The Princess Bride

Corrected entry: When Westley and Inigo are dueling, Westley disarms Inigo by knocking his sword high into the air, which Inigo subsequently catches. But a crew member caught the sword and dropped it back down to Inigo, and you can see him running away at the very top of the screen, far to the left. (00:24:21)

Correction: I have reviewed this scene in slow motion time and again - the only thing I see is a small metallic flash, not someone running. Could this be a duplicate of the 'boom mike' mistake from the pan-and-scan version?

It depends upon which version of the movie you watch. I saw the shoes of the crew member who dropped the sword and then hurries off screen. I don't remember which version (wide-screen? DVD? Blu-Ray?).

Corrected entry: When Vizzini accepts the battle of wits with Westley, Westley states that the poison he has is "called iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man." How is that when Humperdinck finds the empty poison packet later on, he identifies it by sniffing it? Pretty clever for an odorless poison . . .

Correction: His precise words are "Iocane. I'd bet my life on it". From the wording, he doesn't actually know for certain, but he's pretty sure. From the evidence of a dead body with no wounds and a vial of odorless powder, Humperdinck is making an assessment that is, in this case, correct.

Tailkinker

Also, it's a good joke that shows Humperdinck to be a smarter villain than Vizzini (who literally bet his life on it and lost).

Correction: He identified the powder not from an odor, but from the complete lack thereof.

dizzyd

Correction: He blinks, so he's probably real...

Corrected entry: After the wedding of Buttercup and Humperdinck an old man wearing a big crown escorts Buttercup to the bridal chamber. The king is supposed to be dead, succeeded by his son - so who is the old man?

Lynn F Carter

Correction: The king was only dead in Buttercup's nightmare earlier in the movie.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: As Fezzik, Inigo, and Westley are developing their plan to storm the castle, Inigo says Humperdinck and Buttercup are getting married in a 'little less than half an hour'. It is bright and sunny outside. Next time we see them, before their master plan is carried out, it is dark, like it's the middle of the night.

Correction: Well, since no season is given at any point, it could very well be winter, making it very possible for the sun to go down within a half hour. Anyway it is just stated that the wedding starts within a half hour. It has already begun the next time we see Inigo and Fezzik. Actually they are so far in the ceremony all that is left to do for the coming man and wife is to agree to the terms of marriage, which takes quite a while. So much time could have gone by before we see Inigo and Fezzik, giving the sun plenty of time to go down.

Corrected entry: When Westley and Buttercup are in the fire swamp and he is explaining to her how they will be able to survive said swamp, he puts down his sword so he can lift her for a moment. He never retrieves his sword, but it reappears in his hand when he is cutting vines moments later.

Correction: If you look carefully he does indeed pick it up as he is passing behind the branches and roots, there is even the sound of the blade being removed from the ground.

Corrected entry: In the final scene, as Peter Falk turns to say "As you wish", his hair and mustache are nearly black, but throughout the movie they have been heavily whitened.

Correction: This is a repeat entry that has been corrected, I also double checked for myself, it is only the way the shadow of his face is cast over it. The bedroom scenes were all shot around the same time so it doesn't make sense that they would have done something to the color of his mustache between takes.

Corrected entry: In the scene with Miracle Max, the bellow is placed in Westley's mouth to put air into him. Westley, who is supposed to be incapacitated, holds the nozzle in his mouth. Facial muscles should not be able to move like that if he is paralyzed.

Correction: In all fairness, the movie never says he's paralyzed or even unconscious only that he is "mostly dead".

Corrected entry: During Westley and Inigo's fight atop The Cliffs of Insanity, the sky behind them is obviously a matte painting because the clouds never move.

Correction: Clouds don't visibly move if there's no wind to move them.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: When Westley and Buttercup come out of the quicksand (an aggregate of water and sand, basically mud), they're covered with sand. Within a few seconds, they are clean - the wet sand should be quite sticky.

Correction: It's not quicksand, it's called lightning sand and it's dry from the way it flows. Buttercup disappears far too quickly for it to be regular quicksand. That's why they are cleaned up so fast.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: When Inigo, Fezzik, and Westley are on the castle wall, Westley says, "There may be problems once we get inside" and Inigo is heard to say "I'll say" but his lips don't move.

Correction: A person's lips don't move all that much when saying "I'll say". I zoomed in, and he is saying it. You have to look pretty close, though.

