Book Review: As You Wish by Cary Elwes

December 31, 2014

About:
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes is a memoir by the versatile actor who portrayed Wesley in the beloved movie.

  • 272 pages
  • Publisher: Touchstone; 1St Edition edition (October 14, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1476764026

Book Review As You Wish Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

My Rat­ing for As You Wish5

Buy this book in paper or elec­tor­nic format*

Thoughts:
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes is a must read for anyone who loves The Princess Bride. The book starts off with Mr. Elwes telling how he got the part of Wesley, his audition with director Rob Reiner and the rest is history.

Mr. Elwes goes on the talk about meeting the cast, the pre-production and of course, preparing for what would become one of the greatest cinematic sword fight every filmed. Actually, the training for the sword fight, with two master swordsman who worked with Hollywood royalty such as Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster, would become one of the last scenes filmed and make Mr. Elwes and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya) actual swordsman.

One of the things that shines through the pages is how beloved André the Giant (André Roussimoff) was. The author seems to genuinely like André, as well as much of the crew, and the stories about him are both endearing and entertaining. It was a bit disheartening to read how the marketing department massed up the promotion of the movie since the studio didn’t know how to promote it even though everyone agreed it was an excellent, witty fable.

Throughout the book there are quips and anecdotes from cast and crew in little sidebars. Even though this book brings very little new information or insight, it was still a joyful, quick read which would make me see the movie in a new light.

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer:I borrowed this book.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account

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3 Comments

  • JaneGSDecember 31, 2014 at 8:05 pm

    My husband got this for his birthday and I’m planning to steal it away to read myself. Sounds like so much fun, and I’m glad to hear that the backstory to the movie is positive. So often, it seems, the reverse is true.

  • Andrew T. KuligowskiJanuary 1, 2015 at 10:22 am

    Hi Zohar – I have almost finished this book on Audio CD; I have 1/2 CD remaining (or about 30 minutes – approx. the drive to work). This is a book where the CD reader actually enhances the text, as Mr. Elwes reads his own text (and does some decent imitations, such as Rob Reiner and Andre the Giant). Short interlude quotations from the cast and production crew are read by the individual, when possible (thus allowing us to compare the imitated Rob Reiner with the real one).
    This is something I’m definitely glad I picked up.

    • Zohar - Man of la BookJanuary 5, 2015 at 8:31 am

      Hi Andrew, I have heard that the audio CD is excellent as well. Looking forward to read what you thought of it.

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