If you're not listening to Pubcast, the terrorists are winning. That's what James Worsen says. Welcome to the Pubcast. Sit down and enjoy your point.
Alright, welcome to the Princess Bride episode of the Pubcast. Allison and Eric joined me to discuss this classic from 1987, and we all agree that we've never heard a negative word about this movie. I mean, what is there to criticize? Special effects?
It's all part of the charm of this crazy sort of 80s fairy tale. The Princess Bride is yet another movie from this era that is extremely quotable, and I'm pretty sure Andre the Giant should have received some sort of Oscar nomination for his role as Fezzie. So, climb the Clips of Insanity with us as we break down the Princess Bride. Run some unusual size?
I don't think they exist. Ooh! Unconceivable! How can you be sure?
This is true love. Hold it. Hold it. Is this a kissing book?
It's a special book. It's going to be sports, isn't it? Are you kidding? I'm shame.
Fighting. Torture. Revenge. My name is Inigo Montoya.
You killed my father. Prepare to die. See? The Clips of Insanity!
He didn't follow? He didn't follow? He didn't cut a sleeve. He came here since I've fought.
I don't think I miss what you think it means. Why was they got always helped for me? Your wester is dead. I've seen worse.
Bye bye, boys! Have fun, stop in the castle! Where's my cup? Let me stay.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is merry comprehending, so always have to lose getting. Break up the wedding, stay the process.
But, Garski, it doesn't even have time for Dilly Dany. Now wait. Marriage is what wins us together today. You've always been so kind to me.
And I won't be seeing you again, since I'm killing myself once we reach the honeymoon suite. It's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It'll be a pity to damage yours. Are you four!
Never go in against a ceselian! When death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha! As you wish.
Alright, the Princess Bride, 1987. This no-nonsense plot has kind of a key typo in it. I'll read it as written, and then we'll address the typo. While Homesick in bed, a young boy's grandfather reads him as the story of a far-and-boy turned pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies, and allies.
In his quest to be reunited with his true love. He's not homesick in bed. He's homesick in bed. They put homesick as one word.
Yeah, so in the mist of space. But homesick is an entirely different thing than being a homesick. I was like listening for it. I'm not hearing.
Exactly a typo, but that space is missing. Alright. Yeah, that's fine. Overall reaction to the movie where you saw it when you saw it, impact on our favorite stuff.
What you like, don't like it. I don't think I definitely didn't see this one here. I definitely did not. I'm pretty sure I saw it in college.
I'm pretty sure my roommate, Sapna, had it on VHS. And we watched it in a different room. I don't. I'm pretty sure I saw it before college, though.
Really? I saw it at some point. I also did that scene in the theatre. I was junior high-ish when I saw it.
I'm pretty sure first time I saw it was at a neighbor's house. Yeah, it would have been on HBO or whatever sort of cable channel or something. Which of course we did not have. So I would have seen it in 1989 or whatever.
A couple years later. At the time, I never met anyone who didn't like it. It's sneakily funny, sometimes over it would be funny. It's definitely a fairytale.
It feels like a very small movie. Even though it's all over the outside, all over the fake Europe. Well, what's cool about it is because you can tell that it's a fake set, it makes it feel like a story. The way that they shot it where you've got the Fred Savage character, the boy being read to you by his grandfather.
The back and forth because the sets were artificial or contained, it made it feel like a story. Just like never ending story of those deals. It feels small. It feels more intimate like a fairytale.
87, when this came out, I, given my age and what I saw when I was into in junior high-end, I got into a little bit of with pro wrestling. See, honor the giant on screen. It was fantastic. It was so awesome.
Oh my God. It is a large human being. Where is he from? France.
France. I come from France. So he's got this ultra thick French accent and this ultra thick deep voice, which makes him doubly hard to decipher. It's insane.
But perfect for a fairytale giant. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah.
