And I simply won’t forget it.
The Princess Bride Mandy Patinkin Shares Stories film was released in 1987 and directed by Rob Reiner. The film is about a princess and her stable boy who embark on the journey of a lifetime together. It is likely that children who were born in the 1980s and later have seen it. Many people have become fans of the movie over the years because it is regarded as a cult classic and one of the greatest love stories of all time. Even the actors who starred in the movie continue to acknowledge the influence that the fairy tale story has had on popular culture and movies in general.
Even though Mandy Patinkin played a number of iconic characters over the course of his career, the character of Inigo Montoya, the swashbuckling sidekick to Cary Elwes’ Wesley, who was out on a quest to kill the Six-Fingered Man who killed his father, is the one that most people remember him best for. His iconic speech, “hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die,” is one of the most frequently quoted lines of the eighties.
It is one of many to come out of Reiner’s string of hits, and Inigo’s desperation to avenge his father strikes a chord for many, especially those who have lost their own fathers. Reiner directed the film “The Princess Bride,” which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Patinkin has commemorated the thirty-fifth anniversary of the release of the film this month by posting a series of videos on Twitter in which he recounts anecdotes from his time spent working on the 1987 masterpiece. He expresses the same passion for the movie as its followers, recounting anecdotes from his time working on the production, and providing an inside look into the development of one of the most famous movies of the past decade.
He got choked up when he talked about filming the famous fight between Inigo and Wesley, in which Inigo says, “you seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you,” and Wesley responds, “you seem a decent fellow, I hate to die,” and about his reaction to Rob Reiner calling “cut and print” on the scene, which indicated that they had finished filming the scene for the last time. “I’m such a f**kin’ crybaby,” he confessed, “But it was so great to work on it with everyone, so when you’d hear him say “cut, print,” my heart would drop because that would indicate that it was all over.” No more.”
Patinkin also revealed that he kept a number of the swords that were made for Inigo — a sword that has been replicated and sold at countless renaissance fairs and specialty shops since — and that he gave two of the swords to his sons, Isaac and Gideon. Patinkin played Inigo in the film “The Princess Bride.”
The actor pointed out that the real metal blades in the pieces were not used for filming, but instead were replaced with carbon blades that would shine like the real thing. This was done both for safety reasons and because, according to Patinkin, even the hilts alone were enormously heavy, so having a lighter blade reduced the risk of developing muscle issues from holding and fighting with the swords for hours on end every day.
He also spoke about the generosity and talent of André the Giant, the wrestler-turned-movie star who played the adorable Fezzik, who was Inigo’s partner in crime. This is something that many of the other cast members have done as well. As much of a fan favorite as any of Inigo’s sequences, Patinkin’s description of his co-star, who passed away in 1993, as “beyond a gentle giant” and naming him the “spirit of the movie” is a significant aspect of the picture. Patinkin’s comments were made before his co-passing. Star He told a lot of stories about André, including one about the time they were filming the famous “Cliffs of Insanity” segment at the beginning of the movie:
“The most special moment was, we were climbing up the Cliffs of Insanity…We were in the studio and they had the mountain built, and the mountain had a rubber…seam down the middle, and in that seam was a forklift on the other side that you didn’t see and a metal shaft that came in the middle of it. And so (Wallace Shawn) and Robin (Wright) and I were on bicycle seats sitting there to keep all of our weight off of André, ‘cause he had issues with his back…and Wally, there was a double there that morning for Wally, ‘cause Wally had a fear of heights…But we get on the thing and the forklift starts to go up, and Wally starts to clearly have issues with being lifted off the ground and the height. And André just puts his arms around him like a baby, and he says to Wally, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” And I’ll just never forget it.”
You may now watch “The Princess Bride” streaming on Disney+.
Watch some of Patinkin’s videos in the section below.
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