i want you to hit me as hard as you can
hello my name is inigo montoya you kill my father prepare to die
what makes a classic how do you somehow create a perfect film is it luck talent or just meant to
be when people think about perfect movies there aren't that many easily that can be thought of
but typically one that will be on that list is the princess bride released in 1987 the princess bride
did okay business but over time viewers fans in history have come to show us that it's a rare film
that is almost magically perfect that would be inconceivable and all of those facts mean it's
perfect for us on this episode of fantasizing about fantasy films we're going to journey into
the storybook story of the inconceivably wonderful the princess bride as you wish
the princess bride was a passion project of director rob reiner from the time he was given
the book to read by his father carl who was given the book by the author william goldman
it would seem that the princess bride was always destined to have family links as it was inspired
by goldman's own doctors back in 1973. he told them when they were around the ages of 7 and 4
i'll write you a story what do you want it to be about one said a princess the other said a bride
and goldman told them then that's the title carrie always would be gifted the book from
his stepfather when he was 13 years old and he would always identify with wesley goldman
was a prolific screenwriter whose work won and was nominated for multiple academy awards most notably
was butch cassidy and the sundance kid in 1969 the stepford wives all the president's men magic
misery and that's just some of them goldman wasn't stuck in any one genre but seemed a master of them
all he notably loved working in the realms of stephen king writing four screenplays based on
his work this will be important later trust me so what happens now we face each other as
god intended sportsman life this may be why the princess bride worked on so many levels
with not only being a fantasy epic but a comedy a love story a revenge tale with a few others mixed
in the original book had a sort of viral marketing within it and the publishers played along in the
original novel goldman himself is a semi-fictional character of the bookend story within the book
goldman discovers the novel the princess bride by s morgenstern and what you the reader are reading
is his adaptation of the original the story still follows buttercup and wesley with more in-depth
information about gilder and florin including a map of the kingdoms goldman includes information
about a missing scene his publisher wouldn't allow him to include due to quote-unquote legal issues
but states that you can write the publisher for a copy this actually happened and continued for some
time with readers submitting requests for a copy of the scene and instead they'd receive a letter
with information about all the legal issues of why the scene could not be published or sent
out due to the morgan stern estate in lighter editions of the book it was stated you could
read the scene online but the website would only take you to copies of the legal issue letter which
had been updated over the years which is just evilly brilliant try ruling the world sometime
there were a number of attempts at adapting the book to film including one by ray harryhausen
but no one could seem to capture it or make it work at one point goldman had been paid half a
million dollars for the rights back in the early 70s but eventually he bought the rights back
not trusting anyone it would seem to bring the story to the screen but that's when rob
reiner showed up after having turned it up to 11. what we do is if we need that extra
push over the cliff you know what we do put it up to 11 exactly reiner had come off of
directing his first film this is spinal tap in 1984 having also written the comedy which would
co-star christopher guest the film was a hit and he'd follow it up with the sure thane which was
also a hit making four times its budget back on release when stand by me came out in 1986
it was clear reiner knew how to make a movie while most viewers would know him as archie
bunker's hapless son-in-law michael aka meathead from all in the family reiner had found another
calling behind the camera and it would be thanks to all in the family and the creator of that
groundbreaking series norman lear who would help finance reiner's choice of follow-up film
the stars had aligned and william goldman came on board to write the screenplay for reiner and
the magic that would be the princess bride began let me take this opportunity to thank
you all for watching fantasizing about fantasy films and ask that if you enjoyed our shows
please subscribe to our channel right now like this video and click on the bell so you can be
notified each time a new video goes up now back to the show bye bye bye have fun storming the castle
when it came to the cast the princess bride would be inconceivably perfect rob reiner had seen actor
carrie elways in the film lady jane and saw within the young actor the douglas fairbank swashbuckler
who would make a perfect dread pirate robert slash dashie wesley and he lived up to the ideal elwy
sustained an injury just starting into filming that broke his toe so most of the shoot he was
walking around while still having a broken bone he did many of his own stunts as well even coming
up with the idea of diving face first into the quicksand to save buttercup originally the scene
was to be shot with him going in feet first but elbows thought the dive was far more heroic it was
a risky move as he could have broken his neck if something went wrong with the trap door mechanism
