Ep 692 - The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Episode 692 - The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Release Date: March 3, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 692 of Overdue, hosted by Andrew and Craig from Headgum, the duo delves into the beloved classic, The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Known for their engaging discussions on a diverse array of books—from classic literature to quirky children's stories—Andrew and Craig bring their unique perspectives to this iconic tale that has captivated audiences both in print and on screen.

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Book vs. Movie: A Symbiotic Relationship

Andrew opens the conversation by pondering the often-discussed topic of whether the movie adaptations overshadow their source material. Unlike many adaptations where the film diverges significantly from the book, The Princess Bride stands out as a work where the book and movie are closely intertwined. Andrew remarks, “I feel like this book maps to the movie pretty precisely” (03:17), attributing this synchronicity to William Goldman's dual role as both author and screenwriter.

Craig echoes this sentiment, highlighting the seamless translation from page to screen, noting how the book's portrayal feels "made with each other in mind" (02:42). This alignment is partly credited to Goldman’s deep involvement in crafting both the novel and the screenplay, ensuring that the essence of the story remains intact across both mediums.

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Exploring William Goldman’s Legacy

The hosts transition into a brief biography of William Goldman, shedding light on his illustrious career. Starting as a novelist in the 1950s and transitioning into a renowned screenwriter, Goldman’s works include classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride. Craig shares an anecdote about Goldman’s challenges in adapting The President's Men, emphasizing Goldman's preference for novel writing as an art form over the technical craft of screenwriting (09:31).

Andrew adds depth to Goldman’s character by discussing his 30th-anniversary edition of The Princess Bride, which includes unique elements such as a prologue, an introduction, and an afterword. These additions provide readers with insights into Goldman’s creative process and his playful interaction with the fictional author, S. Morgenstern.

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Deep Dive into The Princess Bride

Andrew and Craig provide a comprehensive summary of The Princess Bride, highlighting key plot points and character dynamics. Buttercup, the story’s beautiful princess, and Wesley, the farmhand, are central to the narrative. Their evolving relationship is peppered with missed connections and eventual declarations of love, mirroring the film’s romantic undertones.

A notable discussion revolves around the book’s framing device—the narrator Goldman interjects with humorous asides and commentary, blurring the lines between fiction and reality. Andrew quips, “it’s a funny way to do a book” (23:37), appreciating how this technique adds layers to the storytelling.

The duo also touches upon the book’s unique structure, such as the inclusion of flashback chapters that provide backstory for characters like Inigo Montoya and Fezik. These elements enrich the narrative, offering readers a deeper understanding of the characters’ motivations and histories.

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Differences Between Book and Movie

While the book and movie share a close relationship, several differences emerge in their storytelling approaches. Andrew points out that the book includes darker elements, such as Prince Humperdinck’s “death zoo” where Wesley faces torture, adding a grittier tone not as prominently featured in the film (52:48). Craig contrasts this with the movie’s lighter, more definitive ending, where the heroes escape and share a happy resolution (57:24).

Additionally, the book’s ambiguous conclusion leaves readers pondering the fate of the characters, whereas the film opts for a satisfying and conclusive closure. Andrew reflects, “the ending of the movie gives it a more conclusive feel” (57:38), highlighting this fundamental difference in narrative resolution.

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Listener Reviews and Critiques

Andrew and Craig delve into audience reactions, sharing insights from Goodreads reviews. Jeanette, a reviewer, expresses skepticism about the book’s high ratings, suggesting that many readers conflate their appreciation of the film with the novel itself. She notes, “for all the originality in the telling, it really doesn't end up anywhere worth going” (65:19).

Another review from a user named Icarus critiques the book’s undercurrent of bitterness, finding the fictional editor Goldman’s voice off-putting. Icarus states, “I find that they soured my enjoyment of the story they framed” (66:55), contrasting with The Princess Bride movie’s more uplifting tone.

These reviews spark a discussion between the hosts about the balance between innovative narrative techniques and traditional storytelling, with Andrew acknowledging, “I did feel the device overwhelmed the story” (65:57).

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Conclusion: Enduring Legacy and Personal Reflections

As the episode wraps up, Andrew and Craig reflect on the enduring legacy of The Princess Bride. They commend Goldman’s commitment to his narrative device, maintaining the playful illusion of a fictional author while delivering a compelling adventure story. Andrew muses, “you can have your frame narrative, but it better not have any character or opinion or style of its own” (67:58), emphasizing the delicate balance Goldman achieves.

In their final thoughts, the hosts express admiration for both the book and the movie, acknowledging the unique strengths each medium offers. They encourage listeners to engage with both versions to fully appreciate the depth and charm of The Princess Bride.

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Notable Quotes

• Craig: “Never get into a, a podcast in Asia.” (00:14) – Highlighting the show’s playful tone.

• Andrew: “This book is funny pretty much throughout.” (44:53) – Emphasizing the humor embedded in the narrative.

• Craig: “It's a very successful film in 1987, directed by Rob Reiner...” (13:07) – Discussing the film’s production and legacy.

• Andrew: “I don't know that they make it like they used to movies lately.” (69:29) – Reflecting on modern filmmaking trends.

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Final Thoughts

Episode 692 of Overdue offers a rich exploration of The Princess Bride, balancing a thorough plot summary with insightful critiques and personal reflections. Andrew and Craig successfully navigate the complexities of adapting a beloved story, providing listeners—both new and familiar—with a comprehensive understanding of why The Princess Bride remains a cherished classic in both literature and film.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the time markers in the provided transcript.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew. Craig, how would you react if I told you that for this week's podcast the book was only mostly read?

[Craig]

What do you mean mostly?

[Andrew]

Oh, oh no, I'm doing it. I'm doing a princess. Princess Bride. Remember Princess Bride?

[Craig]

Yeah, I do.

[Andrew]

The funny, funny movie with all the quotes. Yes, Mail Witch. That's this one too.

[Craig]

Yes. I did watch the movie recently. They do say that in it, in.

[Andrew]

Many ways our podcast is a male witch. Between you and me, like because we have legally have a business together.

[Craig]

Uh huh. It's true. You know what they always say? Never get into a, a podcast in Asia. A lot of funny quips in that film.

[Andrew]

We'll talk about funny jokes. Yeah, it's a fun film.

[Craig]

This is our podcast for each week. One of them, one of them, one of them.

[Andrew]

Two guys, me or you, one of.

[Craig]

Us reads a book that we've never read before and we tell the other person about it and you, the listener, get to sit at home and listen along. You didn't have to read the book, Andrew.

[Andrew]

We did it. You could have, but you didn't have to.

[Craig]

You read this week's book. What did you read?

[Andrew]

I did read this week's book. I read the Princess Bride by William Goldman.

[Craig]

Sure. A film that apparently was a book first. And I don't know that I knew that.

[Andrew]

That's. Yeah. So I think one of like one of the things to talk about with this book is like movie bigger than book. And sometimes we do talk about a book that, that is like that.

[Craig]

Yeah, we, we. There are plenty of episodes that are a movie bigger than book, but I.

[Andrew]

Think, I, I don't know, like this, this is completely unscientific and just going off my gut. I feel like a lot of the time when movie bigger than book, like movie also different than book. Like more different than book.

[Craig]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

And I feel like this book maps to the movie like pretty precisely. And I think, I mean it's probably because golden was involved in the, I.

[Craig]

Mean he wrote the screenplay.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he wrote the screenplay. Like he, he was closely involved in the making of the movie as well. But yes, I feel like it's, I don't know, it's, it's, it's probably just a mark of how effective the movie is that once you've seen it, you can't read this book and imagine anybody other than the people in the movie in the roles in the book. Like, it's just. Yeah, they just both seem like they were made with each other in mind. Even though the book predates the movie by like a decade or whatever.