I mean, it was, yeah, I can't say it was in heavy rotation, but whenever it was on, we were always watching it. And everyone knew all the lines. Did the theme song get played on the radio? I'm trying to see the story book story.
We just watched the movie like three hours ago. I don't remember one piece of music in the whole thing. I mean, it's at the end. Well, but they play an instrumental version of it.
I'm going to break into our fun facts and trivia section. That's relevant. The person who was responsible for all the music in the movie. Yeah.
Mark Knopfler. I don't know. Lead singer guitarist for Dyrus rates. Oh, interesting.
Right. Weird. Great. Okay.
Money for nothing. Yeah. And the giants are free. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Eric, any initial overall thoughts or should I move into a box office? Yeah.
Just sort of touching on what we said before. Yeah. I think it was absolutely immediately beloved by all. Yeah.
Yeah. I've never heard a bad word spoken about this movie. No. Great.
Like it instantly put a smile on my face this afternoon when I was watching it. Yeah. It starts off kind of slow, but only slow for a very short time. And then you're right into it.
And then what I love it because that's also how the boy reacts to it. Right. Like he's like, Oh my gosh. Like, yeah, what are you doing to me?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Box office performance.
We must have done a movie from 1997 before. I don't know which one exactly. I'm not sure we did because the list of the box office for this year, although through the basics, but it is another one of these murderers road type of deals, or at least it's got big names that we all know we've all seen a hundred times partially because of the age of it, but it's big movies. Okay.
The top 10 box office performers. The Princess Bride is not one of them. Okay. Beverly Hills cop two.
Right. 153 million platoon fatal traction. Be untouchables. Well, three minute a baby.
Yeah. The secret to my success. Which I, if we did this before, I definitely said this before. I've seen so few movies more than once in the theater.
The secret to my success was one of them. That's so amazing. I can't believe that's one of them. Wow.
No real memories of what happened. Yeah. Sorry. No six.
No six is stake out. No. Emilio Estebes and Travis. Yeah.
Yeah. Lethal weapon. The original one. Yeah.
The witches of Eastwick. And predator number 10. That's amazing that that one was that low. It's fine.
But today, these days that technically will be higher. I think. Maybe. The marketing behind you know all this stuff.
Anyway, so the top 10. So predator number 10 got 59 million. The Princess Bride made 30 million and came in at number 35. The budget.
Oh, that is a tight range. 59 was 10. You said and then 35 was 30? Yeah.
Whoa. From 10 to 35, it's only a $20 million, $30 million range. The budget was 16 million. So double budget.
Not bad. Yeah. Now, let me run through some of the other notables outside the top 10. Okay.
Notable for various reasons. Some of these are good. Some of these are bad. Some of these are just big stars and whatever.
LaBamba. Just watching upstairs. Right. Crocodile Dundee.
RoboCop. 30 dancing. Full metal jacket. Nightmare.
Full metal jacket and platoon came out the same year. Oh. Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Okay.
That's a fan of favorite of mine in eighth grade. Roxanne. Okay. Oh.
Roxanne Space Balls. The Golden Child. Summer School. I want the knife.
Plains, trains, automobiles. The Running Man. Adventures in babysitting. Yes.
The Lost Boys. The Princess Bride. Harry and the Henderson's. Awesome.
I don't know that I've ever watched that all the way through. Like, I've seen Snubiz and I'm like, I can't watch this. Even then. It was fine then.
I think I watched it once as a kid. And even then I knew it was ridiculous. The big sort of walking puppet that is the Sasquatch guy is kind of cool. But after that.
It's the same guy that was the predator. Yeah. Oh, really? Wow.
Big year for him. No. Because the predator came out the same year. Yeah.
Eddie Murphy Raw. Inner Space. Yes. Who's yours?
Little Shop of Horrors. Raising Arizona. That's the movie we did in any Saturday. Right.
Wall Street. Yeah. Other ones down from this too. If we ever do that, turn it back for the different movie years.
