Caitlin Kelly (who doesn’t seem to quite “get” the nerdlove), in the New Yorker:
“The Princess Bride” has found a special place in the pop-culture pantheon, but it was not an easy or straightforward process. William Goldman’s screenplay floundered in development, passing from studio to studio and from director to director until, finally, it was taken up by Rob Reiner. When the movie opened, in 1987, it didn’t tank at the box office, but it didn’t take off, either—the kind of mediocre performance that dooms most movies to three-for-ten-dollar bins at drugstores. But in the years that followed “The Princess Bride” found new life on VHS, slowly accumulating an audience whose enthusiasm for the story and, especially, for the many quotable moments, that would make “Princess Bride” a cult classic.
Those quotable moments are also the reason why the movie’s fame has been amplified in recent years by the Internet, which specializes in distilling a movie to its catchiest phrase or its most sharable GIF. People found plenty of material in scenes like the epic Battle of Wits between Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) and the masked hero, Westley (Cary Elwes), and Peter Cook’s “mawwage” ceremony. The movie is so eminently quotable that, in 2012, ESPN analysts spent a whole episode of “NFL Kickoff” referencing it as many times as they possibly could—a moment that was itself shared and lauded online for days. In a new book about the making of the movie, “As You Wish,” Elwes (or perhaps his co-writer, Joe Layden) writes, “Looking back I only wish the Internet had existed in 1987. I suspect that social media would have raised awareness of the film’s unique quality and helped propel it to blockbuster status.”…
At least among the geeks of my acquaintance, I think it was the impromptu, bricolaged sketch-dramedy style that made Princess Bride one of our favorites. We liked it the same way we liked Saturday Night Live — even if you didn’t care for a particular actor or bit of business, you knew there was going to be something totally different within five minutes. And, of course, when it first appeared most movie fantasy was aimed at a marketing department’s idea of a not-very-imaginative five-year-old, so those of us who collected Fritz Leiber and Evangeline Walton paperbacks were willing to embrace anything more sophisticated than Disney and/or Hanna-Barbera on the screen…
Southern Beale
I’m probably the only person who has NEVER seen this movie but instead read the book.
Yes, there’s a book. William Goldman wrote a book from his screenplay.
Baud
@Southern Beale:
Inconceivable.
(someone had to)
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale: I liked Goldman’s novelization so well, I actually bought a copy of his memoirs a few years later. “The one truth about Hollywood: Nobody knows anything about anything!”
dybevick
I’ve done both.
See the movie. You will not be dissappointed.
matt
@Southern Beale: A certain Emily I went to junior high school with would read the book, and then immediately start rereading it. This went on for months.
maeve
@Southern Beale:
The book was written in 1973, the movie came out in 1987. William Goldman wrote a screenplay from his book.
I read the book before the movie came out. I assumed the movie couldn’t be as good but it is as good or better but in a different way.
fleeting expletive
A few weeks ago I posted here about my best friend who got herself mixed up with a triflin’ man who gave her herpes, fooled around on her, set into motion events that got her sent to an institution for several days and almost cost her her apartment. Well, guess who’s not learned her lesson. She called me yesterday to tell me she’s flying to DC tomorrow to see him for eight days.
I told her, of course, that that is an exceptionally stupid thing to do, as has everyone she knows. Yeah, I guess the heart wants what it wants and all, but at this point she’s being an idiot and a drama queen.
Also, up with Princess Bride! Who knew Mandy Patinkin was so cute back in the day.
R. Johnston
My favorite way to say “goodbye” to people when they leave (as opposed to when I leave) remains “Have fun storming the castle!”
Another Holocene Human
True story: the novel was required reading in 8th grade English at my junior high.
I got the cool teacher, what can I say?
Mnemosyne
@fleeting expletive:
“Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
I may be one of the few people who saw it in its first release, and loved it. It’s definitely one of those movies that was saved by video rentals — people who missed it the first time got it from Blockbuster (back in the day) and it went viral from there.