[Craig]

Yes. And the, the, from my understanding, the story is, you know, the book gets published in 1973, it is as it is, successful, but not, you know, it doesn't take over the country or anything like that. And people spend the next 15 years trying to make it a movie. Like all, all manner of directors take their, their stab at it. And it isn't until Goldman meets Rob Reiner through his dad while working on a book about Broadway or something that they finally come together on a screenwriting project that works.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The edition of this book I read was, I think, the 30th anniversary edition, which has a prologue, an introduction unique to the 30th anniversary edition, and then a different one from the 25th anniversary edition. And then a, like a letter that was sent out to people who wrote in asking about a, like a romance scene and then also a, an afterword about a fake second book. And then also the first chapter of the fake second book.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

So to preface this, I don't know how much of this is true and how much of it is because this book is just kind of lying to you the whole time about what is, what is real and what isn't. But Goldman, like, purporting to tell you real things, but also still pretending like the country and all the stuff in this book is real.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And like the original author is real, said that. Yeah. The thing, the thing that kept happening was he would, he would take it to a studio, he would get it to some, you know, like the one executive with decision making power and they would get right to the precipice of getting it made. And then that executive would leave or get fired or go somewhere else. Sure. And the one job of the person who comes in and replaces that person at a studio is to make sure that nothing the last guy said yes to ever gets made. And it had a whiff of truth to it. Maybe it's exaggerated, maybe it's completely made up like a lot of the things, but I thought it was funny. So here we are talking about it.

[Craig]

Here we are talking about it. This is a movie and a story, thus that Like, I've seen this movie like, two or three times. It is.

[Andrew]

Not a couple times. Like, not in a long time. I think you watched it recently.

[Craig]

I watched it yesterday.

[Andrew]

Okay. Yes.

[Craig]

And I think I had watched it within the last five years and then I'd seen it maybe once as a kid.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So it. But it. Every time I encounter it, I can think of the people in my life or the other, like, bits of media for whom it is. It is their Monty Python. Like it like this. I can think of the video games that make references to the rodents of unusual size. I just like the people who have all the funny quips, like, on the back of their hand ready to go. And it just, like, was never that for me. I don't know. I watched the movie Speed a lot as a kid. Like, I don't have. I don't know what. What I was supposed to have instead of what I had.

[Andrew]

Well, and what I don't know is that whether. Is whether this thing is, like, being passed down in that way. Like, I feel like.

[Craig]

I don't know. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, our specific generation. There is not a line in this that we don't, like, have in the back of our head somewhere just from, like, cultural osmosis and seeing the thing, like, clipped and parodied and talked about a million times. Like, you know, we were born in 85, 86, and this comes out in 87. I don't know if today's kids are being shown it in the same way.

[Craig]

My.

[Andrew]

But it did feel like. It does feel very foundational to.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

My sense of, like, comedy and pop culture.

[Craig]

Yes. I feel like. Quick tangent is that I think not only has, like, we've seen pop cultures kind of be fragmented, but all of the methods for parody and, like, the cultural osmosis to happen have also been fragmented. So, like, you know, SNL is still here, but, you know, I suppose it is. That's kind of. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, William Goldman, born 1931 in Chicago. Passed away in 2018. I think he was. I went to Oberlin. Andrew Boo. Boo. He got started in publishing in their literary magazine. He, you know, had designs on being a novelist from a relatively young age. I believe he got drafted into the army during the Korean War. He clerked in the Pentagon because he knew how to type and type well. He studied at Columbia on the GI Bill, and then he lived in New York City with his brother, who was also a writer. They were friends with John Kander of the composing team Kander and ebb. Apparently, the Goldman brothers Wrote the libretto for Kander's, like, dissertation, something like that. He was trying his hand at writing stage plays. It wasn't really going anywhere. His first novel was the Temple of Gold in 1956. You turn to Krusty. My turn. Your turn to curtsy. My turn to bow. Your turn to Krusty. What's happening?

[Andrew]

Hey, hey, kids.

[Craig]

It's Krusty Kurtzy. My turn to bow. 1958. Soldier in the rain in 1960. And then the 60s, towards the end of it is when he breaks into screenplay writing. He had gotten hired to work on a Flowers for Algernon adaptation that he then got fired from, but that led to him working on the Paul Newman movie Harper. And then a few years later, he's working. He's teaching at Princeton, and he writes the screenplay for Butch Cassidy. And the Sundance Kid gets him an Oscar, and he writes a few other screenplays. And then he comes out with this novel in 1973, followed by the Marathon man in 1974. Gets hired to do the screenplay for all the President's Men by Robert Redford. And he is credited with coming up with the follow the money line that Deep Throat utters in the film.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He did not like working on that movie. He says a quote went around from him saying, if you were to ask me, what would you change if you had your movie life to live over? I tell you that I have written exactly the screenplays I've written, only I wouldn't have come near all the President's Men thing to say, okay, that's unambiguous.

[Andrew]

I guess that's a statement.

[Craig]

Comes back into the 80s, and he's working on the adaptation of Princess Bride. We'll talk about that in a bit. He wrote the Misery adaptation. Then he spent many years in the 90s as a script doctor for Castle Rock. Just, you know, just there making movies a little bit better, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

One of the most successful screenwriters of the 20th century. And he also wrote a lot of, like, behind the scenes. Like, I don't like Hollywood books. Sure. So, like, you're. You know, what you said in. In the intro does seem to ring true to what his experience was like. He said that. No, quote, nobody knows anything. In his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, there are rumors that he worked on Goodwill Hunting. And he says it's because everyone was jealous of those guys and didn't believe that they could have written that movie. So they said that I did it. But, like, I read his New York Times obituary and, like, half of it is devoted to him being like this. Yes, I'm successful, but I hate all these people.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Right.

[Craig]

Or I don't like this industry or whatever. Know, didn't he thought novel writing was an art and screenplay was a craft? That's the line that he liked to draw.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

I'm not one to.

[Andrew]

And I did. You know, again, through all the kayfabe of this, of this book, which I. We can talk about in a sec. But he does sort of seem like he's. He, he's going through a period of his Life around the 30th anniversary edition of this book which would have hit in like the early 2000s.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Where he's been screenwriting for a while, hasn't written a novel in a while and seems frustrated by. By that. Yeah.

[Craig]

His willingness to go back and just keep updating this book does seem like maybe people weren't paying attention to his novels as much as he would have liked.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, but it's, it's also not a. Not like a Clockwork Orange thing. Right. Where he has like a semi antagonistic relationship with his most famous thing because he's tired of it. Like, he seems to have a lot of affection for this work for all the people who worked on the film.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew]

As so many people do. He has nothing but lovely things to say about Andre the Giant in particular.

[Craig]

Yeah. For real.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, like I think he keeps revisiting it not to necessarily do a sequel but to just keep, keep it alive because he seems to genuinely enjoy it and also to be like kind of chuffed that it's a thing that so many people identify with and enjoy. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yes. It was made into a very successful film in 1987, directed by Rob Reiner, who had just done like this is Spinal Tap and he read the book when he was younger and liked it. Found out later that a bunch of people tried and failed to make it and he kept cutting his budget until somebody said yes to let us do it. Which does. In watching it and I saw it shouted out in contemporaneous positive reviews. The like, it's not, it doesn't look like a low budget film, but it's.

[Andrew]

Not quite B movie. But it does have a. There, There is a shoestring. I've watched enough Star Trek movies to be. Identify when people do not have enough money to do what they wanted to.

[Craig]

Well, and given the like vibe of the story, which is the, like, this is a retelling of a story and like there's sort of an element of play acting to the whole venture. It makes it, it, it feels fun to watch as opposed to like low rent to watch.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The movie is, you know, very famous and successful though at the time, you know, it was moderately successful and has kind of grown in its cult status. You've got Wallace Shawn playing a role that was supposed to go to Danny DeVito or something. You got Billy Crystal and Carol Kane in wacky old age makeup. You've got Andre the Giant. You've got Carrie Elwes and oh, what's her name?