87 and 84 are like the one and two seed almost. Yeah. I think I forget it. 92 or 94 is one as well.
93 maybe. Is that a Martin Switzer? Is that a Pulp Fiction year? No.
Is that much as well? Yeah. Anyway. So 94 was like Pulp Fiction, Force Gump, Shawshank.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a crazy year. Gotcha.
Okay. So what do we think the Rotten Tomatoes score was? Do you want to go audience or critics first? Audience.
All right. Now, do you need your audience score for the Prince of Bride? Going off of your, I think, like everybody liked it, I'm going to say 95. Eric, I always feel like we're, we overshoot.
So I'm going to say 90. Audience score was 94. Oh. Now, Eric, what do you think the critics thought of the movie?
I'm going to say 88. No. 85. This, I won't say shocked, surprise me.
The critics gave or liked the Princess Bride to the tune of 97%. What? Wow. Critics liked it.
That is shocking. That is shocking to me because it feels a bit too quirky for critics to like it. Right. It's not a movie you would automatically say critics.
I mean, I'm delighted by that. But wow. Okay. Yep.
All right. Let's jump into some trivia. I did not write a bunch of trivia down because most of the stuff I saw was not super interesting. It was just sort of random, minus-assumed, usual stuff.
Someone's got hurt doing this or someone's head, some sort of dopey story. But it wasn't all that interesting. I have a few things here. We did touch on the music with Mark Knopfler by Race.
Yep. That's, I had no idea how to do that happen. I will give one injury because it is relevant. And I don't care about the injury, I care about the method.
Through much of the filming, specifically the sword fight, I think, is part of it. Kariel has had a broken toe on his foot. Oh, really? How he got that broken toe is- Andre the Giant's stuff on it?
Andre the Giant's ATV. Which is like a, like an AT-wheeler? They must have got a parade for it. It's got to be.
It's a barge. Oh my god. Did he run over it? No.
But so, you know, when they have on location during England going to the castle or something, right? Right. And so, they're playing in trailers or hotels or whatever, in some village or something. Right.
We have to get to and from, you know, set. Right. Everybody would get into a van and go to set. Andre couldn't fit inside the van.
So they got him an ATV to ride it. Oh my gosh. Kariel has got on ATV and was goofing off. And he didn't crash, but he got a rocky patch of turf or whatever, and got his foot caught in the mechanics somehow and broke his toe.
Oh. Ah. Oh my gosh. It wasn't a crash.
B, it was the ATV to haul this Goliath who could not fit in a van. Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Ah, that was funny.
That is insane. Okay. The two rival kingdoms in the movie are Florin and Gilder. Yes.
They are named for two former Dutch currencies. Oh. The Florin, the J-Mare and the Gilden. Florin and the Gilden were Florin and Gilder for Dutch for some reason.
Okay. Great. All right. That's the level of trivia that I brought the table.
Yeah. So I've got a couple. Go ahead. I've got a couple, but keep going.
So one thing that I totally enjoyed is that Rob Reiner was the voice of the R.O.S.s. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, I heard that too. That's good.
Why does it have to be in? Any random animal sound. Anybody who's done that. But also, you have Andre the Giant's voice.
I don't want to tell him for a check. All right. There was a real Dread Pirate Roberts that existed in, I guess, the early 1800s or something like that in the Caribbean and was thought to be one of the best pirates. Our fellow Mule Roberts, known as Black Art.
Yep. And he was thought to be the most accessible pirate of all time. Yeah. I think that's what I said.
The sword fighting between Carriellas and I'm not combining both the real name and the Meany Patienkian was all them, no stunk bubbles and anything, which is great. And my last little bit of trivia, which I love, is that the priest of the wedding was inspired by a Chicago rabbi that had a speech impediment. And the author of the book would be in service and would start giggling when this guy would start. Oh, the writer wrote the character inspired by the guy who was the actor.