Suffern ACE
A lot of times, food cravings reveal an underlying deficiency. So why am I suddenly hungry for frog’s legs?
Another Holocene Human
@Southern Beale: I’m ashamed to admit that being an overly trusting child and having been raised on Pauline Sisters hagiographies that I completely believed the preface and had to be clued in by a classmate the next day.
I knew that a guilder was a coin, but never having been exposed to literary satire I just ignored that part. My childhood was a long string of “ignore that part” and I’m lucky I didn’t get into worse trouble although I did get emotionally and financially victimized a couple of times.
Another Holocene Human
@Suffern ACE: Is it the fat content? Is it the minerals? Is it the fat soluble vitamins? Are you just bored with your diet or craving a trip out of town? :)
Gin & Tonic
The Internet *did* exist in 1987. There were fewer users, yes, but it did exist.
Another Holocene Human
@fleeting expletive: It’s one of those sunk cost analysis things. Looking at what she gave up for this piece of shit is just painful as hell so she’s let herself be convinced it’s all worth it.
At least you were a real friend and told her what you thought.
Sometimes these things burn out on their own … sometimes it’s the first round in an ugly abusive relationship. Meh.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
IIRC, I saw it at one of the few places the internet existed at the time — at a movie theater in Champaign-Urbana, home of the University of Illinois.
Corner Stone
Whomever did the casting for that movie should be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Just spot fucking perfect on.
Lou Peckinpaugh was the greatest grandfather/narrator ever.
Another Holocene Human
@maeve: The movie because it loses most of the narrative voice has toned down the books’ misogyny.
Also, Wallace Shawn is brilliant.
Also, internet, shminternet. My Name Is Inigo Montoya has been a geek staple (tshirts, etc) since the movie came out.
Also, Andre the Giant.
Really surprised the most famous lines aren’t getting quoted here:
-Inconceivable!
-You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
-NEVER make a bet with a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!
-My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Hey, I tried to get the ball rolling.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: No WWW, though, that starts in 1991. But, relevant, since Net News did exist and people loved sharing movie quotes and trivia and geek lists on Usenet, yeah, fair point.
My dad actually printed out about 30 pages of Star Trek related songs and filks that had been posted to a Star Trek interest group and handed it to me when I was in junior high. The best part is, he must have been fucking around on Usenet at work and he worked in a security clearance, DoD contractor job. LOL.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Think it’ll work?
It would take a miracle.
donnah
The Princess Bride is a staple at our house. We pull it out of the basket and rewatch it every now and then because it reminds us how much we connect as a family. My sons all watched it multiple times and we all quote from the movie.
It’s funny because they made Peter Falk up to look older back then, and Fred Savage is now a grown man. But when Grampa says, “As you wish” I tear up every time.
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
Because the real geeks don’t use the most famous quotes. We do things like turn to each other after a movie takes a depressing turn and say, “Jesus, Grandpa, what did you tell me this stupid story for?!” :-)
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: I forgot: Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us togevver.
Two of my friends wrote their own vows and got an unwitting liberal Xtian pastor to read a liturgy that started with that line. One of our closest friends nearly died keeping the mirth in because it was one of her favorite lines to quote*. (She, sadly, had to go through a very unhappy Catholic wedding ceremony to appease her somewhat controlling family. Guess what? Became an atheist a year later. And her husband wasn’t even Catholic.)
*-we couldn’t laugh on account of the bride’s Mormon relations encircling us … I managed to piss off her mom later anyway, for talking smack about Joseph Smith while Genderfraud!
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne: I will definitely bow to your true fan-itude.
I only memorize Monty Python skits and Original Series Star Trek episodes.
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
True story: one day while we were dating, G and I were watching something on the Comedy Channel where they showed a Monty Python clip (I think it was the fish-slapping dance) and we were of course both laughing. Then the chyron came on and said:
“If your girlfriend is laughing right now …
Marry her.”
