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Intro to the 30th Anniversary Edition
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Princess Bride, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fact vs. Fiction
The Value of Cleverness and Humility
Love, Loyalty, and Friendship
Authorship and Storytelling
Fairytales and Growing Up
Summary
Analysis
Goldman addresses the reader and says that he wishes he'd written The Princess Bride. He has to content himself with the fact that his abridgement, while skewered by Florinese scholars, brought the great Morgenstern to an American audience. The movie is the reason Goldman is writing the introduction for this version. He begins by offering memories of getting The Princess Bride turned into a movie. Goldman says that he took time away from writing The Stepford Wives to abridge The Princess Bride, and the “Greenlight Guy” at Fox liked it. He says that this is the person who has the power to make a movie go or not, and the guy at Fox thought The Princess Bride was great book but maybe wasn't a movie. They worked out a deal to not buy the screenplay unless they decided to actually make it.
Here, Goldman makes his purpose clear: he believes that literature exists to be read and loved, not just studied by stuffy scholars. This is one of the main reasons he's so supportive throughout his asides of the process of abridgement, as abridging an impenetrable novel makes it more easily accessible to readers from all walks of life—and in this case, it also makes books easier to then adapt for film. By tying this book to the movie, Goldman makes the movie an essential text of sorts for understanding what he's saying about the book.
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Goldman's agent, Evarts Ziegler, came to town. They went out to lunch and then, Goldman suddenly came down with pneumonia. His “superstar-shrink wife,” Helen, rushed him to the hospital. At four in the morning, Goldman knew that he once again had the pneumonia that almost killed him as a kid, which was also the reason why Goldman's father read him The Princess Bride in the first place. He started yelling for the nurse to bring him The Princess Bride and read it to him. Helen and several doctors arrived, concerned, and to appease Goldman's delirium, they read the screenplay to him.
This early morning reading of the Princess Bride screenplay shows the reader yet another way to experience Goldman's story, while also offering more insight into his process as a writer. The real Goldman did actually contract a rare strain of pneumonia at about the time he wrote The Princess Bride screenplay, which suggests that even though Goldman's father never actually read him the book, it's still somewhat true that pneumonia was an inciting incident of sorts for some of Goldman's major life moments.
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The screenplay got enthusiastic reactions from several Greenlight Guys, but either the guys got fired or the studios closed before they could start work on the movie. Eventually, Goldman decided to buy the rights to the screenplay back from the studio so that he was the only person who could ruin it. Stepping back in time again, Goldman says that after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out, he decided to write nonfiction and started sending copies of his books, including The Princess Bride, to a writer named Carl Reiner. Reiner gave The Princess Bride to his son, Rob Reiner, who would go on to direct the movie years later.
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In the spring of 1986, Goldman attends the first script reading in London. Everyone is there: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, and Andre the Giant. Getting Andre was a struggle; at that time, Andre was wrestling most of the year and it was only by chance that Rob was able to meet up with him in Paris. Rob cast Andre despite the fact that Andre has a heavy French accent and an exceptionally low voice. He gave Andre a recording of his part so that he could practice before this script reading.
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At the reading in London, things go smoothly. After lunch, Andre and Mandy Patinkin rehearse some of their scenes and Andre recites his lines very slowly. Finally, Mandy slaps Andre in the face and tells him to go faster, and miraculously, it works. After the movie is done, Goldman realizes that in his entire film career, he's only really loved Butch Cassidy and The Princess Bride. Even better, The Princess Bride brought the book to life and has brought people together. Goldman says he does regret the troubles he's had with the Morgenstern estate, as well as that his marriage with Helen ended. Most of all, he regrets that the Cliffs of Insanity have become the biggest tourist attraction in Florin, which is tough on the Florinese forest rangers.
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