Synopsis for
The Princess Bride (1987)

Fairy tale love story with an all-star cast.

In the frame story, a grandfather (Peter Falk) reads a favorite book to his sick grandson (Fred Savage). The book he reads, The Princess Bride, is about the most beautiful woman in the world, the hero who loves her, and the evil prince who says he wants to marry her.

The lovely Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn) is kidnapped on the eve of her wedding to Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) of Florin. (Buttercup isn't in love with Humperdinck; long ago she gave her heart to Westley (Cary Elwes), a farmhand. But she's given Westley up for dead because his ship was captured by the notorious take-no-prisoners Dread Pirate Roberts and she's heard nothing for years, so she might as well marry Humperdinck.) The kidnappers carry her off in a boat and up the Cliffs of Insanity, pursued by a mysterious masked man in black. At the top of the cliffs, Vizzini the Sicilian (Wallace Shawn), the chief bad guy, leaves his henchman Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) to deal with the man in black. Inigo is a superb swordsman, but in a spectacular cliff-top duel, the man in black proves to be better. Sparing Inigo's life, he goes off in pursuit of Buttercup and her captors. The huge and immensely strong Fezzik (André the Giant), Vizzini's remaining henchman, tries to overpower him, but the man in black manages to choke Fezzik until he loses consciousness.

When he catches up with Vizzini and his captive, the man in black challenges the Sicilian to a battle of wits in which one of them is sure to die. He has a packet of highly poisonous iocaine powder and two goblets of wine. Out of Vizzini's sight, he adds iocaine to one of the goblets. He places one goblet in front of Vizzini and one in front of himself. Vizzini must choose whether to drink from the goblet given to him or the one the man in black kept for himself; the man in black will drink from the remaining goblet. After a fevered application of logic, Vizzini chooses, drinks, and dies -- the man in black, who has spent years developing a tolerance of iocaine, has poisoned both goblets.

The man in black tells Buttercup he's the Dread Pirate Roberts and he's taking her to his ship. Buttercup, infuriated that the man who killed Westley has come after her, pushes him down a mountainside. As he tumbles down the steep incline, he says "As you wish..." -- which Westley used to say to Buttercup all the time. Realizing that the man in black is Westley, Buttercup goes down after him and learns his story: rather than killing him, the Dread Pirate Roberts took Westley on as his apprentice. He taught Westley everything he knew, then retired, bestowing his ship and his name on Westley. Westley didn't reveal himself to Buttercup at first because he didn't think she still loved him.

Meanwhile, Prince Humperdinck -- who of course arranged the kidnapping -- has raised the alarm and given chase. He wants an excuse to go to war with Guilder, the neighboring country toward which Buttercup's captors were carrying her. Westley and Buttercup flee into the fearsome Fire Swamp to escape their pursuers.

The Fire Swamp offers no end of excitement: hungry ROUS (rodents of unusual size), lightning sand (quicksand on steroids), and unpredictable jets of flame shooting out of the ground -- but Westley gets them through it. Alas, it's all for nothing; they're captured by Prince Humperdinck as soon as they emerge from the swamp.

To be continued...

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