at the bottom of the quicksand and it didn't open but after a step performer tried it always did it
himself i always wound up actually in an er due to one injury that was filmed and used in the movie
the scene where count rugen knocks out wesley christopher guest actually knocked elwy's
unconscious guests had been having trouble making the hit look authentic and so elwy said
just for him to go for it you have six fingers on your right hand someone was looking for you
he in fact did maybe it's the extra finger strength reiner used the shot that always actually
went lipdew to be knocked out for real and i mean it was the most authentic it's conceivable
you miserable vomitous mass this performing of his own stunts and swordplay would carry over
massively to his duel with mandy patinkin the epic sword fight between inigo and wesley would take
months of training with potenkin stating he spent two months prior training and then
for four months further he and always would spend any day they weren't shooting training
oh are you no one of consequences i must get used to disappointment
they were trained by the legendary bob anderson who worked on numerous films over the years
including empire strikes back and return of the jedi where he was the stunt double for darth
vader during the lightsaber fights anderson had the two actors not only learn their own
fight moves but each other's fight moves on top of that they learned how to sword fight
both right and left-handed other than one backflip the entire fight sequence is potinkin and always
you i hate to kill you you seem a decent felon i hate to die it's now known that the story of
patinkin taking the role of inigo montoya was inspired by the loss of his father if you watch
the documentary about the film i dare you not to be moved by potenkin's story as he relates it i'd
lost my father in 1972. it just hit a chord with me that i want my father back just like he does
his father passed away in 1972 from cancer at the very young age of 53. during filming
patinkin would have conversations with the spirit of his father and i remember we were outside that
castle and i took a walk in this beautiful moat i just kept talking to my dad saying i'm going
to write it i'm going to write this wrong and when the time came for the fight between nego and count
rugen when he says the line i want my father back you son of a [ __ ] he's speaking to the cancer
i killed the cancer that killed my father and for a moment he was alive and if you notice
or perhaps it's just me mandy's accent slips away and the words are in his own voice the look on his
face and the power of the delivery is amazing robin writes castiness buttercup was one of the
last to be cast there were numerous actresses who tried out for the part but none really clicked
wright seemed to fit the bill perfectly she beat out actresses like uma thurman courtney cox and
sean young for the role in fact there were around 500 actresses that were seen wright and always had
some fantastic chemistry as the leads and this was no doubt helped by the fact they were both
crushing on each other pretty hard during filming i always described right as looking like a young
grace kelly and it made it distracting he was so taken with her but that was sort of the plot
so there's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world it could be a pity to damage yours andre the
giant was born to be physic even though at first he wouldn't even read for the role he was always
goldman's first choice to play the part by the time filming started though andre had had back
surgery and couldn't physically do the feats of strength that fezik was known for even carrying
buttercup required special rigging and trickery but andre was perfect for the gentle giant during
filming the cast became quite like a family and andre's favorite part of filming was that no one
looked at him he didn't stand out there were no odd stares he simply was andre everyone who worked
with him had a story about him and not an unkind word everyone loved him one story though is just
how much andre could put away when it came time to let loose when everyone go to dinner what andre
would order four appetizers and five entrees while eating he'd drank a 40-ounce picture of a drink he
called the american which was 40 different liquors mixed together carrie always said
i've never tasted airplane fuel but i imagine it's very close to what that must taste like
i'm sorry nego i don't mean to join him so far wala shawn who played vizzini
the most verbose man in all the kingdom wasn't actually the first choice for their role
originally reiner had wanted danny devito for the part when sean found out about this
it made him a nervous wreck for the entire shoot i can't compete with you physically
and you're no match for my brains honestly though i don't think anyone could think of
vizzini and naziwa lashon he made the part his own inconceivable keep using the horde
i don't think it means what you think it means but no story is complete without its villains
and boy does the princess bride deliver on that score chris sarandon is perfect as the handsome
yet true bastard humperdink the man that can apparently smell the odorless poison io cane
okay i bet my life on it this is one of the most awesome callbacks to line ever by the way
and christopher guest shows the true power of his ability to be a chameleon as cat rugen
the six-fingered man who gets his just rewards from the little boy who he left
scarred and fatherless my name is you kill my father prepare to die stop saying that
but we can't forget our bookend story of the little boy home with the flu
