feel like he fit right in for once.
Mandy Patinkin considers Inigo to be his favorite role of all time, and one can hardly blame him; in the midst of such a hilarious yarn, Inigo’s fight to avenge his father is perhaps the most moving subplot of the film. But there’s another layer to this tale: it turns out that not long before taking the part, Patinkin’s own father had died of cancer. He said that while filming the final duel between Inigo and Count Rugen, he imaged it as a fight between himself and that cancer. That whole habit of art imitating life allowed Patinkin the opportunity to truly mourn his father. So if watching that scene doesn’t already make you tear up, it probably will next time. If it already had you crying, you’ll be weeping into buckets from now on.
On that note, it’s probably time to head home and cue it up. There’s always more – everyone has their favorite moment, favorite line, and it varies wildly from person to person… But this is a hard film to appreciate properly in words. It is eminently quotable, but that doesn’t explain why it’s funny. It has all the action a fantasy film could ask for, but how that action manages to ride so easily alongside wit and whimsy is a thesis all its own. It’s heartwarming without pandering to us, which is rare enough in a fairytale, but barely touches why we root for Buttercup and Westley to the very end.
It allowed a little boy who hated stories about kissing to have an adventure with his grandfather, and grow up a little while he waited out the flu.
So that’s a very happy birthday to Westley and Buttercup. I hope you all have fun storming the castle, and remember not to go up against Sicilians when death is on the line. And if someone happens to say “As you wish” to you today, well….
You’ll know exactly what they mean.
This article has been updated from a version that originally published in September 2012 for the film’s 25th anniversary.
Emmet Asher-Perrin is not left-handed either. You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
I smile, because I know something you don’t know.
This was perfectly timed as I just watched the movie the other night. It’s always one of the movies I go to whenever I just want to watch something fun and beautiful that will make me smile.
This is my all time favorite movie! I can’t even tell you which part is best…can’t make up my mind! Do really love Billy Crystal’s part of Max…He cracks me up! And the duel…see! can’t deside!! lol
I’m really not sure, but for some reason this movie never really clicked with me – it may have been because it was quoted to death to me before I saw it (same thing with Monty Python’s Holy Grail – can’t stand that movie). Thing is I LOVE Cary Elwes, and also greatly enjoy Wallace Shawn. I definitely agree that this movie has some great scenes in it, but for whatever reason, I start to lose interest at the point they are in the forest with the rodents.
Also, their relationship is kind of dysfunctional ;) And hopefully Westley wasn’t too mean when he was Dread Pirate Roberts…
Speaking of Westley as the Dread Pirate Roberts…
Given Roberts’ reputation for never taking prisoners, doesn’t that mean Westley is a mass murderer?
I had to tear up the other day when I saw that Andre the Giant’s farm in North Carolina was being sold at auction this past Saturday. Fezzik is such a Gentle Giant in the book and Andre was perfect bringing him to the screen. The big man with a Giant Heart is surely missed.
@@.-@, I’m the same. But when I read the book after seeing the movie, I loved the book. I think that for me the movie just didn’t have the same sense of whimsy and fun, believe it or not. For the most part it felt leaden. (I didn’t like the casting of Max and Valarie either, though the rest of the cast was lovely.)
How cool to find this out! I can see adding this to the queue of movies to be seen, oh, tomorrow night-ish!
@1, And what is that? :-D
“Inigo Montoya is comin’ after you!” A song about Inigo M.
http://h2awesomemusic.bandcamp.com/track/inigo-montoya
The movie turned 25 years old last year. The book is now 40 (!) years old.
I’m not sure how a reputation for not taking prisoners ever could be of any possible value to a Pirate, since it would just make more work for you fighting people who would otherwise have surrendered. So I’m guessing that the rep is for not taking prisoners when the other ship doesn’t surrender right away, and that it was effective enough that pretty much everyone did give up.
Speaking of anniversaries, is there a new extension in the ‘what went wrong with getting Buttercup’s Baby in the last 5 years’ metanarrative for the 40th? My guess is that it’s Neil Gaiman’s turn to not abridge it…
10. SaltManZ Fixed, thanks! (Also, 40?! Wow.)
@5. He’ll most likely kill them in the morning.
“offer me money”
“yes!!”
“power, too, promise me that”
“all that I have and more!!”
“offer me everything I ask for”
“anything you want!”
“I want my father back, you son of a bitch”
When I saw the movie in a theater that was the point the entire audience cheered.
I stumbled upon a book in a small regional library some years ago; it’s unique spine design caught my eye.
In the opening lines it’s author described spending the past couple of years as a ‘leper’.
‘Which lie did i tell ‘ by William Goldman is a great and funny book to read; made greater by the fact that as I read through I discovered a chapter ‘The Princess Bride’…being then un aware of the connection.
I borrow that book every year on my return to the region.
This last week I have begun to read the book to my children.
I must send my thanks to Mr Goldman.