No, no, no. The character was based on the Chicago rabbi who had a speech impediment and would crack up the author. Love. Yeah.
Love. Love. It's so good. Alright, that's what I had.
The Cinnies advice. I'm not getting involved in a land war in Asia. Yes. Is derived from principles stated by Field Marshal Bernard L.
Montgomery in a speech in the House of Lords on May 30, 1962. He said quote, Rule 1 on page one of the Book of War is do not march on Moscow. Rule 2 is do not go fighting with your land armies in China. Oh my God.
So, yeah. It's a real quote adapted for this dopey movie. And Eric, I got to use that quote maybe a week ago when somebody was talking about just go across, you know, from Alaska into Asia. And I took the clip that said, God, so good.
Never started a land war in Asia. Only slightly less well known. There was potentially there's rumors of a sequel to. Oh, really?
Okay. The Princess Bride is based on a story book written by the guy that wrote the movie. It's Goldman. Yeah, Goldman.
Yeah, Goldman. And he wrote it as if he was paraphrasing or quoting from someone else's book that his grandfather read to him when he was younger, S Montgomery or whoever it was. S Montgomery never existed. It was that all fake.
It was him saying the scene of this storybook thing. So the sequel would have been based on another related book, a new story or maybe it's a new chapter or that book. The first chapter of a new story called Buttercup's Baby. It tells a story of the heroes escape to One Tree Island and the kidnapping of Wesley and Buttercup's Baby by a skinless-faced man.
Yeah. Skinless, skinless-faced mad man. You. I don't know.
It feels like a red-faced guy and a vendor. The Red Skull? Yeah. Yeah.
Well, the Princess Bride novel promised to have a full version of Buttercup's Baby before the book's 50th anniversary, which was coming up in 2023. But that seems unlikely given that William Goldman's death, he died in 2018. So all that's not going to happen. It wasn't...no one was even sure if he was going to write this thing.
He just went out there. How about procrastinating? Like, you have 50 years to write that thing. Well, you never know.
Maybe he'll cover some dusty trunk and add everything. There's an outline in a spiral notebook somewhere. Yeah. And that concludes the totality of my trivia for this movie.
Eric, did you have anything? The only thing I can think of, I just always kind of thought it was kind of humorous. There was the... There's that story about how Robin Wright would always be cold on set and Anjur the Giant to keep her warm would just place his hand over the top of her head like a big hat.
And that would like warm her up. Oh my gosh. Shut up. That's like how big his hands were that he could just...
He would palm her head like a basketball. Yeah, like a great fruit. His hands were so big. Keep her warm.
Blood blowing through his hand at Warner head. Oh my gosh. That is insane. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. I mean, when you see close-ups of that hand, like they are just... Well, the meaty giant... In a movie.
Like when he's grabbing someone by the throat or whatever, it takes over to go like whole person's face. Yeah. Yeah. It's...
And then the famous pictures of him holding a can of beer. It looks like it's one of those little six-hounds. Like a little V8 juice cans or something. Yeah.
The story goes like that Anjur the Giant's rings, you can slide them over an egg. Right. Right. Right.
That's insane. Oh my gosh. How tall was he? They lifted him at seven, four, seven, five as a wrestler.
But all of that is overdone. How much do you weigh? Five... Oh.
At the end. Yeah. 525, 10, whatever. Wow.
But... It's a big human being. He likely was not seven, four, probably seven, one. Seven, two.
That's two. Yeah. According to IMDB, he was seven foot forward a quarter. See?
I know everything. Everybody was just... But once again, that could be at IMDB. It's...
Yeah. I mean, wrestling, when you see Hulk Hogan listed at 6 foot nine, he's definitely 6 foot and a half or 6, five and a half. He's not that big. He's just...
They're next to other guys. When you know... When you see Lester's alone. All right.
When Hulk Hogan takes a picture next to Troy Aikman at some event, and Troy Aikman we know is whatever he's at 6, 4 and a half. And Hulk Hogan is an inch taller than him in the picture. He's never been 6'9". Sorry guys.