(We did not obey until several years later, but he knew he was doomed if even a basic cable channel was advising him to marry me.)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@fleeting expletive: Yikes. I have a sense that this will not end well. As a friend, I’m sure you’re not surprised that your warning went unheeded.
Gin & Tonic
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, I recall discussing The Prisoner, among other things, on Usenet back in that time frame, 86, 87, something like that. That’s a pretty geekified teevee series right there, if you ask me.
I’m sure I could dig it out, but at some point I calculated that the silver jubilee of my first Usenet post had passed a couple of years ago.
Smiling Mortician
@Mnemosyne: A favorite in our house is “Yes, you’re very smart. Shut up.”
RepubAnon
I used to crack up one of my friends by giving her cats treats and then saying “Good night kitties. Sleep well. Most likely feed you tomorrow…”
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
Welp, there goes at least one MCL.
Iowa Old Lady
Here’s a T-shirt with a name tag already on. I’ll bet you can guess the name.
http://fashionablygeek.com/t-shirts/hello-my-name-is-inigo-montoya/
Howard Beale IV
Betty Cracker: The dude who developed The Villages assumed room temperature a few days ago.
Pogonip
As You Wish is worth reading. Cary Elwes seems like a nice man.
Cermet
Consider what a steaming pile of shit the book (by the same name) was, how could the MOvie/writers not make a far better product? Movie was so-so and did have a few laughs but was definitely B-level show.
Just One More Canuck
@Iowa Old Lady: I have that shirt
gelfling545
What passes for my “social circle” was well past the young nerd stage when the movie came out but certain behaviors by students in our classes got them labeled R.O.U.S. and the group I saw it with (all over 35) seriously made spectacles of ourselves with the uncontrolled hilarity during the showing.
Redshift
@Mnemosyne: I, along with my entire group of friends at the time, saw it in its original release and were immediately in love with it. I had no idea it was not a particular success.
As for quotes, “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” was very popular during the Bush Administration…
Corner Stone
@Cermet: Man, that’s some tough stuff you’ve got going on there.
debbie
@efgoldman:
All these years later, I still imitate that old man being carried out to the death cart (“I’m alright. I feel perfectly fine.”) whenever I run into the corner of my desk or something similar. Not too many of the young people know where I’m getting that from. Kind of sad.
goblue72
@Gin & Tonic: That would be Asperger’s answer – technically correct, but completely besides the point. The actual answer was the one in the quote. For the vast majority of the population, Internet = the web. (I doubt the average person even knows it as the World Wide Web or what the “www” actually stands for). Or rather, the Web as it existed in late 1990s when commercialization and broader consumer use started to take off.
When people talk about “the Internet”, THAT’S what they are talking about. Not some distributed computer network spun off a DARPA project, primarily used by academics, college students and computer hobbyists.
Mnemosyne
Since this is a comedy thread, I’ll drop this link (for like the hundredth time) of a song medley they did for Mel Brooks’s Kennedy Center Honors:
Hope for the Best Medley
Bruce Springsteen seems to be quite the Mel Brooks fan, because he’s laughing the entire time.
Fun fact: Brooks was offered the Kennedy Center Honor while Bush was still president, and, well:
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Il est baisée après une longue nuit de la nostalgie des fjords!
Cermet
@Corner Stone: Sorry for the rather over-the-top but I read the book and was rather angry at both how miss leading the cover-blurb (not unlike the Life of Pi (which was far and away the worse book I’ve read in over fifty years …)) was and how terribly boring the story was – kinda carried over to this day … .
raven
Congrats to Betty and her Gators.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Fuck all, WVU. That was a game you really should have had.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t get this obsession with labels, geeks, nerds, jocks, popular kids etc., etc.,. Anyway calling oneself nerd sounds like a self conscious humble brag . Does one have to be one or another? I only saw Princess Bride a year ago, and I thought it was a mildly amusing parody of cliche’ fairy tales. What am I missing?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat:
So much, so very much.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Mr WereBear claims he fell in love when I first quoted Monty Python. It was from the Piranha Brothers sketch.
