FLASHBACK BOOTH

AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

As you wish

The avenger's arrow- accurate tagline - "Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the- mill, ho-hum fairy tale - set the tone, but it's the script that made the film. While (thankfully) a story and not a lampoon, The Princess Bride's we've- read-our-fairy-tales characters trip you up delightfully with a series of reversals which, like Indy blasting that infinitely skilful swordsman, are so perfectly right you wonder why no-one's done them before. (After Raiders, every hero took to humorously shooting down knifemen whirlingly demonstrating their moves. And anyone who's seen the TV show Hercules will recognise The Princess Bride's huge influence of knowingness.)

So you get swordfights in which the opponents admire one another's skills ("I see you are using Bonetti's Defence!". "l thought it suitable considering the rocky terrain"); villains who, when faced by their horribly wronged nemeses, simply run away; academically ambitious henchmen who torture people just for research purposes; vengeance-fired heroes who work for the villain to pay the bills; evil princes who, rather than messily force their attentions onto unwilling brides- to-be, agree to call off the wedding and contact the hero; and heroines who realise it was a trick but go along anyway because they know the hero will rescue them at the last minute

Screenwriter William Goldman is having a lot of fun. In his book Hype And Glory (the I judged-Cannes-and-Miss World-while-going-through-a-sticky- divorce follow-up to his legendarily bean- spilling Adventures In The Screen Trade he mentions that, although he's written over 40 books and scripts, he gets more post about The Princess Bride than everything else put together. The script just works

It has beautifully timed cuts back to the framing sequence, in which the story is being read to a sickly grandson. During one funny little sequence, which develops - without you noticing - into the young Buttercup's seizuringly suspenseful escape through killer-eel-thick waters, the old bloke leans in to reassure his nervous grandson that she's not going to be eaten.

It has effortlessly memorable dialogue. ("You fool, you've committed one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia..") And it's so consistently involving that you desire there to be a prequel about the characters' pasts: Westley's years as the Dread Pirate Roberts, say, or Vizini's multitude of war-starting successes ("A prestigious line of business with a long and glorious history!").

Although there's precious little flair to the direction or sfx (Rob Reiner's a gent of the mustn't-notice-the-camera school none's really needed. Because there's very little "fairytaleness" when you get right down to it (just two extremely minor monsters and a miracle), Princess' lack of puffy smoke and iridescent shimmeryness isn't an issue. It's the characters that carry the story, and the actors are spot-on. Of course, every (infuriatingly lukewarm) review of the film praised the villains but damned the true-love leads as signally vapid. How very unfair And wrong.

No, it's a film that keeps on giving And there's much location-spotting fun to be had too: it was shot entirely in Britain, which explains "name" cameos by Peter Cook and, er, Mel Smith.

Jonathan Nash

TOTAL FILM issue 5 June 1997 p 128

last updated August 29th 1997