Just saw “Fright Night” with Chris Sarandon last night
#5/#13: This issue has been addressed.
As for me, I come to this story from the book, and my one great frustration with the movie — though I recognize that it would have been next to impossible to actually do it properly on film — is that the film incorporates almost none of Goldman’s commentary on the original Morgenstern version. (Actually, this is not entirely true; I came to The Princess Bride by way of an anthology edited by Spider Robinson titled The Best of All Possible Worlds, in which he managed to acquire and print “The Duel Scene on the Cliffs of Insanity”. I read the duel scene — if I’m remembering right, the excerpt started early enough that we also got the poison-cup set piece with Vizzini — and immediately went off and hunted down the novel, which I absorbed with utter delight.)
Anyhow. As to survivors, I am confident that the work linked above supplies the correct explanation for the matter.
If this article came out in 2012 for the 25th anniversary then why are all the comments from 2013?
edit – Nevermind, I just read comment 10, this timeline is getting confusing.
”You just shook your head. That doesn’t make you happy”
He’s only mostly dead.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
When I was in middle school, my drama class performed The Princess Bride. It was…something. As the only blonde of the two girls in the class, I ended up as Buttercup, even though I REALLY wanted to play Inigo. Inigo Montoya is most of the reason I took up fencing.
Tangentially, these are my favorite Andre the Giant stories: 1. While out to dinner with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andre insisted on paying. Arnold waved him off and got up to pay, but Andre walked over, lifted Arnold up and put him back in his chair. Andre paid. 2. Growing up, his neighbor was the playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) and when Andre grew too tall to fit on the school bus, Samuel took him to school in his truck.
Thanks for this, brings back good memories!
“The Princess Bride” is a great movie in large part because the people who made the movie took a great story and then stuck as closely as possible to the story while they made the movie. This is a welcome contrast to the more usual Hollywood approach which is to take a great story and then make a hundred and one changes. These are supposed to improve it but instead make the story into a pile of incoherent garbage.
One of my personal favorite bits from the book which, IIRC, did not make it into the movie is the scene were Inigo and Fezzik are trapped in the Zoo of Death. They are in pitch darkness and being attacked by rabid king bats. Inigo must rely on his hearing and his superb swordsmanship to defeat them. Doubt assails him: Is he still the Wizard of the Sword or has the month long drunk he has been on crippled him and doomed his best friend and himself to a horrible death?
The first bat swoops to the attack and he runs it through. Likewise the second and the third. Now, Inigo knows he still has his skills. In a superb defiance he cries out: “I am Inigo Montoya and still the Wizard! Come for me!”
And they do.
The next time I re-watch I will have to pay closer attention to the balladeers. Mark Knopfler and Willie DeVille. How deep is your talent pool when these two guys never even get a mention.
26: yeah, a terrific sword fight that takes place entirely in pitch darkness is always going to be tricky to do justice to on screen!
I read the book in high school in the 70s, and gave away lots of paperback copies. It was one of those books that if someone else liked, I knew we would be great friends. Loved the opening line “This is my favorite book in all the world, even though I have never read it.” The movie is the “good parts” version.
I kept seeing this story referenced everywhere, so I finally went and watched the movie about a year or so ago (haven’t read the book, yet, but feel I really have to). I can easily see why it is so loved, I really liked it myself, too.
Perhaps a bit off the movie-version topic, but my favourite homage to it comes from the “Kate Daniels” book series. When Curran (the Beast-Lord of Atlanta and as bad-ass as you might imagine, plus then some) learns it is Kate’s favourite book, Kate one night finds him in her living room actually reading it, after what he starts to tell her “As you wish” every now and then. Every time I read it, and knowing the story behind it, it just makes me AWWWWW. Really wish somebody told me this, even if only once …
@24. Ophid. I remember an interview with Rob Reiner shortly after Andre’s death, and he said one thing about Andre was he always paid for dinner, didn’t matter if you invited him or how many people were at the table, Andre always paid. And frankly, would you argue with “the Giant”?
Also, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, and for those that haven’t read it, the book is even better.
@15 I remember reading an interview with Mandy Patinkin where he mentions his favorite line in the film. It wasn’t any of the lines usually quoted. It was near the end, after Inigo has killed Rugen. As they’re making their getaway, Inigo turns to Westley, and with a look of deep sadness, says, “You know, I’ve been in the revenge business so long, now I don’t know what to do with rest of my life.” Patinkin said he loved that line because it showed the ultimate hollowness and worthlessness of seeking revenge–once you’ve achieved it, it’s done and you’ve got nothing. He has Rugen’s dead body before him, but his father is still dead, too. He’d worked his whole life up to that moment, doing whatever he had to, including working for a self-important pipsqueak like Vizzini to do something vile, and now, once it’s done, he realizes he has no idea what else to do other than what he’s been doing, and now that’s gone.
That’s why, I suppose, we all feel so happy and gratified when Westley suggests that Inigo would make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.