That's how the wrestling stuff goes. So that wrestling book I did a thousand years ago. Right. And I had all the heights and weights.
And they're all over the place. Yeah. So you're sort of making averages and whatever. Interesting.
Regardless, guys, fine. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Casting. Okay. Not recast or bait, but casting issues. I found really three characters that had some alternate casting possibilities.
I didn't look too far from one because these were interesting. I only saw one, but I'm sure that's one of your three. Yeah. There's something I like run right past.
Like I don't want to... Yeah. Like I said, I usually do like a slot machine on my phone. I kind of like flip the screen and it goes fast and then I stop and then I kind of pick that one.
So Vissini. Okay. He put... There was a possibility in the audition that I don't think it was offered, but he was right there in the running for it.
Was Danny DeVito. No, of course. But he didn't want to do it or like turn it down before he was even offered because he couldn't... Oh no.
The other guy, Wallace Sean, he was neck and neck with DeVito, but he couldn't pull off the Italian accent that I think DeVito was doing. Oh. He thought he wasn't going to do it, but he definitely did it. DeVito I think turned it down because he had some other commitment.
Yeah. I mean, I can see where he would have been. Oh, it actually works. Yeah.
But it's a different character. And well, it actually could have looked familiar as well. I thought it was Wallace Sean. Sean, yeah.
Is like he's so good in it. He's so good. He's still the movie. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, Vessick was going to be potentially Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unknown at the time.
Right. Yeah. No, it didn't go like for 10 years to make the movie. Yeah.
And then 78. Oh. Yeah. It was like the quote unquote production hell for a decade.
Yeah. And then when they came back to him, uh, yeah, he's like, no. Yeah. He didn't want to do it.
And then they were like, they realized, you know, Schwarzenegger's six to me. Like this is the mean of Johnny. Yeah. Yeah.
And then somebody pointed out it may have been Schwarzenegger after he worked with him on Conan. Oh, no, he worked with, he worked with Will Dontonin the second one. But there are pictures of Will Chamberlain and Schwarzenegger and I'm enjoying it. Oh my God.
So somehow, Schwarzenegger knew Andre so maybe he's a. Yeah. Yeah. There was a little off topic, but there's a great story that Arnold Schwarzenegger told about Andre the giant in that Andre the giant documentary where the two of them were out to dinner together and they started to have a friendly argument about who was going to pay for dinner.
Yep. And Andre read some of the arguments you didn't say. He was like, you just effortlessly effortlessly picked Arnold Schwarzenegger up off the ground instead of like on top of a dresser. Yeah.
Yeah. Like some high, like some high piece of furniture. Yeah. And just like he was nothing.
Yeah. And it's sort of like six to two seventies. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I mean, that then kind of puts it into perspective, although I know that he was having a lot of health issues during the filming of the movie, but the way that Buttercup gets lifted up like she's as light as a feather, feathered by anybody in the movie, but certainly by Fesic is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.
That grab of her collar. Yeah. Like she happens to her least like three times in the movie. When he grabbed her at the beginning around the back of the neck and she immediately passes out.
Yeah. That's a weird one. Yeah. Okay.
Sports and there was another name I saw for Fesic. Okay. It didn't get very far because this actor would have been not been well known at the time either. And the guys talked about him or to him and then they were disappointed at how tall he wasn't.
We still tall. Liam Neeson. Oh. We're thinking about Liam Neeson.
Oh my God. That was only six or like they thought he was some giant. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
I don't know how. Yeah. Yeah. But her cup is interesting.
Okay. Here's where it gets weird. It seems like this is one where everybody was reading for it. So I was up for it.
The names I saw who auditioned. I don't believe any of these were offered or ever got too far. But the list includes this is 86 probably right. Okay.
Okay. Ooma Thurman. Okay. Courtney Cox.
