Ep 21 – Book to Movie: The Princess Bride by William Goldman
This episode begins a series of podcasts on specific books adapted to movies. The chosen book is the 1973 novel, The Princess Bride by William Goldman which was adapted into a famous film by Goldman and director Rob Reiner in 1983.
SHOW NOTES
The original novel, The Princess Bride, was originally published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1973. It was not very successful and faded into the background until 1980 when author Spider Robinson reprinted the famous fight scene in his anthology, The Best of All Possible Worlds. The book found its audience and there was renewed interest in the novel. The film adaptation by Rob Reiner and Goldman himself came out in 1983 and was quite successful. Random House bought the rights and reprinted the novel with movie-related images and both movie and book became extremely popular.
You can find out more about the novel and it’s author, William Goldman, at this page. A 25th Anniversary edition of the novel was published in 1998 by Random House and contains a new introduction by Goldman along with a short sequel to the novel titled, “Buttercup’s Baby”. It is this version of the novel that my guest and I will be referring to.
There’s an excellent list of William Goldman’s works (including Princess Bride) at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Production info and cast list is at the IMDB. There is an amusing backgrounder on the 1983 Rob Reiner film titled, “15 Inconceivable Facts About The Princess Bride” which is worth your time.
There is an outstanding Blu-Ray edition of the 1983 film published on the 25th Anniversary which features a ton of extras on the making of the film along with commentary by the director
Matt Kelland