Corrected entry: When Westley is being tortured on the table, the lever which operates the machine is graded from one through ten. Later, when Prince Humperdinck decides to kill Westley, he pushes the lever all the way up, which now has a top value of fifty, instead of ten.

Correction: The machine is labeled by ones up to ten, then by tens up to fifty.

Corrected entry: In the scene where Fezzik is hurling a rock at Wesley, watch carefully and you'll see the rock explode before it hits anything.

Correction: Untrue. It hits the boulder directly beyond him. It's just somewhat tough to make out the depth of field because it's viewed almost straight on. Once the debris has cleared you can see the mark the smaller rock made on the boulder.

Rooster of Doom

Corrected entry: Look closely at Buttercup's wedding dress at the actual "wedding". It's ice blue with a white petticoat or whatever under it. It stays the same until where she jumps out the window in the end and lands neatly in Fezzik's arms. Watch her falling - her dress changes to purest white to contrast the night sky better.

Correction: Tough to call this one - the dress isn't really blue, at best it's a silvery-white with a blue cast to it. It's just that against the dark black background, it appears whiter. You've sort of got the cart before the horse.

Rooster of Doom

Correction: There's no fifth guy. I thought this was right at first, but in frame-by-frame on DVD what you see is that Fezzik gets off first and steadies the boat, then Buttercup, then Vizzini, then Inigo who is holding something man-sized out at arm's length, which appears like another person. It's actually the harness they then strap Fezzik into, for the rest of them to ride.

Rooster of Doom

Corrected entry: In some of the shots where Westley and Inigo begin to duel, one can see what appears to be a leftover 'practice' sword with a black glove on it sticking into the ground. It first appears in front of Inigo's stomach as they begin to hit swords.

Hans Deutsch

Correction: That is not a practice sword, it is Westley's scabbard.

Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie when Westley is chasing after Buttercup, everyone climbs up the cliff. But later the prince and his men are on horses, tracking the footsteps of the other. Horses can't climb cliffs.

Correction: Nor did these horses have to. Humperdinck and his men approached from a different route. They only started at the top of the Cliffs because Humperdinck, having orchestrated the kidnapping, knew exactly where to go.

Phil C.

Corrected entry: In the shot of Westley climbing the Cliffs of Insanity, they show where the boats should have been moored but neither of the ships are there.

Correction: Partly explained in another one, Vizzini's ship floats away because they did not anchor it. Westley's crew probably just dropped him off and headed on their way (he was captain of a pirate ship after all).

Bruce Minnick

Corrected entry: At the end of the movie, Buttercup and Westley reach for each other twice. Once when the grandfather reaches the end of the book and again when the grandson tells him he doesn't mind kissing.

Correction: The grandpa reads it twice, so we have to see it twice.

Corrected entry: As the story reaches the bottom of the Cliffs of Insanity, we see Vizzini et al exit their boat. However, when the Man In Black's boat reaches the landing area as well, the first boat is nowhere to be seen.

Correction: There's a shot where you see the boat drift away because it wasn't moored properly.

Revealing mistake: When Inigo and Westley are duelling, they are making athletic jumps. One does it after the other and when they land you can see the mat wrinkle under the "dirt" on the ground.

More mistakes in The Princess Bride

Vizzini: Inconceivable!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

More quotes from The Princess Bride

Trivia: When Count Rugen knocks Westley out to put him in the Pit of Despair, Cary Elwes wanted the scene done properly, so he told Chris Guest to hit him for real with the sword butt. Guest did, and accidentally hit him hard enough that production had to be shut down for a day while Elwes was taken to the hospital.

More trivia for The Princess Bride

Question: Inigo shows Westley the sword his father made for the 6-fingered man ("I've never seen its equal"). How did Inigo acquire this sword? You would think that if Count Rugen was prepared to kill Domingo for the sword then he would have taken it with him.

Answer: When Inigo was a child, Count Rugen came to Inigos father and requested a sword be made for him. When the sword was finished, Count Rugen refused to pay the price he originally offered for the sword. Inigos father refused to hand the sword over so Count Rugen killed Inigos father. Outraged, Inigo took the sword his father made and tried to kill Count Rugen. He has kept the sword ever since so he could use it to kill Count Rugen.

Answer: In the book, Count Rugen told the outraged villagers that Domingo had tried to rob him and he killed Domingo in self-defense. He couldn't very well take Domingo's sword after that.

Brian Katcher

More questions & answers from The Princess Bride

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