Throwback Thursday: "The Princess Bride" and all its glory

The Princess Bride is a movie for the ages. This unconventional fairytale directed by Rob Reiner was released almost 30 years ago, but it will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. The film is based off of the novel of the same title by William Goldman, who also wrote the screen adaptation.



If you are reading this and haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend you make it the next film you watch. It is well-written, witty, beautifully costumed & constructed, and just an all-around fun film. A fair warning, though, if you're someone that does not enjoy quirky/slapstick humor, this is probably not the film for you.

Buttercup & Westley

The Princess Bride is told as a Grandfather (Peter Falk) reading a fairytale book to his ill grandson (Fred Savage); is voiceover is heard throughout the film as a narration. The "classic" fairytale tells the love story of Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) and her love affair with Westley the farm boy (Cary Elwes). Westley is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts so Buttercup must marry Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), but she is kidnapped by the annoying Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), swordsman Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) and the large and strong Fezzik (André the Giant). The remainder of the film follows Buttercup, Inigo Montoya, and Vizzini as they try to escape the grasps of the evil Prince Humperdinck while bringing Westley back from the "mostly" dead. (along the way we meet Miracle Max, an expert on the matter played by Billy Crystal--whom we can hardly recognize under all that costume & make-up.)

My initial reaction to The Princess Bride was that the pace moved way too slowly (but I was ten the first time I saw it). When I saw it again a few years later I understood and appreciated the humor such more. Now each time I watch it, I pick up on the nuances that I did not see in previous viewings.

Some of the special effects may seem a bit wonky nowadays, but considering the nature of the whole movie it fits in nicely. It simply adds to the effect of how ridiculous the subject matter is.

So if you like stories with swordplay, fun rhymes, and only a few ROUS'es (rodents of unusual size), then check out The Princess Bride, you won't regret it!

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is one of the biggest hits of my childhood and will forever remain on my favorites list. As of right now it is ranked 15/72. It's hard to beat that! The first time I saw the movie I was very young and it immediately became one of my favorites. My best friend in grade school and I always used to quote the movie and I and much of my family still do. If you haven't seen it. Go SEE IT RIGHT NAHHH!! *swift kick in the rear*. At first the movie wasn't a big hit, but once it took off it made history in my life. It is actually based from a book there are at least two versions of the book. The story was a very old one passed down from generation to generation. The man who the young boy in the movie is supposed to be portraying, rewrote the story and released it to be made as a movie, his name was William Goldman. His grandfather read it to him as a boy and his great grandfather read it to his grandfather etc. When he re-made the story he shortened it by a lot because the original book was excruciatingly long and bogged down with unnecessary dialogue. The story was originally written by S. Morgenstern. Goldman finally read the entire book with out the cuts and discovered that when his uncle or grandfather was reading it to him he left out a lot of the story.

If you're not convinced that it is an awesome movie yet then I dont Know what to say you must be some kinda of non-movie-going-......thing.