Princess Bride – Blu-ray Review

Rob Reiner’s career has been in a bit of a slump of late, with nearly every project following his 1994 mega-flop North being cursed with utter forgetability. We seriously doubt that anyone, including the actors and key production personnel, could recall anything from 1999’s The Story of Us or 2003’s Alex & Emma (leaving Reiner’s most recent film, the odious The Bucket List alone for now). But flush or bust, all Reiner’s films share at least a marketing commonality, the use of the phrase “From the Director of …” and insertion of any one of a half dozen titles that could lure anyone to see almost anything. For a romantic comedy, use “…When Harry Met Sally”, for a comedy, use “…This is Spinal Tap”, for a horror show, use “…Misery”, and for a drama, use “…A Few Good Men”. But the one film on Reiner’s CV that can be used under almost any circumstances, barring perhaps a snuff film, is The Princess Bride.
From its release more than 30 years ago, The Princess Bride has made it into that rarified air of films suitable for all people, regardless of age, at any time, and for any occasion – from small children to those who were already adults when William Goldman’s novel was published in 1973. The book purported to be a “Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure” by S. Morgenstern, and abridged by Goldman, who had, of course, written the entire tale himself. The book took familiar fairy tale elements and added a humorous, softly sarcastic edge. It’s Goldman’s near-erfect balance between these disparate elements that made an effective film version difficult to mount, but the author’s screenplay for director Reiner added a framing device: a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading the book to his grandson (Fred Savage) who impatiently interrupts the story during the “kissing parts.” This allowed the film to retain the tone of the book while giving the main story room to breathe. Before the halfway point, we’re no longer laughing at names like Buttercup and Humperdinck, and the sweetly romantic fable has us as rapt as the young boy hearing it for the first time, and like him, we’re ready to hear it again tomorrow.
MGM’s new Blu-Ray, released under parent company Fox, is an absolute beauty, far surpassing the previous DVD editions. The film was shot on location in Ireland and England, but its gorgeous visuals have long been slave to iffy transfers on home video, and MGM’s recent track record (the old, substandard encode used for the Silence of the Lambs Blu-Ray leaps to mind) hasn’t generated high expectations. But the news is very good indeed; the transfer retains a distinctly film-like look and hasn’t been over-processed with digital noise reductions. The Blu-Ray carries over the featurettes and the Reiner-Goldman commentary track from previous editions. We were also interested to see MGM adding an extra we haven’t seen from them on a Blu-Ray yet, a separate disc featuring the standard definition version of the film. This is a fine idea and a good way for people who haven’t yet taken the HD plunge to make a future-proof purchase – but a $34.95 list price for a catalog title isn’t exactly conducive to sales.
THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987). Directed by Rob Reiner. Screenplay by William Goldman, based on his novel. Cast: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Fred Savage, Robin Wright Penn, Peter Falk, Peter Cook, Mel Smith, Carol Kane, Billy Crystal.