And here's the one in 87. Okay. Yeah. So interesting around the time of the springsteen video.
Yeah. Yeah. That was the universe. Yeah.
Yeah. The one that is out of type. But who the hell knows? Who will be Goldberg?
Wow. I don't. I mean, we'll be especially at that time could have played a lot of things. I don't know how she works in the movie.
Yeah. I kind of like it though. Jumping Jack Flash with Goldberg. Oh my God.
All right. It's your favorite. It's my favorite. It's everyone's favorite.
It's a recasting debate. We call it recastor bait. Okay. All right.
This got weird for me real quick. I'm going to. This is not real, but this is where I started to go with this. Uh, uh, possibility here.
I started looking at the actors and. The types of characters they had. I mean, you could do a swap out with another movie and they're trying to whatever. And based on the look and style of this movie, I kept thinking of any of those sort of sword and sandal type, uh, epics and you can see.
And sandal. I guess what it's called. I've never heard of that in my whole life. That was period pieces were, you know, or sort of sandal.
I think if it's like the, like, the linear movies. Right. This is not far from that. It's looking like a swashbuckler.
More like, it's looking from the chandelier. Sort of. There you go. Uh, what's my almost thought of like a game of thrones or Lord of the Rings to swap out there and forget it, but I went in a different direction and thought Harry Potter.
Oh my God. So this is not real, but if we were to do that. I went Wesley would be Tom Felton. Uh, Draco.
Yeah. Uh, Buttercup is Emma Watson. Right. Uh, Inigo, Montoya.
I had Daniel Radcliffe. If all's part real. Right. Yeah.
Uh, Visiny. I had either Ralph Fiennes or Ray Fiennes, uh, or Kenneth, Kenneth Brana. I don't know. I'm not sure.
This is, this is a hard stretch. Oh, it's a very hard stretch. That's why I, I haven't read it. Yeah.
Okay. This is basic. Uh, I just had Hagrid. Uh, just rub a coal train in the same thing.
Uh, and then I did the six finger man count. Right. It doesn't, it falls apart real quick. Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe there's something, there's nothing. Yeah. Okay.
Who wants to start with Wesley? I think there is one person we're all going to have. And then it's going to devolve in there. I can go.
I mean, this is not my strongest category, but. Uh, so let me preface this. Cause I think we, we have done this before. Um, we're all going to run into the issue.
I think Allison does the best on this though is the age situation. If you want a younger actor, 25 or younger, they're abouts. I don't know it. I am not aware of more than two actors that fit that bill and I struggle with all this stuff.
So yeah, I had the exact same problem. So I've got three people. I would say number three is his name is Jacob Elordi. He plays one of the main character or one of the big characters in euphoria.
It's a tall guy in, he's probably like six, five. Handsome guy. And I think he is from the British Isles somewhere. But he plays American in the show.
Got George McKay from 1917, the main guy. Oh, it's also fantastic. That's a good one. Also British.
And then the number one person I picked and I've had him in my head from the beginning was Chris Enforth. Cause I think he can kind of like the comedic, but serious kind of part. Oh, I think it'd be great. Yeah.
It's definitely Chris Hemsworth 15 years ago or 20 years ago. I don't think ages with these don't really matter. Yeah. I get to do it.
My first, my two and three are definitely younger. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in looking at this, they're in their 20s.
I mean, I wrote down the ages just for reference. I knew in the movie like this doesn't really matter. But at the time, Carrie Ellis was 25. Yeah.
Robin Wright, 21. Yeah. Mandy Batinkin, 35. Wallace Sean was 44.
He still looks the same today. A little older, but under the giant. It doesn't matter. He was 41.
Oh, he lived that long. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think he's in his mid 30s late 30s or some sort of.
Oh, he's in his 40s. No way. Oh, he's late 30s early 40s. I don't know that perfect.
But I would say 41. I don't think it's that late. He's he'll be 39 in August. Right.