[Andrew]

Robin Wright.

[Craig]

Robin Wright, thank you. And you've got, of course, Manny Patenkin looking hotter than anyone has ever looked. Just truly Christopher Guest is there. Yeah, it's just, it's a fun flick. Can't.

[Andrew]

I don't know what else is like a nice, like he's an avuncular looking, pleasant looking guy, but you would not guess to look at him just in, in most other contexts.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

That he could be made that hot.

[Craig]

Yeah. As I said that way.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

As I said to Laura, it's the combination of his natural charisma, plus he's playing a hot guy in. And you've got, you've also got Peter Falk as a grandpa reading a story to his grandson, Fred Savage, which is not the same device that the novel itself uses, which we'll talk about. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's. I don't need to, we don't need to devote the episode to the film. So, like, the film's out there, it's good, go watch it.

[Andrew]

But also, yeah, I think we will make a couple points of comparison, but I think we'll make them mainly because there are only a couple of points where the, the book truly diverges from what the movie is doing.

[Craig]

So, yeah, what I got on the origins of the. The story is that he was, he was telling bedtime stories to his daughters, 7 and 4. And he said, I'll write you a story. What do you want it to be about? And one of them said a princess, and the other one said a bride. And he said that'll be the title. And he wrote the. When he tried to turn it into a proper novel, he wrote the beginning chapter part of the next installed out. Then he decided to turn it into an abridged version of another novel, which we'll talk about. I don't, I feel like to actually unpack anything else about the book itself is to. Just to talk about the book. Do you have anything else to set the stage?

[Andrew]

No, I don't. I don't think so. No.

[Craig]

Okay, because I don't even. I don't even want to say the name of this fictional author until we get after the break.

[Andrew]

Normally we would have an authority section that goes before the break, but I guess when the author is fake, we can do whatever we want.

[Craig]

So find out who really wrote the Princess Bride in just a few.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

I know I did.

[Andrew]

Well, you need to take our survey so we could keep making them. You know this. We know this. There are ads on our podcast. We want to improve that experience. But in order to do this, we need to know a little bit more about you, our audience. The survey is quick, easy, and a free way to support this podcast. It'll take you two minutes, and you'll be helping us out so much by doing it. So go to GUM FM Overdue to fill out our audience survey. That's GUM fm. O V E R D U E.

[Craig]

Okay, Andrew. It's my understanding that William Goldman didn't actually write the Princess Bride. Someone else wrote it. And does your edition have a longer title as well?

[Andrew]

Yeah, William Goldman is but an abridger of works. It does have a longer title. Let me dig it up here. The Princess Bride S. Morgan Stern's classic tale of true love and high adventure. The good parts version, abridged by William Goldman.

[Craig]

The good parts version is really funny to me. The good parts version, Yeah. I did not know that that's what this book was. That this book was pulling like a Don Quixote, basically.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's like I. You know, from. From the movie, you can kind of assume that there is going to be a frame. Like, it's going to be a book that is like. It's about not just storytelling, but it's about, like, the process of being told a story by somebody. And then also on top of that, you get the story.

[Craig]

Yeah. So in the film, just real quick to review for anybody who hasn't seen in a while.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

It opens with Fred Savage playing hardball on the Commodore 64, and then his grandpa, played by Columbo, comes in and is like, hey, you're sick. I'm gonna read you this book. And, yeah, you're gonna get weirded out by some of the kissy bits. So, like, maybe I'll skip over some stuff. And so you have this grandpa editorializing the story with his grandson as you go through the novel. So you're like, you know, you're missing some parts or, like, you know, you're getting extra commentary or things like that. But there are also large sections of the movie, which is not very long anyway, where it's just like, no, this is just the story. Because it's, like, too good. Actually, we're not gonna do any commentary here. So I was surprised to find out that it is not just the exact same thing in the book. It's something aligned, but different.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So there's a similar device where Goldman is. He talks to you throughout the book in like, italic sections.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. And there are also asides in the non italicized sections, but these, we are told, is Morgenstern doing a bunch of doing asides. Okay, but Goldman, it is said in this book, is read the original Morgenstern by his dad while he is in bed recovering.

[Craig]

Oh, neat.

[Andrew]

From a bout of pneumonia. And then he. But Goldman can't then later, as an adult, cannot find the original Morgenstern anywhere for a long. Like, has to go to great lengths to find the original Morgenstern. And so to help bring this story to a wider audience, a wider audience it deserves to have, he is taking the original and he's abridging it, mostly using things that his dad also cut out while he was reading to him.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And is passing it on to us, the reader. And it's also, at various points presented as an actual true history of this country. Florin. This fictional country. I was going to ask that Morgan Stern is from.

[Craig]

He's from the country. Right. Okay, well, so.

[Andrew]

So Goldman is not from the country. He's actually never. Oh, yeah. Morgan Stern is from the country. Goldman has. Has never been there.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Which we. We can talk about, I guess, more if we want to talk about the. The end. Be. Yes, I would like the first chapter of the quote, second book at the end.

[Craig]

Sure, sure.

[Andrew]

But. But yeah, this is. This is a story that someone else wrote. And Goldman breaks in sometimes to be like. Yeah, this part where they talk about, like, how Buttercup is trained to be a princess over the course of three years. Like, I'm just going to tell you, three years went by. You're missing a bunch of boring stuff. Don't worry about it. I'm going to focus mostly on the only adventure parts and like the. The emotionally resonant, like, true love parts.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And my editor really doesn't want me to add other stuff in, even though some. I find there are some deficiencies in Morgenstern's original material.

[Craig]

I just. I just think it's a funny way to do a book. I.

[Andrew]

It's a. It's a funny way to do a book. I think as. As in the movie. I think a lot of the frame of it, especially like all the asides about stuff like both Goldman's asides and quote. Morgenstern's asides are denser in, in the first Part. And then in the, the, like the meteor kind of middle part of the book is mostly just like, oh, hey, this is a, actually a fun adventure story with fun characters. I'm just gonna mostly tell it and then, you know, he'll still break in occasionally. But it is like the book works because it is a fun story that has good characters in it, like distinctive characters who are very memorable even. I mean, it's impossible for me to divorce it from the movie, but I think that based on what parts were easier for me to read, that it is an engaging book with engaging characters and that's why it's good.

[Craig]

Yes. My reaction watching the film was it reminded me of what is fun about a good D and D group where you are like, you're cut. You're always like taking the lark out of. You're always like, you know, goofing a little bit because it's fun to goof in a group.

[Andrew]

And you're also, you know, you're in a, an otherworldly fantasy setting or like an old timey setting.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Also, characters speak in like, modern vernacular sometimes because that's just. Yeah.

[Craig]

And you also still value it when like, the story gets real and like, you get invested in the, in the story. So it's this fun kind of like, yeah, we're moving through the adventure. Isn't it so funny that we're on an adventure, but, oh, wow, I care about it. And then the movie is very much leaning into the, like, it's okay to care about things, you little dweeb. Fred Savage. Like, it's okay to like, like a story where people are in love the whole time and that it's like not a story about a flawed protagonist. He's just a hero who's a good guy and he's in love with the lady he's in love with. And like, that's a fun thing to root for.

[Andrew]

When did the wizard come out?

[Craig]

Oh, goodness.

[Andrew]

Was Fred Savage playing the Commodore 64 in this before he played Mario 3 in the the Wizard?

[Craig]

I think probably The wizard is 1989. So, yeah, new as video games, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Just, just asking, just asking questions, Mandy. As we always do on this podcast.

