The Princess Bride
Short description
A grandfather visits his sick grandson and reads him a story, a fairy tale about the beautiful Buttercup and the farm boy Westley who love each other. When Westley leaves to find his fortune, he is reported lost at sea, and Buttercup, believing him dead, agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck even though she does not love him. Before the wedding she is taken by a group of kidnappers, and the adventure that follows brings her back together with Westley, who must face the prince, the scheming Count Rugen and the swordsman Inigo Montoya to win her back.
Rob Reiner directed the film, his fourth of nineteen features and the one that followed Stand by Me, with When Harry Met Sally... arriving two years later. William Goldman wrote the screenplay, adapting his own book, and Reiner produced with Andrew Scheinman. Cary Elwes plays Westley, Robin Wright plays Buttercup, and Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest and Wallace Shawn appear among the twenty-seven credited cast members. Made for about 16 million dollars, it took in roughly 31 million worldwide.
On IMDb it holds 8 out of 10 from around 484,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.7 from more than 5,000. A critics' rating of 8.4 from 150 reviews is higher than both audience scores. Blending adventure, comedy, fantasy and romance in a framing story about a grandfather and his grandson, the film has built a wide following since its 1987 release.
What's left behind the scenes
- Robert Redford almost filmed the adaptation, nearly assembling a cast (Colin Firth as Westley, Sting as Prince Humperdinck, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the giant Fezzik), but filming never began: Redford couldn't raise enough of a budget.
- Christopher Reeve (Superman) was interested in the role of Wesley.
- André the Giant – a man of the kindest soul, according to his colleagues on set – was French and spoke very little English, so the director recorded his lines on tape so that André could learn them by ear. In life, he turned out to be not at all the strongman he was as Fezzik. He suffered from constant pain – his joints and bones could no longer cope with his wrestling weight of 240 kg. The actor fought pain with alcohol and could not carry a lot of people on his back. Therefore, the scene in which Wesley (as the Man in Black) is hanging on Fezzik’s neck was shot in close-up – in fact, Cary Elwes rested his feet on a solid surface.
- The film is based on William Goldman's novel "The Princess Bride" (1973).
- In 1973, William Goldman, a successful Hollywood screenwriter (two "Oscars" for the screenplays of the classic films "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men"), decided to publish a fairy tale he had been telling to his two daughters as a separate book. To his surprise, it proved far more popular than the "adult" thrillers on which Goldman had hoped to build a literary career. "The Princess Bride" immediately became a national bestseller, and the author was offered $500,000 for the screenplay rights.
- Richard Lester was to direct – he gained fame in the 1960s as the director of the Beatles films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", and later directed the second and third Superman films. But suddenly, the leadership at Fox changed, and the adaptation became stuck in "development hell" for a long time. Desperate to wait no longer, Goldman bought back the rights to his book with his own money.
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