In the last week, I have thrice watched the new "Special Edition" DVD of the 1987 movie, The Princess Bride — once, as one would normally watch, and once each listening to the audio commentaries of director Rob Reiner and screenwriter William Goldman. These extra, narrative tracks do not convey a lot of extra insight. Reiner says, of about 90% of what transpires, "Here's one of my favorite scenes," and almost all the performances are "one of the best performances in the film." This is not to say we expect the director to say, "Boy, this part was rotten" or "Boy, did this actor stink up my film." It's simple pride and etiquette at work and, anyway, I don't think there are any poor scenes or performances in this, one of my favorite movies of the period.
Goldman's narration mostly seems to consist of talking of how much he hates to be on the set and hates most of what he's written. I happen to like most of what he's written but I really like The Princess Bride — in book form, even more than the film. If you've yet to experience both, I recommend them…though, for reasons I cannot quite articulate, I think I preferred the book when it was one of those joyous, undiscovered treasures that no one had heard of until I told them. I also liked it better in the original hardback where its dual narratives were printed in different colors — one in red, one in black — and where it felt more like a real book. In umpteen paperback editions since, they put one narrative in standard Times Roman or whatever and the other in italics. My first copy — a well-thumbed first edition, given to me long ago by a friend and still occasionally browsed — really felt like one of the old children's novel that Goldman managed so well to ape. The paperbacks, being paperbacks, do not.
The audio tracks of the director and writer are in general agreement about darn near everything and, between the two of them and several "Making of…" featurettes included on the DVD, we get to hear several anecdotes two and three times. Reiner and Goldman are in greatest accord when they speak of how the studio, though it tried hard, never really knew how to market this film, and how it never became a true "hit" until its home video release. The uncertainty is easy to understand as it is equal parts heroic and silly, especially with its hero — played to perfection by Cary Elwes — flopping around like a corpse throughout most of the crucial, climactic scenes. Some aspects of the script and art direction bend over backwards to avoid anachronism while others embrace it. The moment when Mandy Patinkin finally faces Christopher Guest to avenge a death is still one of the most satisfying, cheer-the-moment scenes in any movie, even though its emotion seems oddly out of kilter with, for example, Billy Crystal's Borscht Belt performance as Miracle Max. (If forced to point up a flaw, I would select him — Mr. Crystal — as the one element that pulled me completely out of the picture. In their commentaries or other interviews, both Reiner and Goldman spoke of wanting to cast unknowns in the leads because stars might have been too distracting. I don't think anything's as distracting as sitting there throughout a pivotal scene thinking, "That's Billy Crystal and Carol Kane under all that make-up." But maybe that's just me…)
And speaking of what I was just speaking of: Here's something that's kinda odd. Both Reiner and Goldman talk of Billy Crystal as having beefed up his role as Max with ad-libs like the following…
MIRACLE MAX
Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world. Except for a nice MLT, a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe. They're so perky, I love that.
Funny stuff…but here's the thing. I just copied that dialogue from the 1995 volume, William Goldman: Four Screenplays from Applause Books. It and all the dialogue that was added by the actors or improvised on the set have been put down in the published screenplay.
In his intro to the book, Goldman writes of the difficulty of deciding which draft of a screenplay to put into a collection of this sort and says that while other scripts therein contain scenes that were cut or changed, "The Princess Bride is pretty close to the finished film." This is apparently because someone — probably not Goldman, himself — typed all the new dialogue into the script, perhaps after filming was complete, and Goldman chose to print one of those drafts. I wish he hadn't. We buy or rent or go see the movie to experience the collaborative work. When I read a William Goldman screenplay, I'd prefer to just read the writings of William Goldman.