[Craig]

Mandy Patenkin said of the film, he. He remembered Rob Reiner at the first lunch, he said, he said to me, the way I want everybody to play this is as though you have a hand of cards. And I want all of us to almost show the hand to the audience, but we never really show it. That's how I want it to happen. So he collected a bunch of people who would play the cards that way. And I read that as Potenkin saying, like, we're gonna let you know the type of movie it is, but then we're gonna kind of reveal what the movie is capable of over time. Yeah. And again. Yeah. It seems to speak that the book is very similar in its. In what it's up to.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And it just.

[Andrew]

It just seems like whenever you. Whenever you hear anybody who worked on this movie talking about working on this movie, it does not seem like there is a person who had a bad time.

[Craig]

Yeah, they all had a great time. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And it's also. It's also a movie that is filled with people who, when they show up and things, I'm like, oh, yeah, nice, he's here.

[Craig]

Yes. Yes.

[Andrew]

For real. But it's like a. Like, you know, you know how it feels to see Steven Root show up in something. I feel that way about most of the people in this movie.

[Craig]

Yes. That is. That is the Steven Root quotient of someone's appearance.

[Andrew]

Okay, Give me, like, I would also. I would also accept a. A. Oh, man. The. The guy who was on Only Murders in the Building, Richard Kind. Oh, Richard is also another one of those guys. Yes.

[Craig]

The thing about Richard Kind, even more than Steven Root, though, is like, I'm just excited to see Richard Kind. When I see Stephen Root, it's like, what weirdo is he gonna be?

[Andrew]

This Stephen Root can more fully get lost in a weirdo character where Richard Kind is always like, oh, Richard Kind is here. Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay. What? Give me, like, a high level summary of the story as you, like, remember it from reading it this time, like, and anything else that jumped out differently along the way.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, so just going into the story and kind of discarding, you know, to abridge the book and remove the parts where it is constantly telling you about how it's an abridgment. Sure. Our story sort of begins with this poor family living in this kingdom of Florin. And there is this farmer couple who is like, they have cows and they're not very good, but they're also like, the only cows. And this is kind of why people even know who they are.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

But they have a daughter named Buttercup. And the book, like, the. It talks a lot about, like, the, you know, whoever the most beautiful woman in the world is in this early part. Like, as though it is a. A title that one person can be said to have, and it filters through a few of the most beautiful women in the world. And, like.

[Craig]

Oh, it invites you. It invites you, the reader, whenever you are, to, like, fill it in with whoever that is. His face.

[Andrew]

Well, it's just. It's just. It's telling you, like, this so and so of. Of whatever country. It was the most beautiful world for this. For this brief period. But then this is what happened to her.

[Craig]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

And so this. The setup that Buttercup is. Is very. Becomes very beautiful. But, you know, when she is a very young woman just, like, coming into womanhood, it's like, yeah, she barely has cracked the top 20, but, wow. Potential. The potential is there.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Weird. And so men are starting to notice Buttercup, and they're starting to kind of go out of their way to. To come and see her. And the, like, the. The ruler, like, the prince of the kingdom comes and notices her and wants to take her off and wants to teach her how to be a princess and wants to marry her. Is like the very, like, quick and not necessarily, like, sequential version of what happens.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

But what is. You know, what's also happening on this. On this farm is that there is a farmhand named Wesley who kind of vexes Buttercup a little bit. Like, he's, you know, he's handsome, but she thinks he's kind of stupid. All he does, when she asks him to do something, it says, as you wish. But when she is given the opportunity to, like, rise above her station, I guess, and go and become this, you know, become betrothed to this prince, she realizes that she is actually, like, wildly in love with him.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And she. But she. But they both kind of, like, pass each other like ships in the night a little bit. Like, they're. They're not really ready to admit that they love each other at the exact right time. So she goes off to. To become, you know, betrothed to this prince, and he goes off to find a life of adventure for a little while, and then you flash forward, and then the. It's abridged. You wait. You wait three years, and you jump forward in time.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And Buttercup is. You know, she is. She is getting to be. She's. The people of the. Of the kingdom are getting to know her and like her. She is, of course, the most beautiful woman in the world now. She's been, like, polished by. By, you know, some years of maturity and all the people who she has working on her, like, hair and skin and stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

In this new setting.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's got.

[Andrew]

But she still looks like she still likes to go out Horseback riding on her horse, whose name is Horse. And one day she is out behind the castle riding on horse and these three guys come up to her and they take her. It's like a small hunch, hunchbacked guy and a, like a skinny swordsman with like two scars on either side of his face and a very large giant Turk. He's, he's from Turkey.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's described a few times.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And these of course are, are people who are pretty iconic characters from the movie, I think. So Vizzini, the Sicilian hunchback, who is very smart and, and witty and people think he can read minds, but really he says he's just really good at like guessing what's going to come next because, because of how smart he is.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

There's Anigo Montoya, who is a Spaniard whose father was. So he, his father was a guy who's really good at making swords.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And everybody, everybody thought there was this other guy who's really good at making swords. But when somebody came to him with a special order, he would come to an ego's father, Domingo, and ask, hey, I need you to help me make this sword. And so a six figure, a six fingered man comes to Domingo and says, I need you to make a sword that's like as good as Excalibur and I will pay you a lot of money to do it.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And Domingo says, yeah, okay, I'm, I'm, I like he, he needs to be intrigued by the, by the job or he doesn't want to do it. And so to make a sword that is, that can be perfectly balanced in a six fingered hand and as good as Excalibur is like something that excites him.

[Craig]

That's interesting.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So, and then this, this count after a year shows up to, and this is for both Anigo and, and Fezik, who I'll talk about in a sec. We get a flashback that.

[Craig]

Oh, neat.

[Andrew]

That makes them sympathetic people instead of just like kidnappers of a woman.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But yeah, so the, the six fingered man shows up to collect the sword. Domingo gives it to him. And the six fingered man says falsely, oh, this sword sucks. I'm not going to give you like I'm not going to give you what I said I was going to give you for it. Domingo says, well now, now this is my son's sword. I'm not going to give it to you. And the six fingered guide kills Domingo in front of, oh, Inigo Montoya.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

And then Inigo Montoya spends The night. Like, he's like 10 or 12 when this happens. And so he spends many, many years after this learning the sword because he wants to track this guy down and get his revenge.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

And then the third. Third guy is Fezik. He's a. He's a giant Turk. He was always very, very big, even from babyhood. And his parents would take him around to, like, wrestle the greatest. All the greatest fighters from all the world's kingdoms. And he would always beat everybody so easily that everybody really hated him and booed him all the time because it was just. It just seemed like too unfair.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

To set this big boy against all these. All these other fighters. And so, yeah, he just. He spends his life like he. He is one of those guys who presents, is not very smart, but it's mostly just because all the people around him are telling him he's not very smart all the time.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Yep. The. The book does do a cut. Like, it does have a couple funny turns of phrases as it plays with that. The one that I like the most was Inigo, and. And Fezik are both doing something, and they have to, like, they have to stay calm. And an ego is hoping that Fezik will be the one to keep his wits about him because he doesn't have very many wits. And so it will be. It should be easier for him to keep track of them. Like, it's not meant to be a burn. It's just like. It's just how the characters think about Fezik. This. But yeah. So these two kind of outcasts meet Vizzini, and he is a. You know, he's kind of a mastermind who brings them together and gives them a little bit of purpose. And that's why the three of these guys are traveling together. But they've been given a. Given a job to kidnap Buttercup and take her to a neighboring kingdom of Gilder. Yeah, Of Gilder to. To cause a. To give Florin, like, a pretext for going to war with them.

[Craig]

Yes. Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The thing that I just want to shout out because you have a Sicilian, a Spaniard and a Turk walk into a bar, these two made up countries of Florin and Guilder. I did come across the term Ruritanian romance or Ruritania, in researching this book. It is not something I had heard of before, but Ruritania was, like, a name given to some of this, like, fictional central or Eastern Europe country in, among other things, the Prisoner called. The novel called the Prisoner of Zenda. And it has become Like a trope for, like, all those Christmas princess movies on Netflix, Andrew, that take place in, like, an impossibly small European country.