We excuse each other’s under-the-weather times in bed by noting the person has been “mostly dead all day.”
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Go on, tell me.
dopealope
The Princess Bride is a lot like The Big Lebowski in its ascent into cult-dom. I saw both in nearly empty theaters just after release and couldn’t believe that more people weren’t rushing to see them. Now you can’t turn on the internet without tripping over a reference to one or another.
PaulW
If you don’t read the Flick FIlosopher’s movie review site, she wrote a book on Princess Bride! http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-totally-geeky-guide-to-the-princess-bride-maryann-johanson/1008122489?ean=9781847287397
WereBear
@dopealope: Some things have to grow on you, and that would be Coen Brothers movies and Mr WereBear. I watched Oh Brother Where Art Thou? with he and his parents, and while I’m rolling on the floor, they are sitting there looking perplexed, saying, “The music is really good.”
Now, several viewings later, he’s the first one to turn to me when the food comes in the restaurant and inquire, “Care for some gopher?”
Corner Stone
Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
Mike in NC
Nope, never saw it. But I also made it a point to avoid all the “Star Wars” movies after being underwhelmed by the first one.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike in NC: The prequels are even worse.More a Trek fan than Star Wars fan.
Corner Stone
Get some cold cuts. Get some cold cuts. Woooo!!!
lamh36
Evening BJ.
I’ve arrived safely in Oakland and so my 38th Birthday Vaykay Extravaganza has begun!
So gonna try to keep interwebbing down to a minimum, but at the end of my day I plan to post at least one daily entry to my blog site so my fam I’m NOLA can stay updated. So if you got a computer, and you give a damn, check out my blog site for daily updates.
38th Birthday VayKay Extravaganza!!! 3-5-7, Get Loose (Day One)
Spike
@Another Holocene Human:
s/make a bet/match wits/
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: The sheer absurdity of the plot and dialog as a starter. Also, that it does manage to follow its own internal logic (however silly it might be). Things like the fact that Mark Knopfler had one demand when he was approached about doing the music for the film – that Rob Reiner’s hat from Spinal Tap appear in the film (it hangs from the mirror in the kid’s room). OTOH, it might be like the Three Stooges; either it works for you or it doesn’t and no discussions or paeans from fans can talk someone around.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I always thought it was stupid.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I was going to use the word sublime. It may translate just as well as a sense of the absurd.
The Man in Black takes every step forward and also step back with equanimity. Yet he pushes those around him into action in certain ways.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Yeah, but you are a Zappa fan so I discount your opinion.
Corner Stone
@raven: No doubt. Woof.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
TEL
@lamh36: You had me at Idris Elba! More seriously, this Oakland resident wishes you a fantastic birthday;-)
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: More FZ fans here than you suspect.
PurpleGirl
@lamh36: You go girl. Have a great time and thanks for the notice.
WereBear
@lamh36: Aloha! And Happy Birthday.
dopealope
Kind of off topic, but if you are looking for something enjoyable to watch on Netflix, check out the movie “Dean Spanley”. I had never heard of it, but it turned out to be a really sweet quiet movie.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Have fun! Don’t worry when it rains — everyone keeps going about their business because it’ll probably stop in a few minutes. And geckos are your friends (they eat bugs) so be nice to any lizards you might see hanging out indoors.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Not after Hot Rats really.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a holocaust cloak.
Walker
I went on my first date ever to this movie.
I also hooked up with a girl in college who had a fetish (yes, I am using the right word here) about being read to in bed. This is the book I read from.
raven
Speaking of Zappa, iTunes has “The World’s Greatest Sinner” With Timothy Carey. I haven’t seen it yet but it’s supposed to be killer.
Corner Stone
@Walker:
That is totes hot.
Corner Stone
Big Cocks stop on 4th & Goal!
Gin & Tonic
@raven: That’s not very long.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I am sure that is true, but he happens to be one of those highly lauded cult figures whose appeal passes me by.* Napoleon Dynamite is a film that falls into the same category.
*Plus, I just wanted to yank raven’s chain a bit.
