The Princess Bride is a classic movie that everyone loves, including me...I thought. I put the book "As You Wish," about the making of the movie, on my Amazon wish list, and Ned and Marta got it for me for Christmas....or maybe it was for my birthday.
I started to read it then, but got involved in some other book(s) and didn't really start it until yesterday. And I realized that I hardly remember the movie at all, other than the sword fight with Mandy Patinkin (“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”) and watching Andre the Giant. I didn't even know any of the stars in it (including Cary Ewes, who played Westley and who wrote the book!). I didn't remember that Rob Reiner directed it or that Billy Crystal had a small part.
So I started the book again yesterday and after only one chapter, I realized that I couldn't read the book without seeing the movie again. Thank goodness we have Disney, because Disney is showing it as part of their service (and thanks to Ned and Marta, we can get Disney).
Adapted by William Goldman from his 1973 novel of the same name, it tells the story of a swashbuckling farmhand named Westley, accompanied by companions befriended along the way, who must rescue his true love Princess Buttercup from the odious Prince Humperdinck. The film preserves the novel's metafictional narrative style by presenting the story as a book being read by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his sick grandson (Fred Savage) .
So instead of reading the book, I spent the afternoon watching the movie and what fun that was! So much I had forgotten (didn't remember the Rodent of Unusual Size at all!) and when the movie was over and I picked up the book again, it was an entirely different experience because I understood everything that Ewes had written.
** “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in the world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” – Westley
Grandfather: “In my day, television was called ‘a book.'”
“Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.” – Buttercup**
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