[Andrew]

Is. Even. Is the Princess Diaries one of these?

[Craig]

Even the Princess Diaries? Yes, of course. Just these. Like, it's in the real world, but it's Fantasy town.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but it's in a country that just, like, has the properties of like, three other countries kind of mashed together.

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

So we don't. So we don't have to deal with the, like, the geopolitical consequences of setting it in a real country. Yes.

[Craig]

And then the fun thing about Ruritania is it also has, like, use in, in the law where, like, people will invoke it as a hypothetical place when they need a. Like to put hypothesize how a fictional country would interact with, like, some element of jurisprudence. This is weird the way that, like, we wind up with legal standards based on a guy made up something in a book.

[Andrew]

You know the company Microsoft that makes the software that everyone has to use for work?

[Craig]

Yeah. The people who killed Skype.

[Andrew]

Yeah, Those people, they. For decades and decades, whenever in documentation they need to use a. A company name, they use a company named Contoso for some reason.

[Craig]

And it's just made up.

[Andrew]

And it's just made up. And it's existed for literally decades. And every once in a while you come across somebody who's clearly trying to follow some documentation, but they're doing it wrong because instead of typing in their organization's name wherever it says Contoso, they're just trying to type in Contoso because that's what it says to do in the. Ah.

[Craig]

That'S like, when people make maps and they put, like, an error in it on purpose to check you, you don't steal their map. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, that's good and dumb. Oh, man. Okay, so they have kidnapped Princess Buttercup. They're kidnapping Princess Buttercup to, like, create a pretext for war. I love. Yeah, I love the Iraq War.

[Andrew]

And, and the. So, yeah, the structure of the section is there are these three guys. They're. They're are sailing to get Buttercup over the, like, the border between Floren and Gilder.

[Craig]

Two defunct currencies.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And kill her on the. On the Gilder side so that it causes. So that Floren can invade Gilder.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

And it's all like, I'm giving you that information ahead of time. It's not revealed until later that it's Prince Humperdink, the Prince of Floryn. Who has actually paid them to do this because he wants to. He. He wants an excuse to invade Gilder with, like, the people's permission and with this, like, popular princess. That's how he's gonna do it?

[Craig]

Yes, sure.

[Andrew]

For. For a while, it's not clear who is. Who is kidnapping Buttercupper or why.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And you're led to believe, like, maybe it is somebody from Gilder. I don't know. Who knows?

[Craig]

Cool.

[Andrew]

But you're. You're with these three guys, and then as. As. As they're getting away, they start to be followed by this man dressed in black. And nobody knows who he is, but he seems like he's very skilled. They. They climb up the Cliffs of Insanity, which are these very tall cliffs that are impossible for people to climb without. Without help.

[Craig]

Okay?

[Andrew]

So everybody hops on Fezik, including Vizzini and. And an ego and Buttercup, and he climbs up the rope by himself. And then as the man in black is climbing up the rope following them, they, like, they throw the rope off the cliff. But then the man in black is still climbing. And so Vizini says, all right, an ego. You stay here. You gotta deal with this man in black when he gets up, as we all get away.

[Craig]

Okay?

[Andrew]

And so an ego is waiting for this man in black to come. And this is when we get the Anigo, like, flashback chapter.

[Craig]

Smart. Okay?

[Andrew]

So that. That's when it chooses to be like, okay, this guy is not. He has texture, he has. He has motive. That's not purely evil. Here's how he comes to be here, and here's all the information you need to know for when he becomes a hero in the story later so that you can like him.

[Craig]

It makes sense to me that they did not put a thing like that in the film. The film is operating quickly enough and deftly enough that you don't need it. But I could see it still being enjoyable.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, yeah, it's. It's. It's a good structure that works for the book. I think the movie can get away without doing it just like this. Just because of the. The raw, like, charisma of.

[Craig]

You don't think that of Andre the.

[Andrew]

Giant and, like, Mandy Patankin. Yeah, well.

[Craig]

And you get a lot out of Carrie Elwes in that moment, being like, I respect this man. So, like, where you can tell right away that no one respects Wallace character.

[Andrew]

Wallace Sean plays a lot of care. Like the other. The other Wallace Shawn role that I identify him with the most is he plays, like, the. Like the leader of the Ferengi. Oh, yeah, on Star Trek Deep Space, sure. And listen there, is it, Is it problematic that this, this kind of ugly looking, money grubbing race of aliens is portrayed almost exclusively by Jewish actors? Maybe, who could be. Yeah, but Wallace Sean is fun in the role. And it's.

[Craig]

Yeah, he's the only guy who gets a. Like, it's not even a real negative knock, but in the New York Times review of the film, they say that it's been well cast, with each actor managing to remain within the bounds of the storytelling framework, with the possible exception of Mr. Sean, whose comic appearances in tough guy parts are becoming rather familiar.

[Andrew]

Okay, I don't know what, I don't know what that means.

[Craig]

I'm not sure exactly what that means.

[Andrew]

Jada Maslin, but whatever, I get it. But. Okay, so.

[Craig]

So the duel happens.

[Andrew]

The duel happens. The man in black, who we still don't know who he is, fights an ego. And they both like, do a kind of a fake out thing where an ego, like, it's been so long since an ego has fought anybody who's challenged him. So he goes at the man in black left handed, and he notices, oh, this, this man in black is left. Is left handed too. So I don't, you know, this, this will be like an even fight, even though I'm using my offhand. And they are both like, evenly matched. And then ego is like, hey, actually I'm right handed and it looks like he's going to win for a while. And then the man in black is like, well, actually I'm also right handed. And so he bests Inigo, doesn't kill him, but, like, ties him up and runs off after the rest of the rest of them. Then Vizini tells physic, okay, the man in black, I see he's somehow defeated in ego. You need to, you need to go stop him with your strength and like, throw rocks at him or smash him or something and just keep him from following us. Then we get the fek Jap, like the, the fek flashback. Learn everything about him. And then, and then the man in black and Fezic fight and same, same deal. Like it is. The fezic is surprised by somebody who is giving him like a real fight. Like the first real fight that he's had in a long time or maybe ever. Yeah, and the man in black, like, bests him, but doesn't kill him and moves on. And then he catches up with Vizzini, who is there with Buttercup. And I, I assume it happens the Same way in the movie. It's like the. It's like a.

[Craig]

Like a poison.

[Andrew]

Like a Put. Put poison in one cup. And then like Vizzini, if you're so smart, you'll know which. You'll know how to guess which cup doesn't have the poison in it.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yes.

[Andrew]

And then he does drink the poison, and the man in black is. Is like, I put. I put poison in both the cups, and I just have a resistance to poison that I've been holding up for, like, two years. It's really good.

[Craig]

It's a really good throwaway into that scene. It's. Did it read as funny on the page? Because that was my fear with this book.

[Andrew]

No, it. It was. It, yes, it was funny. Like, this book is funny pretty much throughout.

[Craig]

Cool.

[Andrew]

Cool. It is. It is kind of the only thing that I was thinking as I read it is like, oh, well, Vizini is clearly not getting a sympathetic flashback chapter because we are literally going to kill him and he's not gonna come back and he's not gonna be in the rest of the story.

[Craig]

Fair enough. Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, the man in black, who turns out to be Wesley, catches up with Buttercup, and they realize who each other are and that they love each other. Like, Buttercup has had this thought of. Of the prince is like, I don't. I don't need to be in love to marry this. This prince. I'm just gonna do it. I was in love once, but he kind of broke my heart, so I'm not gonna. Not gonna try to get married for love again. Like, it's not. It's not that important to me. But then Wesley shows up and they both, you know, express their undying love for each other and decide to. To move on. They go into this, like, fired swamp to avoid Prince Humperdink, who at this point has given chase to them.