Mike E
@WereBear: We…thought…you..was…a toad.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Sitting through 200 Motels did it for me.
Corner Stone
Wow. No idea what that idiot was thinking.
Corner Stone
God damn refs. Just put them back on the 1.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@fleeting expletive:
Mandy is STILL cute! #BlushingHeteroFanBoy
Cervantes
@dopealope:
That was one of Peter O’Toole’s last films.
Corner Stone
Zebras 7, USC 7
The Other Chuck
@Corner Stone:
He might have been good too, but that was Peter Falk.
dopealope
@Cervantes:
And he was excellent in it …
Fair Economist
I liked the Princess Bride a lot when it came out, as did most of my college friends. I wasn’t in the least surprised that it was a big success in the aftermarket. Also, it seems more of a “classic” film than a “cult” film – it’s popular with a pretty large audience. It’s not something like Rocky Horror or Night of the Living Dead, where most people will respond “Hunh?” and “Yuck!” respectively on first viewing. I’ll grant it’s more tongue-in-cheek and meta than your typical “classic” film but some of that is cultural shifts; tongue-in-cheek is mainstream these days and meta almost so.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Other Chuck:
So is Lou Peckinpaugh.
Cervantes
@lamh36:
Happy Birthday to you!
(And if you’re feeling old, bear in mind that the song is 60-plus years older.)
WereBear
@Mike E: I’m a Dapper Dan man!
and
This place is a geographical oddity. Two weeks from anywhere.
The Other Chuck
@Omnes Omnibus: Doh … I thought he looked a lot like him. Thought he was related to Sam Peckinpah :)
fidelio
@lamh36: Travel safe, and may every minute deserve to be enjoyed!
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic: True, but the digital formats of that era did not allow the (mass) on-line sharing of video clips in any usable way, which could be what Elwes or Layden have in mind.
Brendan in Charlotte
@efgoldman: First job i had was stocking shelves 3rd shift in a grocery store. We all loved Holy Grail. One guy had the original BBC version on CD. Spent the entire night reciting the movie line for line.Had all the college kids (early 90’s) looking at us like we were from another planet. They really got weird when we began to French taunt them. :-)
Joel
@schrodinger’s cat: One of those movies that probably needed to be seen in its time, like the Goonies or anything by John Hughes.
Anoniminous
@Brendan in Charlotte:
Were their fathers hamsters? Did their mothers smell of elderberries?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Mnemosyne: Mel Brooks’ films are playing at the Toronto TIFF Lightbox – plenty of schnitzengruben for locals and tourists alike http://www.tiff.net/series/mel-brooks-its-good-to-be-the-king
At the same time there is a Stanley Kubrick exhibition
sharl
@lamh36: Have a fun birthday vacay!
Lee
Princess Bride has a special place for my wife & I. We met while working at a theater, PB was one of the first movies she was there for.
Couple of us guys would walk in to the theater while it was playing and walk out chuckling. She wanted to know why the movie was so funny and was going to go in while it was playing. We told her she has to watch the entire movie first. So we had a special midnight showing of it,
Mnemosyne
@Thor Heyerdahl:
I’m afraid I must take umbrage with your film programmer:
Us juvenile females love that movie, too. “Funny, she doesn’t look Druish.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: “They’ve gone to plaid.”
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
There was someone dressed up as Dark Helmet at the annual Halloween party at the Giant Evil Corporation.
“I knew it. I’m surrounded by Assholes!”
Cervantes
Maybe. Here is something else she wrote on the same subject a year or three ago.
(Needless to say it’s all foreign to me, as I have neither read the book nor seen the movie.)
Thor Heyerdahl
@Mnemosyne: Agreed.
Dot Matrix: “That was my virgin-alarm. It’s programmed to go off before you do!” (RIP Joan Rivers)
randy khan
@Mnemosyne: I saw it on first release, too, in a moderately crowded theater.
