Summary

In Chapter 2: Pre-Production and Meeting Buttercup, Elwes returned to London after finishing Maschenka to begin pre-production on The Princess Bride. London was the production’s base and also Elwes’ home. Elwes met with the costume designer, Phyllis Dalton, who had won an Academy Award for her work on the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Elwes was a big fan of Dalton’s. Elwes had two costumes: Westley’s farm boy attire and the Man in Black costume. He tried on the Man in Black’s billowing shirt and suede pants. Elwes wrote, “Once fully dressed, I looked in the mirror. Even without the mask, I knew what it must have felt like for Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn trying on their costumes for the first time on any one of their classic pirate movies” (35). Dalton then determined they would need a...