[Craig]

Is this where the. The book, yada, yada, is them reuniting? Is that the reuniting scene that it's talking about or is that something else?

[Andrew]

Yeah, that. That's the reuniting scene.

[Craig]

Okay, so we can.

[Andrew]

We can talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So the. This is one of the things that Goldman decides to abridge. So to.

[Craig]

So to speak.

[Andrew]

So to speak. And in. In the book is an actual real world address that if you want to see the reunion, like, the real reunion scene that his editor wouldn't let him.

[Craig]

Put in that he write that quote, unquote. Goldman wrote.

[Andrew]

Goldman wrote it because he didn't like what Morinstern had put in.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so he says, if you want this, if you want the reunion scene that I wrote, write a letter to this real address, send it in, and you'll. And we'll send you the three page reunion scene. And so for more modern editions, it's is changed to a website URL. But the website URL also doesn't like, go anywhere. So you have to, without realizing that it was all in the, like, the back of the book, like all this stuff I did go looking for, and you can't find like, PDFs of the original, like, letters that people would get back. But the letter that you would get back if you sent something to this address at the time was like a typed form letter telling you I wanted to send you the reunion scene that you wanted. But Morgan Stern, like the. The lawyers from Morgan Stern's estate have shown up and they've told me that I can't do it.

[Craig]

It's so funny.

[Andrew]

It's pretty good.

[Craig]

It's a good goof. I just think it's clever. I just think it's. This is just. I don't think about people doing this in the 70s. I don't know why. I don't think that they could have.

[Andrew]

It does feel very internety. It does though. It does like to. To continually like, promise a thing and then yank it out, like yank it back because you. Because it's part of the joke that the thing doesn't actually exist.

[Craig]

And it's my understanding that the, like the letter would get updated with different editions like once the movie came out. And then to your point, once the, Once the. They put it on the Internet and then it was like, here are all the editions of the letter that you can read. It's just very, just very silly stuff.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And there's. I think there was one update where he's like, well, the, the rights, like the copyright on the, on the Morgenstern expires in 78. And then later, like another addition to the letter. Well, the, the lawyer, he's from Florin and he wrote the date wrong and it's actually 87 and not 78. So I still, I still can't send it. I'm really sorry.

[Craig]

I just love this. The same dude who wrote all the President's Men, he's just like in here mucking around with his goofy little fancy novel.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah, I love it. It's Watergate.

[Andrew]

I like when funny people can. Can do serious stuff and vice versa. Like, those are two. Those are two joys. I think, like, thinking about the guy who did Zoolander also doing severance is like a real.

[Craig]

Well, yes.

[Andrew]

He's an enduring mind freak right now.

[Craig]

Well, and you look at, like, what is. Is feral, and I guess is McKay also a producer on Succession? Like that kind of thing, right? Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay, so they've. Where were we?

[Andrew]

In the. Okay, so they do the fire.

[Craig]

What's his name?

[Andrew]

Vizzini. Yeah.

[Craig]

And they reunited. They're in the Fire Swamp.

[Andrew]

They're in the Fire Swamp. They get attacked by the rodents of unusual size.

[Craig]

Is that how they're referred to in the.

[Andrew]

It's a like. Yeah. The acronym is what's. Is what's used. And then after you've seen the acronym used, like six times, it does. It does tell you what it stands for, which is.

[Craig]

Oh, neat.

[Andrew]

Okay. There. You know, there's an episode with those. There's like, Buttercup falls into quicksand, and Wesley rescues her. And then they get to the end of the Fire Swamp, but Prince Humperdink is there waiting for them. And to save Wesley's life, Buttercup is like, well, I can get married to the prince. I don't have to get married for love. And kind of leaves. And kind of leaves him behind.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I don't remember at what point in this Wesley talks about all the Dread Pirate Roberts stuff, but it does happen in here somewhere where you find out what Wesley has been doing since you saw him last.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Is he. You know, he went to go find adventure with the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the Dread Pirate Roberts says, I'm going to kill you. But then Wesley makes himself useful to the Dread Pirate Roberts and eventually finds out that the Dread Pirate Roberts is not the Dread Pirate Roberts. He's like the second or third Dread Pirate Roberts. And it's kind of a title that is passed along from pirate to pirate because if you just show up to somebody's ship and say, hey, I'm Wesley. Give me all your stuff, like, they're not going to be sufficiently intimidated by you. So Wesley has been given. Given the title, given the ship, and that is kind of his. His position in the world right now. He also has been, you know, spending all his time getting better at all the fighting and thinking and stuff that he needs to, like, outsmart and out fight all these guys to get Buttercup a clever device.

[Craig]

I like. I don't. I'm sure something like the Dread Pirate Roberts thing existed before this book, but it does. Like, I don't know, in the cultural osmosis of the Film like that is one of the. Anybody is the Dread Pirate Roberts, as long as they get handed the title and then they go off and do the piracy. Like that's just one of the enduring things from the movie for me.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So like, I don't know how much we need to like blow by blow the whole rest of it. Like, I think that. I think the heart of the book really is Inigo and physic and a lesser extent like Wesley. Like, unfortunately, Buttercup kind of feels underdeveloped.

[Craig]

Reflected in the film as well.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's so. So Wesley is like, is kidnapped by Prince Humperdinck. I think this is. This is the. So this and the ending, I think are the two parts other than like how the frame works where the book and the movie are like substantially different.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

In the, in the book, like Humperdinck has like some kind of like a death zoo that he just keeps really dangerous animals in.

[Craig]

What?

[Andrew]

He takes Wesley down there and like tortures him using a device that like removes his life one year at a time until he's dead.

[Craig]

Okay, that, that does sort of happen in the movie, but I don't remember.

[Andrew]

But it's not like a dead zoo, right? Like, it's not like a torture chamber.

[Craig]

It's just the Six Fingered man has a cool like suck your life out machine that he likes.

[Andrew]

And so the Count does still have like a suck your life out machine. But. Okay, but yeah, like Humperdinck does this like most dangerous. Has this most dangerous game zoo where it's. I mean, it's not. He's not hunting man. He's hunting mostly very dangerous animals. But he does bring Wesley down there to like torture him to death.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah, the count is the six figure man who killed an ego's dad is working for Prince Humperding. So we don't know how that's gonna end.

[Craig]

Is there still like a bring him back? Like a revive?

[Andrew]

Yes, there's. So, you know, you go to like Max the. What's his name? What's the. Max the Magnificent. Magnificent.

[Craig]

Something like that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, something like that, boy. But yeah. So yeah, an ego and physic both wake up, they both like regroup and when they finally meet each other again, they say to each other, well, we both respected this man in black. We don't have a person in our lives to tell us where to go or what to do. The six, they know the Count is the six fingered man and they respect the man in black and the man in black bested Vizzini. So they need to go find the man in black.

[Craig]

Yes, yes.

[Andrew]

So that he can tell them what to do. And that's how they become, like, good guys on the team.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

With Wesley. So, yeah, they go to rescue him. They're too late. He's dead. They take him to Max.

[Craig]

Miracle Max.

[Andrew]

Miracle, yes, Miracle Max. Pronoun who says, oh, he's only mostly dead. Or like, that's it.

[Craig]

No, that's.

[Andrew]

No. But at first there are three phases of it, and it's like, sort of dead. Mostly dead and really dead.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And he's. When he gets there, initially he's sort of dead, but then he progresses to mostly dead as they're, like, talking and haggling over the. Over, like, the cure. And whether Miracle Max is going to help them or not. Okay, is. Is the. The only big line from the movie I can think of that doesn't appear in the book is, I did, like, the have fun swarming the castle.

