Synopsis for
The Princess Bride (1987) More at IMDbPro »

Fairy tale story-within-a-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 ROUSes (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 and his men as soon as they emerge from the swamp.

So Buttercup makes a deal; she'll go back and marry Humperdinck in exchange for Westley's freedom. Humperdinck has no intention of holding up his end of the bargain and turns Westley over to his friend and lieutenant, Count Rugen (Christopher Guest), as soon as Buttercup is out of earshot.

Count Rugen is a cruel and arrogant man whose history is tied to Inigo Montoya's. Twenty years before, the count visited Inigo's father Diego Montoya, a famously skilled swordsmith, and commissioned a sword of the highest quality. The job was challenging because Count Rugen (who did not give his name) has six fingers on his right hand. When the count came to collect his new weapon, which was the best Diego Montoya had ever made, Rugen would pay only a fraction of the agreed-upon cost. When Montoya objected, Count Rugen killed him. Inigo challenged his father's killer to a duel, but he was only 11; the count bested him easily, left him with a scar on each cheek, and rode off -- without his new sword. The grief-stricken boy vowed to avenge his father and spent the next twenty years studying swordsmanship and searching for the six-fingered man. He kept the sword.

Count Rugen has made a long study of pain and has built a machine which he believes can inflict the most intense pain a human being can experience. He keeps this machine in a secret chamber beneath the castle grounds called the Pit of Despair, and it is here that Westley is taken.

Humperdinck, with Buttercup in tow, goes home to prepare for his wedding and for the invasion of Guilder, for which he plans to get popular support in Florin by murdering Buttercup on their wedding night and blaming Guilder. Buttercup shortly realizes that her love for Westley is so strong that she can't bring herself to marry Humperdinck. She asks to be released from her promise on the grounds that she'll kill herself on her wedding night if forced to go through with it. Humperdinck pretends to give in. He suggests that Westley might no longer love Buttercup, but he promises to send his four fastest ships in pursuit of the fugitive, carrying copies of a letter from Buttercup asking Westley to come back for her. He asks that if Westley doesn't come back, she consider marrying him, Humperdinck, as an alternative to suicide. Buttercup, serenely confident that her Westley will save her, agrees.

In the days leading up the wedding, Prince Humperdinck makes a great show of beefing up security around the castle. He orders Florin's Thieves' Forest cleared of potential troublemakers and the guard at the castle gate increased. Fezzik is hired into the Brute Squad assigned to purge the Thieves' Forest and learns that Count Rugen -- Inigo's long-sought six-fingered man -- is in the castle. When he finds a very inebriated Inigo in the Thieves's Forest, Fezzik takes him home, sobers him up, and tells him that he's found the six-fingered man.

To be continued...

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