The Princess Bride

Rob Reiner’s 1987 film sits inside a book a grandfather reads to a sick boy. William Goldman wrote the 1973 novel and adapted it himself. Fox bought the rights in 1973 with Richard Lester to direct, then shelved it, and Goldman bought them back. The reading scenes govern the film: the grandfather halts the shrieking eels sequence to say Buttercup is not eaten, and asked at the end who kills Humperdinck, he answers that nobody does. Danger and reckoning are both drained on purpose. Andre the Giant had major back surgery before the shoot, so Cary Elwes walks on ramps below the frame in the wrestling, a double covers the wide shots, and wires carry Robin Wright. Elwes and Mandy Patinkin learned to fence left and right handed under Bob Anderson and Peter Diamond and fought the duel themselves apart from two somersaults. Patinkin says he took the part because killing the six fingered man meant killing the cancer that killed his father. It took 30.8 million dollars in North America. Its single Oscar nomination was the song Storybook Love, which lost to Dirty Dancing; the National Film Registry took it in 2016. A good fit if you want a duel the leads genuinely fence. Not for you if a narrator twice giving the outcome away drains the tension.