[Craig]

So much of that is not in the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So much of that scene is Crystal improvising. That is Reiner being like, hey, Billy Crystal. Just do Billy Crystal stuff. Just, like, riff on a Mel Brooks character and have a good time. We'll put you in some old age makeup and, you know, whatever. So, like, a lot of the very quotable lines from that scene are just, the camera was rolling, and so Billy Crystal became Billy Crystal and could not stop himself from talking. And that's. That's usually what he does.

[Andrew]

There's an aside from Goldman here saying, one last thing. Hiram, my editor, felt the Miracle Max section was too Jewish in sound, too contemporary. I really let him have it on that one. It's a very sore point with me because just to take one example, there was a line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Bush said, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals. And one of my genius producers said, that line's got to go. I don't put my name on this movie with that line in it. And I said, why? And he said, they didn't talk like that then. It's anachronistic. I remember explaining, Ben Franklin wore bifocals. Bifocals. Ty Cobb was batting champion of the American League when these guys were around. My mother was alive when these guys were alive and she wore bifocals. We shook hands and ended enemies, but the line stayed in the picture. And so here, the point is, if Max and Valerie sound Jewish, why shouldn't they? You think a guy named Simon Morgenstern was Irish Catholic. And that. That is the. That is the voice and the kind of discursive nature of the. Of the asides that you get from Goldman as, like a bridger of this book.

[Craig]

I guess I didn't. I did not anticipate that he would be, like, name dropping that he wrote Butch Cassidy. Yeah, like, what a wild voice to give the book.

[Andrew]

That's the thing about the, like, the kayfabe of it is it's so intertwined with, like. Yeah, I'm really. I'm not playing some. I'm like, he is fictitious William Goldman, because he is doing all this stuff that didn't actually happen. But then also he is real world William Goldman because he wrote Bush, Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That's really cool. What's happening?

[Craig]

All right. I don't even know.

[Andrew]

Like, and so they. And so they all, you know, they storm the castle and they ultimately successfully rescue Buttercup in the movie.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It, like, ends on a kind of like a satisfying ish button where they, like, kiss and kind of live happily ever after. Right. Like, how does the movie end exactly? Pretty quick.

[Craig]

Like, they all just get on the horses and then they just, like, ride away. Like, it's not. They don't linger on much. They like, escape from the. From the wedding. Evil wedding. They ride away on the white horses. Wesley tells Inigo that he can be Dread Pirate Roberts. And then Wesley.

[Andrew]

That doesn't happen in that book.

[Craig]

Oh, okay. And then Wesley and Buttercup kiss, and then we cut to Fred Savage and he's like, wanna read that book again, please?

[Andrew]

So that's. That's the. That's still a more definitive ending than the book.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

And then also the added button of the, like, let's wrap around back to Fred Savage and his grandpa. Yeah, like, the ending of the movie, that. That gives it more of a conclusive feel, I think. In the. In the book it's just, you know, Buttercup and. And Wesley and company are all riding out on these horses, and Prince Humperdinck says he's like, stop them. Go get them. And they are all like, various types of, like, wounded or in, like, Fezik gets confused and lost. And Buttercup's horse, however, this was before Inigo's wound reopened and Wesley relapsed again. And Fezik took the wrong turn and Buttercup's horse threw a shoe. And the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing sound of pursuit ellipsis. And that's the end of It. So it's like, whoa, what is. What is going to happen to our heroes? Maybe. Maybe not anything good. Then we get a last note from fake real Goldman. That's Morgenstern's ending. A Lady or the Tiger type effect. This was before the lady or the Tiger. Remember? Now, he was a satirist, so he left it that way. And my father was, I guess I realized too late, a romantic, so he ended it another way. Well, I'm an abridger, so I'm entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself, but for me, I say, yes, it was, and yes, they got away and got their strength back and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs. But then he goes on to say, I don't know that they necessarily had a happy ending either, because life isn't fair. But what are you gonna do? That's it, huh?

[Craig]

Okay. That's kind of cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You can give. You can give the unsatisfying ending and allude to the more satisfying one with your, like, funny frame footnote thing.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. And then this edition, and I assume if you buy a new copy of this, you're just gonna have all the same stuff in it, too, is an afterword about this. This book, Buttercup's Baby, which is the. Which Morgan Stern wrote a second book that Goldman doesn't have as much affection for because his dad didn't read it to him, but that he is gonna get around to abridging. And there's this whole run in the book where the, like, Morgan Stern's estate is gonna come and make peace with him and, like, call off all the lawsuits and stuff that are referenced in that letter, that fake letter that you get if you wrote in about the.

[Craig]

Romance, wrote into that address or went.

[Andrew]

To visit the website. Yeah. I mean, so the letter is in here, too. So you do have all the pieces of it to make it all make sense. And so they, you know, they. He meets with, like, the daughter of the. Of the lawyer and is kind of besotted with her and is gonna. And is happy to get everything. To have everything settled. And then she says, we're doing this because we want Buttercups Baby to be a bridge, but we don't want you to do it. We want Stephen King to do. And then Goldman meets with Stephen King, and Stephen King says, I love them. I love the movie the Princess Bride.

[Craig]

What?

[Andrew]

But the. But the book wasn't that great.

[Craig]

That's so silly. It's so silly.

[Andrew]

And then. And. And so Goldman is not. He's not gonna sign this. The stuff. He's not going to settle all the lawsuits. He's talking with Stephen King about it, and Stephen King is like, well, why don't you. Why don't you prove you can do it, right? And just, like, do one. Just abridge one chapter of Buttercup's Baby and you can put it out and we can show them that you could do it the right way.

[Craig]

Okay. And then you can read. And then you get to read that.

[Andrew]

And then we get. And then we get a chapter of Buttercups, which is a bunch of, like, little fragments of stuff with all the characters in it. And it's like a similar voice. And it's fine, but it's not really worth talking about.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Like a discreet thing. But it's just by. By the time you get to that, you're so many layers deep. And, like, is this real or not? And he would give inner, like, talking interviews about Buttercup's Baby and talk about it as if it was a thing that he was actually writing. And, like, maybe he was gonna write it. Yeah. He just didn't get around to it. Like, I don't know. I don't know what's real.

[Craig]

Well, and you got. You gotta figure, too, that, like, his whole career is like. But what if I did write a sequel to the Princess Bride that people liked also, like, what if I. Yeah, what if I wrote another thing that people liked as much as the Princess Bride? And. And also it made money and it was successful and whatever.

[Andrew]

And by the time you're playing out this fiction for, like, 30 years, you're not gonna go on, like, NPR and tell Terry Gross, like, hey, no, I'm not actually working on Buttercup's Baby. I think you're just gonna keep acting as though it is a thing that you are in the process of making until you die, which is what happened.

[Craig]

Did you see that? Like, 10 years after this book came out, he published another book called the Silent Gondoliers under the pen name S. Morgenstern.

[Andrew]

No, I didn't see that.

[Craig]

And it's like some weird little, like, fairy tale about, like, why, no, none of the gondoliers in Venice sing anymore.

[Andrew]

And he, like.

[Craig]

He had the idea while he was on a gondola with his wife and was like, I have an idea for a book. And then for some reason put it under S. Morgenstern, like a weirdo.

[Andrew]

Okay?

[Craig]

Just. It's just. It was just in his brain, man.

[Andrew]

It's just weird. It's weird all the way down. And I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't dislike it. It's just like there's a lot of layers to it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And if you go in not knowing and you know, we're equipped to kind of expect a lot of this because of the nature of the, the story and because.

[Craig]

Yes, yes.

[Andrew]

It requires literally 15 seconds of research to find that Florin and S. Morgenstern are not real killings. Yeah, but it is. He never, he never is not committed to the bit.

[Craig]

It's true. It's true.

[Andrew]

For decades and decades committed to this bit.

[Craig]

I do have a.

[Andrew]

Respect it.

