Rob Reiner

Aw. An actor who wants to direct. Ain't that an adorable cliché.

Fortunately, in the case of Rob Reiner, he was someone who found a decent amount of success as an actor, but was really born to be a director. In his 40+ year career, the Hollywood fixture has directed such cinematic classics as This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, and…well, a bunch of other movies from the past twenty years he'd probably prefer we not mention.

But man did he have a heyday. It's hard to imagine The Princess Bride having been in more capable hands. If Francis Ford Coppola had been chosen to direct, Westley probably would have gotten whacked in the first five minutes (or mostly whacked, at least). And if it had been Kubrick behind the wheel, the R.O.U.S. might have had a song-and-dance number while they brutally mauled some victim of the Fire Swamp. And if Quentin Tarantino had directed, it probably…well, never mind.

So yeah, we think Reiner was the perfect man to be in charge. He was able to convey the humor and inimitable sense of whimsy that had been present in Goldman's work, without allowing it to devolve into too much silliness (although Billy Crystal sure did try to push the envelope in that department). And he didn't let the film exist so much in the fantasy genre that the general movie-going public would have been turned off by it.

Because he had roots as an actor himself, it's obvious he knew what to say to his actors to get the best possible performances out of them. At the time the film was released, many of the cast members were virtual nobodies. (Hard to believe that Mandy Patinkin and Robin Wright were ever unknowns.) But at least a half dozen of the leads knocked it so far out of the park that they cemented themselves in the audience's minds as people who should be in Hollywood, and went on to put together some pretty impressive resumes. All of them got a huge boost from the film. And even some who were already established star, like Falk and Billy Crystal, perhaps squeezed another ten-to-twenty years out of their careers thanks to The Princess Bride's popularity.

Hopefully they all remembered to send Rob Reiner a "thank you" card. Or, at the very least, an Edible Arrangement.