Truth be told, the notion that it didn’t do well in the theaters is something of an exaggeration. It played 11 weeks, grossing $30.8 million and finishing 41st for the year in 1987. (That’s roughly equal to $65 million today.) Among the films that finished behind it were the second Revenge of the Nerds movie, Tin Men, Ernest Goes to Camp and Raising Arizona. No Way Out finished about $5 million ahead in 33rd. It did perfectly fine and, most important, made money. (It cost $16 million to make.)
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Ok the dialog was funny, I give you that and do I like Mandy Patinkin. I liked it but I am not crazy about it.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: Perhaps you have not seen it enough times :)
That is one of the appeals of a cult classic.
Citizen_X
@Mnemosyne:
To quote another movie, “Fuck yew, Ah work for Mellllllll Brooks!” BAM.
Slaughter
I knew I was hooked on “Princess Bride” when Buttercup was in the water and the grandfather slammed the book shut. Nooooo! What happens next!?
Tehanu
@Omnes Omnibus:
I kind of appreciate a lot of the quotes from Princess Bride now, but I never really cared for it. Start the Revolution Without Me is the go-to classic at our house. “Lagging behind again?”
@Mnemosyne:
Wish I’d seen that! “What’s the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Tehanu: Ultimately, I am a Young Frankenstein guy.
RSA
@goblue72:
This, in a comment thread where we get a correction on the book coming before the screenplay rather than vice versa? I think correctness is a basic principle of nerdiness.
So I’ll add that social media in the form of online communities arguably date back to the late 1960s, as described by J. C. R. Licklider in The Computer as a Communication Device.
Dave
Two other under appreciated movies that have similar quotability are “Local Hero” and “Meatballs.” Very different, but charming in their own ways.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Oh, I know.
aimai
@Southern Beale: The book is very good.
Cervantes
@RSA:
In that paper, published in Science and Technology in the spring of ’68, the on-line communities Lick wrote about were still more vision than reality. It was a full year before an actual test was performed, a sort of remote “login” — but after “lo” and before “gin” one of the two machines crashed and that was that. It took another three years before e-mail messages were successfully sent and received.
Anyhow it’s nice that you remember Lick. If he were here, he’d be giving the credit to others and deflecting attention away from himself.
J R in WV
We/I watched the WVU-TCU game, (Mrs J went downstairs before the gritty painful parts). I think she has some sight that tells her when to stop watching one of these big games.
Imagine this, I don’t think TCU ever led the game until the last second of play, as the kick sailed thru the goalposts.
Disappointed. But TCU did outplay WVU… the turnovers, they were killers of so many drives.
I had planned to make a pot of braised lamb stew, didn’t happen. Frozen dinners in the microwave. Too down to work hard on a dinner I couldn’t enjoy anyway. Tomorrow the stew will be good!
But that is football. We’ve traveled all over the country to watch WVU play some of the best teams in football. Sometimes they win, sometimes they win big! Orange Bowl Vs Clemson, they set a bowl record every drive towards the end. 70-?? something. I forget.
But I have to admit they have lost more bowl games than they won. When you grow up going to WVU games with your Dad, you don’t stop being a fan just because they lose some games. You just root harder.
When they do win, it makes me so happy thinking about my father and how excited he would be if he was watching his boys stuff some highly ranked team!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I bounce between “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” It’s a hell of a trifecta.
Of the lesser Brookses, I have affection for “Spaceballs” and “To Be Or Not To Be.” The latter certainly can’t hold a candle to the original, but it has Brooks and Anne Bancroft singing “Sweet Georgia Brown” in Polish and it’s one of the first WWII-set films I remember seeing that refers to the fact that the Nazis were sending gays to concentration camps.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Mine is YF, because of my personal story with it. My dad wanted me to see “American Graffiti,” so we walked down to the local one screen theater. It was about six blocks away. It turned out that AG had ended the night before, and a new movie was starting. We decided to see it. It was YF. The next morning my dad was in tears and laughing as he tried to tell my mom about it at breakfast. I was 10ish so I missed some of the jokes, but it was still hilarious.
divF
Princess Bride, one-upmanship on Peter Falk and his aliases, with side trips to Mel Brooks, Coen Brothers, Monty Python, Frank Zappa and sniping about when the internet was invented. I believe that the clinical term for this is loose associations, and it is why I feel so at home here.
