Book review: As You Wish by Cary Elwes

The thirty-first book I read in 2018 was As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden.  Drop the "Inconceivable" (or, perhaps, use it as Vizzini did), and it's pretty much what it says on the tin: a behind-the-scenes from the movie, at least as remembered by the participants nearly three decades later.

On top of being one of the most delightful, most well-written, most well-cast, most well-directed movies ever made, "The Princess Bride" is also notable for preserving in amber, at the absolute height of their attractiveness, two of the most ludicrously good-looking people in the history of the world, Elwes and Robin Wright (later Robin Wright Penn, later just Robin Wright again).  Frankly, were I one of them, I'm not sure I could harbor unadulterated good feelings toward the film, in that it endures as a living testament to the truth that neither one of them is as good-looking as they used to be, but I guess that's an occupational hazard of being a film actor.

I already knew some of the "inconceivable" tales, but not by any means all.  For example, that Mandy Patinkin and Elwes tried to one-up one another in fencing practice rather like Doug and Kate battling to get on the ice first in "The Cutting Edge."  That Westley was originally supposed to jump into the lightning sand feet-first to save Buttercup but Elwes didn't feel like it looked cool enough so he come up with the much-more-dangerous head-first dive.  That Wallace Shawn is scared of heights and was terrified during the Cliff of Insanity scene.  That most of Billy Crystal's and Carol Kane's dialogue was improvised.  That Elwes broke his toe before shooting the final scene with Buttercup in his Dread Pirate Roberts guise and was both in great pain and desperately trying to conceal it from Rob Reiner in the fear he'd be fired and the part recast.  That Christopher Guest actually did knock Elwes out hitting him with the butt of his sword. 

Sadly, the lackluster release of the film led all involved to fear that their labor of love had been in vain.  It was the video release that led to the widespread popularity of "The Princess Bride," and if VHS did nothing else for the world, that is enough.