and his grandfather who manages to convince his grandson to like a kissing book fred savage and
peter falk were adorable in these scenes and the film wouldn't be the same without
that perfect setup and fox delivery maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow
as you wish the entire film was shot in england including the bedroom scenes with savage and
faulk in 1986. the film's soundtrack was actually composed by mark knopler
with the song storybook love being nominated for the best original song at the academy awards
in 1988. reiner was a fan of noppler's work with dire straits and knopfler was a fan of spinal tap
i'm not listening
the princess bride wasn't a massive hit on release it made around double its 16 million dollar budget
back so it was a sedate beginning over the years of course the princess bride has become a modern
classic with a following that grows with every viewing and began as most things did in the 80s
with releases on home video and cable when it came to merchandising it's interesting to see
that there are more items being created now than when the movie was originally released
with various board games card games t-shirts and collectibles in 2008 there was a princess bride
video game released with mandy patinkin wallace sean and robin wright voicing their characters
in late september of this year mcfarland toys announced a line of princess bride action figures
there's a monopoly princess bride edition game a line of funko pops and a never-ending series
of t-shirts and fan art you can buy online in the 25th anniversary edition of the novel
there was mention of a sequel buttercup's baby this continued in other editions with
a chapter that had a collection of snippets of parts of a story which tells us that buttercup
and wesley named their daughter waverly this also continues goldman's wraparound story
and talks about his anger at the morgenstern family giving the green light to write the sequel
not to him but to stephen king i told you his name would come up again
hello goldman sadly passed away in 2018 before you could complete the sequel having stated previously
he was having trouble with the story there has been talk of a princess bride musical for the
past 15 years starting while goldman was alive in 2006 with that attempt falling to the wayside
since then there was talk of disney doing a musical version but that is installed as well
in 2020 during the pandemic a hilarious fan-made recreation of the princess bride was made for the
now dead service quibby called home movie the princess bride many of the original cast was
involved and everyone gave their blessings for use of music and the script with various celebrities
recreating parts of scenes rob reiner and his father carl also were in the production with
this being the last appearance of carl reiner on screen the project was dedicated to his memory
with it raising money for the world central kitchen you can find the entire production
on youtube most of the cast returned for a table read of the script with other celebrities joining
along for a princess bride reunion to support the democratic party of wisconsin during a live stream
pay-per-view event in 2019 there was talk of a remake and immediately it seemed everyone screamed
back at that thought inconceivable cary always quote summed it up best on social media there's a
shortage of perfect movies in this world it would be a pity to damage this one and that line truly
encapsulates hi phil and many others do too about the princess bride the film is actually perfect
there's something timeless here and special it's one of those movies that found the balance between
the fairy tale for children and bringing in just enough adult feeling and story too it's sarcastic
witty beautiful and eternally quotable it doesn't pander it has revenge romance love and loyalty
there's something simple about it but at the same time there's levels there the best example is an
ego and his quest for revenge and how he just keeps repeating the words he always wanted to
say to the man who killed his father he'd prepared nothing else hasn't thought ahead past this moment
at the end of the movie he even admits to wesley he doesn't know what else he's going to do with
his life because revenge has been the driving force for so long it's very strange i have been
in the revenge business so long now that it's over i don't know what to do with the rest of my life
have you ever considered piracy you make a wonderful tripod roberts
piracy though seems to be the next step but that's some pretty great writing when you look
a little deeper the princess bride is not only perfect it's timeless just as the years have
shown us it keeps touching the lives of fans and newcomers with not only the story within
the film but the stories outside of it such was the recent tick-tock video of the young woman who
was connected to mandy patin by his son after she posted the heartbreaking video of herself speaking
about the loss of her father and how the rumor of potinkin using the loss of his dad fueled his role
of course it wasn't a rumor it was what motivated the performance and the reaction of the actor
seeing the video is powerful to watch you can talk to your dad anytime you want anywhere you want
yeah and i'm just glad you and he shared that movie that's the sort of magic that a perfect
film can create they are very rare you know and when you find one you want to keep it forever
and the princess pride doesn't appear to be going anywhere and keeps growing more and more
each year all i can say to that is as you wish princess bride as you wish
so
you