Review of Romancing the Stone (1984) by Ola G — 29 Aug 2017

Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a successful but lonely romance novelist in New York City whose editor believes she is waiting to meet a romantic hero like the ones she writes about. One day Joan gets a call from her sister Elaine, who has been kidnapped by antiquities smugglers, cousins Ira (Zack Norman) and Ralph (Danny DeVito). As Joan leaves her apartment to meet her editor, Gloria (Holland Taylor), she is handed a letter containing a map, sent to her by her late brother-in-law. Returning to her apartment, she finds it ransacked and the apartment supervisor dead. Joan then receives a frantic phone call from Elaine (held at knife-point by Ira), who instructs Joan to go to Colombia with the map she received; it is Elaine's ransom. Flying to Colombia, Joan is detoured from the rendezvous point by Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), the man who killed Elaine's husband. He tricks her into boarding the wrong bus, heading deep into the interior of the country instead of to the coastal city of Cartagena, where Elaine is being held. When Joan distracts the bus driver by asking where they are going, the bus crashes into a Jeep, wrecking both vehicles. As the rest of the passengers walk away, Joan is menaced by Zolo but is saved by the Jeep's owner, American exotic bird smuggler Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas). For getting her out of the jungle and to a telephone, Joan promises to pay Jack $375 in traveler's cheques. Together, they embark upon an adventure that could be straight out of Joan's novels...

"Romancing The Stone" was a big hit back in 1984 with a Indiana Jones-like adventure/comedy/romance set up. It´s hard to not compare it to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), however the original screenplay to "Romancing The Stone" had actually been written five years earlier around 1979. The plot is ok and the general vibe is very 80s in many ways and this sort of action adventure hero was seen both on the movie screen and the tv-screen in the early and mid 80s. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Richard Chamberlain as Allan Quatermain and Bruce Boxleitner as Frank Buck on tv. To be honest is was only really the Indiana Jones character that was interesting of all of them. I do like that director Robert Zemeckis use the lovely surroundings (Mexico standing in for Colombia) and both Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas graps their roles in a proper manner. There´s an on-screen chemistry between the two which adds so much to the film. It´s entertaining, humorous and action-packed (despite flaws), but "Romancing The Stone" is maybe not as good today as it was in 1984.

Trivia: Studio insiders expected Romancing the Stone to flop (to the point that, after viewing a rough cut of the film, the producers of the then under development Cocoon fired Zemeckis as director of that film), but the film became a surprise hit. It became 20th Century Fox's "only big hit" of 1984. Zemeckis later stated that the success of Romancing the Stone allowed him to make Back to the Future, which was an even larger success.