My contribution: seeing Zappa at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos in the summer of 1974, and watching one of his minions come out before the show started and tell the audience that Frank said to pay close attention to the opening act, ’cause he is **really good**. The opening act was Tom Waits, and yes he was **really good** (sang “Diamonds on My Windshield”, and I had pulled in directly from driving up from San Diego). Zappa was in fine form too, doing a lot of the jazz / fusion material.
Plus lamh36 a few miles away in the East Bay. I love it.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF:
Sometimes we manage good threads.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Yeah, eventually I discovered the jokes. I am sure that there are some odd Yiddish jokes that I still miss.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I still look for them. I had a Jewish girlfriend in high school who invited me over to watch “High Anxiety” so that she could explain some of the jokes. It was a pretext. Ever since then, looking for Yiddish jokes in Mel Brooks movies has been important to me. I really have no idea why.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I harbor some resentment towards Young Frankenstein because it ruined an important scene in Bride of Frankenstein for everyone who saw YF first. I’d actually seen the original films first thanks to Son of Svengoolie, so I got most of the jokes. I even got a lot of the Yiddish (minus the penis jokes) since I spent my early years in Highland Park.
@efgoldman:
It’s actually based on three films: Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein. The Kenneth Mars character is very closely based on the character played by Lionel Atwill in SoF (except for the trademark impenetrable Kenneth Mars accent), including the detail of having a wooden arm because his arm had been ripped off by the monster when he was a child. The dart game by Wilder and Mars parodies a similar game played by Basil Rathbone (as the titular son of Frankenstein) and Atwill in the original film. Wilder, of course, deliberately channels Rathbone several times in the film.
Mnemosyne
Why am I in moderation? I only have three links. FWYP!
Tried to re-post it with no links, and still got moderated. Feh.
Mnemosyne
Moderated? Really?
ETA: Mystery moderation — I couldn’t even re-post it after removing all links. Maybe FWYP hates Omnes again?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: “To the Lumber Yard!”
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
The part with his arm saluting on its own is Dr. Strangelove, but when Mars sticks his spare darts into his wooden arm during the game, that’s swiped directly from Atwill.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
Because you said the word for The One-Eyed Monster, i.e. Pe.nis o.O
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Hell, they used an original set. Of course, they played off every trope, meme, and other stuff that they could. Are you angry at “Scream” for its references to horror films?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, I’m angry because when I watch Bride of Frankenstein with an audience, everyone laughs out loud at the scene between the hermit and the monster.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Hate it if you want, but YF changed the world of horror movies in the same way that “Blazing Saddles” changed Westerns. Deal with it.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
Aha! I should have remembered that anatomical words get me in trouble and said “schwanzstucker” instead.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: It is a different movie. It is a different monster. The scene in YF is hilarious. Reference to earlier movies doesn’t make it less hilarious.
cckids
@WereBear:
This seems to be true of most Mel Brooks movies as well. I can’t think of one that I didn’t love more the 3rd or 6th viewing than the first. And I loved them at first.
PB has something Brooksian about it. Possibly the Rob Reiner – Carl Reiner – Mel Brooks connection.
“Who are you?”
“No one of consequence.”
“I must know.”
“Get used to disappointment.”
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I saw the movie in the theaters at the age of six or seven and it instantly became my favorite. I’ve seen it so many times that I have the entire thing memorized, and I used to recite it to myself as a kid when I couldn’t sleep. Anybody want a peanut?
In later years, The Usual Suspects came to tie it for favorite status. But The Princess Bride is still just as great as it was then. I saw Cary Elwes at Comicon this year, and he was charming.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
You continue to misunderstand: the problem is that the scene in YF has permanently changed how people view the similar scene in Bride of Frankenstein, so people laugh at Bride of Frankenstein even though the scene in that film is supposed to be touching and emotional, not comic. That annoys me.