[Craig]

I do have a. Before we close out here, Andrew, I do have some reviews to share with you that's interesting. Before I share the ones that have a numerical value attached, a numerical astrological value attached, I will tell you about the contemporaneous 1973 New York Times review by Gerald Walker.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

That had fun with the meta aspect of the book and it structured interoffice memoir. Dear Dave, we have a problem with the Goldman review. And it goes on to say. It goes on in this voice. It's like a bunch of like, you know, it's. It's emails, affected memos. This book is witty, it's affectionate, it's a send up of the adventure yarn, yada, yada, yada. But you never know it. To read the clod we assigned the review to and then it has in quotes a like a shellacking review of it. And he write and he's like, all right, what do we do? Sign Paul. And Dave says, paul, kill and pay. Send it out again to someone with a sense of humor and take that idiot's name off our list. That's the whole review. Like it's this really funny. Like we thought the meta part of this book was fun. Like let's write a.

[Andrew]

It's. It's an endorsement of the approach that the book takes by like aping it.

[Craig]

Yeah. Kind of neat. Okay, I do have something.

[Andrew]

I don't know what. I don't know what it would be like to run into just that review without knowing the princess prize.

[Craig]

Very strange. Yes, I do have some three star Goodreads reviews though.

[Andrew]

Okay, three star. Good, good. Where's the D? Goodreads review.

[Craig]

The first one is from Jeanette who says this book is overwhelmingly reviewed positively. And she even remarks that she's kind of surprised at the high average rating, thinking maybe It's a lot of people bringing their feelings about the film into it, which is possible. Yep.

[Andrew]

She says this hard not to do.

[Craig]

This book has its moments. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. It's all very clever and playful and a little bit silly, but for all the originality in the telling, it really doesn't end up anywhere worth going. I did enjoy it on the whole, but I found my mind straying quite a bit thanks to a lot of device and not enough story. Did you find that the device overwhelmed the story?

[Andrew]

I get like you're never not thinking about the device. But I did. Especially in the Inigo and physic bits like you. You do mostly end up getting lost in it.

[Craig]

Just in the story.

[Andrew]

Okay, yeah.

[Craig]

Another one like is.

[Andrew]

Is it the most like original story ever that happens in the entire world? No, like, I think part of the reason it succeeds is it ends up feeling like a good pastiche of a bunch of adventure things.

[Craig]

Wanted to hear Goldman tell it. He got scared and like blocked trying to write an original version of this type of story. So he instead concocted the abridgment. Conceit to. To like get him through the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So whenever you disagree with a three star goodread review, it's always like, yeah, I see what your point. I completely see what your point is. I just didn't feel the same way about the thing that you're observing. Yeah.

[Craig]

I bring them here to see if how your response.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

Icarus. Icarus says I am one of the few people in the world who does not think the book is better than the movie. Here there is an undercurrent of bitterness in this book that I find off putting. I am given to understand by a friend that those elements are actually fictional, but I find that they sort. They soured my enjoyment of the story they framed. I couldn't enjoy the writing of a writer who seemed as misanthropic and hateful as Goldman came off. To me, the Princess Bride is still a great book. Better than three stars. But I couldn't quite bring myself to give it 4. Stick to the movie. It has the opposite problem. But you can always fast forward through the saccharine Fred Savage bits. I thought it was interesting that Icarus like found a. Like a counterbalance in the film to the like did not like the voice of fake Goldman.

[Andrew]

You can, you can, maybe you can have your frame narrative, but it better not have any character or opinion or style of its own. Because I'm gonna. I'M gonna. I'm determined to miss the point of that.

[Craig]

You gave us one good, like, passage from fake Bill Goldman. Like, did you generally find his voice entertaining or.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah. Like, I, I, like I. I think I mentioned this, but, like, especially during the beginning, it's a little. It's a little cute because he's just popping in all the time and then he's popping in to tell you, well, this is me popping in, but all those other pop ins or Morgenstern doing it.

[Craig]

Okay. Yes.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, you know, whatever. It's. Yeah. I think this is a little bit like, I don't know, showing up to Seinfeld and being like, man, I really like the show Seinfeld, but why is this guy George such a jerk? They should have made.

[Craig]

Why are they all jerks just kind.

[Andrew]

Of like missing the. The. Yeah, okay, sure. Like, you are. You were observing a real thing, but you're not like in on the fun of it, so you don't like it.

[Craig]

Well, and this Icarus here is like, I think the movie is better because it does not have this particular voice.

[Andrew]

That's fine.

[Craig]

Which is also fair.

[Andrew]

Also fair.

[Craig]

Hearing your retelling, it is remarkable how similar they are. And that's.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

They really do like, top of the show. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Almost. The only things that that change are just like, we don't have as much time in a movie as we do in a book. We can show some things that we have to tell.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And some of this, like, you know, death zoo stuff can just be streamlined without really losing anything. Yeah. Cool.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's a very quick movie. It's like 98 minutes or something. It's like, bing, bang, boom, you're out.

[Andrew]

Make them like that anymore. That's part of why I don't watch movies is like, no, I don't have 2 hours and 45 minutes to watch this thing that I'm not even sure I'm gonna like at all.

[Craig]

Watching a lot of. They don't make it like they used to movies lately. And it. Yeah, they did. They do not make them like they used to just here to say original.

[Andrew]

Take three hours became the norm. Instead of like the upper bound so gradually but so completely that I think it's ruined movie. I think it's ruined movies for me.

[Craig]

Well, good thing that you don't need to watch all those new movies, Andrew. You can just read the Princess Bride or watch it again. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for telling me about it. I'm glad that you had a good time.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Craig]

Hope our listeners had a good time. You can tell us about all your trips to Florin and Or Gilder. Send us an email overdupodmail.com hit us up on social media at overdue pod. We're blue skating a lot these days. Thanks to Jordan, Jamie, Renata, Allison, Holly, Graham, Tom and more for reaching out in the past week. A lot of folks having thoughts about our Animorphs episode last week. Andrew Our theme song is composed by Nick Laranjes. Andrew Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is our Internet website. We have all the books that we're going to read. Our March schedule should be up there this week. I think it's gone out on social channels already or it will soon, but it's all. It's all set. I'll let Craig read it to you in a sec. But yeah, patreon.com OGDrewPod is the other URL you need to know about. Support the show financially. Get access to the Discord community. Get episodes of our latest long read project about the Babysitters Club early Dusty Bookshelves Our newsletter has a new issue out today and you get all kinds of other stuff over there, so patreon.com overdue pod craig what's happening in March?

[Craig]

Coming up for the rest of March, we have Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. We have a choose your own adventure called Super Computer. Super Computer by Edward Packard. The OG he will choose our adventure. Edward will then Orbital by Samantha Harvey. And closing out the month of March, Sunrise on the Reaping a Hunger Games novel by Suzanne Collins. We're going back.

[Andrew]

I think this one's gonna be light hearted. A light hearted romp.

[Craig]

Jack from Lost Voice we have to go back. We have to go back to the. To the games.

[Andrew]

I just like you. If you once you do so many like kind of, you know, relentlessly tower books, I think statistically one of them is going to be a fun romp where everybody's like just having fun. Have a good time.

[Craig]

Funny. Yes. Hunger Games. Maybe it's funny now.

[Andrew]

Maybe, yeah, the Fungir Games. Am I right? So let's I so you know, I hope I'm not disappointed.

[Craig]

I'm just surprised that I can still type Sunrise on the Reaping and not Surprise on the Reaping, which is what I first thought it was called.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's also what I thought it was called at first. Surprise on the replay. You wouldn't want a surprise. I don't think it's bad enough if you know what it's ha what's happening.

[Craig]

But join us for that. We're excited. It seems like it's going to be a banger, banger banner month over here in March. And that's all I got. Take it away, Andrew. As you wish.

[Andrew]

Thank you for listening to our podcast. Until we talk to you next time, please try to be happy.