Robin Wright, Kelly Capwell, Princess Buttercup... who needs grandpa?

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2016)

This is gonna be a long story. It is not meant as a serious review. So skip it if you are in a bad mood.
***DORKY TALE ALERT***
Back in 1986, armed with my Philips VCR, I stumbled across the TV show SANTA BARBARA while monitoring for music videos and glam/fashion inserts. It had this pretty girl in it, who looked like a teen model, I eventually learned she was in a minor yet regular part (Jade Perkins), but as soap operas with their slow, daily unwinding story arcs go, there was also this other wonderfully beautiful very very cool chick playing the part of Kelly Capwell. I watched regularly, for those two. The other girl gradually disappeared, but Kelly became {like wow, man!}...
When I learned about THE PRINCESS BRIDE, I of course pursued it. It wasn't drive-in theater material (I live in a small town, no cinema) but I got it at a video-rent store, VHS, the good old days with the weak systems. My friend was about to copy* it for me. Now, this happened decades ago, and I cannot quite remember how it came to pass that I sneaked a peek, but to cut a long story short, I learned that it was kind of a Peter Falk show, was really miffed about the old man taking up such valuable time in the movie, what a waste of tape, hell, can't I do something about it? I then got the idea to record only an edited version, eliminating Peter Falk. I had several beauty competitions on tape, and was always exasperated by the ubiquitous 'vultures' taking up screen time, lounge lizard singers strutting their stuff, coming out of the woodwork, hogging the spotlight... So I was used to editing out glut. But I had my doubts about how my edit of THE PRINCESS BRIDE would appear. My objective was to do it in such a way that it wouldn't look silly, it still had to make sense.
Dear people, to this day I remember that I was quite satisfied with my effort. I had thought it would look like a mess, but it ran fairly smoothly, as far as I can remember.
Years later, watching on DVD, I was kinda skeptical about me ever having done that. I don't know what I would have said about my effort today. Back then I thought my version was better.
But I maintain that Peter Falk was nothing more than excess baggage. A sweet charm? No, wholly unnecessary, the whole fairy-tale from GrandPa to the kid, holding back the story, give me extra footage of Princess Buttercup!
Despite my view of THE PRINCESS BRIDE as weighed down by a dorky addition, it was still one of my early DVD purchases when I started collecting, not only was it considered a classic by the mail order company, it is a charming movie with a cute fairy-tale romance and a darling heroine. It's Robin Wright's best movie. (Forget about THE PLAYBOYS, that one's a bummer!) She should have been a major star!
*yeah, yeah, copyright violator. Back in those days, years before DVD, that was the only way to hang on to a movie. I was a collector, and my friend did it for the challenge pf the technological aspect, we were both nuts about girls on film, no monetary gain was ever involved. And by the way, as a collector of original disks in mint condition, I have since paid my dues to Hollywood, have I ever!!