Corner Stone
@cckids: You left out the best part there, where Montoya so very casually nods, closes his eyes for a second and says:
“‘kay”
He’s supremely confident, and almost condescending in his faith.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I don’t misunderstand. Something has happened. It changed the world. Dislike it, if you want, but deal with it.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: “Flip ya. Flip ya for real.”
Corner Stone
@cckids:
It’s like any genius. The movie Airplane! is exactly the same. I loved it so much the first few times I watched it. But it was maybe a decade later+ that I really started seeing it.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Okay, let’s take a classic film with a sentimental scene that’s been frequently parodied: the final scene of Casablanca. I assume that if, every time you saw it with an audience, they laughed out loud at the scene, it wouldn’t bother you at all?
Corner Stone
“I see your schwartz is as big as mine.”
The fucking balls on that guy. Good Christ.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Would that be where he’s complaining about someone stealing the strawberries?
Corner Stone
@The Other Chuck: Oh, come on! Here:
Paul DuChard: Ah, monsieur, we, we’re not wealthy people. We lost over four million francs betting on the war.
Lou Peckinpaugh: Who’d you have?
Marcel: We took France – at eight to five.
That’s just almost too much fucking balls out genius. 8 to 5? Somebody bring me my fainting couch.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Name the classic Western that people now laugh at the same way they laugh at Bride of Frankenstein.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Um, who laughs at the “Bride of Frankenstein?” And even if people do, why is that Mel Brooks’s fault?
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” ?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dude. Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? At every screening that I’ve been at of Bride of Frankenstein, people laugh out loud at the hermit scene. Every. Single. One. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.
And since YF came out when I was five years old, I’m pretty darn sure that the laughter is because of YF, not because the scene has independently become ridiculous.
Because he did a shot-by-shot parody of the scene?
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus: But can’t expressing her anger about it be her way of dealing with it? Perhaps I don’t understand your point.
Lurking Canadian
I once had to deal with a guy who thought the book’s framing conceit, about the “good parts version” was true. The fact that Golding portrays the “Golding” character in the book as an absolute douchebag with no affection for his wife or his child? Didn’t convince him. The fact that “Golding” and “Morgenstern” are portrayed as ethnically Florinese? Didn’t convince him.
I finally gave up since the conversation was happening in the home of, and in front of, a girl I was desperate to impress or I might still be trying.
RSA
@Cervantes:
I expect you’re right. (About the timing and Lick’s modesty, too, from everything I’ve read about him.) I was thinking of this paragraph, but I don’t know exactly what he had in mind:
Sondra
@Corner Stone:
I agree. I always thought Mandy’s swhashbuckeling was equal to Errol Flynn’s…he even looked a bit like him and I adored him.
You had to look hard beneath all of the make-up to see the many stars in cameo roles, and I agree, the casting was totally brilliant.
lou
The reviewer had no clue. For those who haven’t read the book, Princess Bride alternates between the fairy tale and the author’s acerbic asides in red print. So Cary Elwes is offering a tribute to Goldman by using a similar format.
I loved the movie too. I’m surprised to read that it didn’t fare well at the box office.
JustPeachyAndYou
I met Cary Elwes a couple of years ago, and he’s a very nice, polite, and approachable man. (Unlike his manager, however, who is one of the worst, self-entitled, anger-management posterboys I ever had the displeasure of dealing with.)
I asked Cary if he minded all the people who remembered him for his performance in a film 30 years ago, or found a way to work “as you wish” into the conversation, and he said he didn’t, because it ultimately, got him more work. He was raised in the U.K. but moved to the U.S. in his 20s, so his accent is a curious blend of British and American, depending on where he’d most recently been working.
Fort Geek
@Suffern ACE: Maybe it’s like this: Frogs HOP using their legs. Hops go in beer. So…you actually want beer!
Wrye
Evangeline Walton? Where should one start?