Romancing the Stone

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For the song by Eddy Grant of the same name, see Going for Broke (album).
Romancing the Stone
Romancing the stone.jpg
Promotional film poster
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Michael Douglas
Written by Diane Thomas
Starring Michael Douglas
Kathleen Turner
Danny DeVito
Music by Alan Silvestri
Cinematography Dean Cundey
Edited by Donn Cambern
Frank Morriss
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s)
  • March 30, 1984 (1984-03-30)
Running time 106 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $10 million[1][2][3]
Box office $86,572,238[4]

Romancing the Stone is a 1984 American action-adventure romantic comedy. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The film was followed by a 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile.

The film earned over $86,572,238 worldwide in box-office receipts. It also helped launch Turner to stardom, reintroduced Douglas to the public as a capable leading man, and gave Zemeckis his first box-office success. Decades later, it retains critical acclaim, with an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[5]


Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a lonely romance novelist in New York City. We open in one of her stories, which finds a lovely lass in a cabin the the West, with a grimy bad guy demanding to know where the something is, and him making to ravage her, but she whips a knife into his heart. Then she goes outside, but there are more bad guys, but a hero shows up on the crest of a ridge and saves her, and they ride off, knowing they'll be together forever. This is the latest romance novel by Wilder, and she is now revealed to be a lonely cat lady who celebrates by giving her cat (named Romeo) a can of tuna, and dipping into her assembly of tiny airline-sized alcohol. She gets drunk and stares at the poster art for one of her books, which features a large silhouette of a big masculine hero.

Now she goes to meet her editor, and they go out to a bar where the editor laments that Joan can't find a good man. Soon after, she meets another friend who laments that Joan can't find a good man, and that she's holding out for mister right, but may end up alone. Meanwhile, in Colombia, Joan's sister is walking to a red convertible when a little street kid of about ten whips these rocks at her, steals her car, and drives off with it. There's a mysterious man breaking into Joan's apartment and killing the inquisitive super. When she returns, her place has been ransacked, and a cat THROWN at our heroine by someone offscreen, as if it just jumped on her. Joan has been sent a treasure map, which looks like it was drawn with ballpoint pen that morning, and soon gets a call from her widowed sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor), who has been kidnapped in Columbia by bumbling antiquities smugglers Ira (Zack Norman) and Ralph (Danny DeVito), and the map is to be the ransom. and is being held until Joan gets there with the map. So Joan goes to Cartagena, Hastily flying to Colombia, Joan is detoured from the rendezvous with Ralph by Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), the man who killed Elaine's husband. Where she is deceptively sent into the interior, not the coast where her sister is. She realizes this and ends up causing the bus to crash, hitting and destroying a parked Jeep. Everyone else walks off, and Joan is menaced by a mustachioed thug in a suit, but who should show up, but American exotic bird smuggler Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas). Jack's Jeep has been ruined, and he goes through his belongings, looking longingly at a picture of a sailboat that he dreams of getting. Joan says she needs help, he refuses, she offers money, and finally they arrange for him to lead her to a phone. For getting her out of the jungle and to a telephone, Joan promises to pay Jack $375. She is wearing heels, and carrying a huge suitcase. He soon throws the suitcase over a ravine, and soon he and Joan are sliding down the sides of the ravine, with his head landing right in her crotch. (This scene was in the trailers and every little bit of promotion for this movie.) They're getting shot at by the mustache thug Zolo and his posse (turns out he is a policeman) and run away, bickering, at which point they end up swinging on vines across a chasm.

Jack and Joan elude Zolo, who wants the treasure for himself and who chases them with military police, which he commands as a "private army". After spending a night hiding in a marijuana smuggler's crashed C-47 airplane, they encounter a drug lord named Juan (Alfonso Arau), who is a big fan of Joan's novels and who helps them escape from Zolo.

After a night of dancing and passion, Jack suggests to Joan that they find the treasure before handing over the map. They follow the clues and find the treasure: an enormous emerald called El Corazon ("The Heart"). Unknown to Jack and Joan, their trail has been picked up by Ralph, who tries to take the emerald and taunts Joan that Jack would have done the same.

But Ralph flees without the treasure when Zolo appears, and Jack and Joan are chased into a river and go over a waterfall. Jack and Joan end up on opposite sides of the raging river; Joan has the map, but Jack has the emerald. Jack directs Joan to Cartagena, promising that he will meet her there with the emerald, but she is skeptical, owing to Ralph's taunts.

In Cartagena, Joan contacts Ira, but cannot find Jack. She meets with Ira and Ralph at their base (an old fortress) and makes the exchange. As Joan and Elaine attempt to leave, they are stopped by Zolo and his men, who have captured Jack. Zolo demands the emerald and threatens Joan with the crocodiles that Ira keeps as pets. To save Joan, Jack surrenders the hidden emerald to Zolo, but a crocodile bites off Zolo's hand and swallows it along with the emerald.

As a furious gun battle takes place between Zolo's soldiers and Ira's gang, Joan and Elaine dash for safety, but they are pursued by the enraged Zolo, who eventually catches up to them, attacking Joan with the knife that she initially tossed at him. They engage in a desperate and fierce struggle with the knife. Jack tries to stop the crocodile from escaping but lets it go when he sees that Joan is in grave danger. After out-fighting and out-witting Zolo during the protracted death struggle, Zolo gets up, entirely furious, and charges Joan, who eventually dodges his wild knife slashes, knocking Zolo into the crocodile pit. Ira and his men escape, but Ralph is left behind as the authorities arrive. After a kiss, Jack dives into the water after the crocodile, leaving Joan behind with her sister.

Some time later, Joan is back in New York City, delivering a new manuscript based on her adventure, and her publisher, Gloria (Holland Taylor), loves it. Returning home, she finds Jack waiting for her in a sailboat. He caught the crocodile (which he says died from a "fatal case of indigestion") and had it made into a pair of boots, sold the emerald, and bought the boat he had told Joan was his dream. They go off together, planning to sail around the world.


Production and release[edit]

Filming locations included Veracruz, Mexico (Fort of San Juan de Ulúa); and Hidalgo, Mexico The scene where Turner and Douglas get separated on opposite banks on a whitewater river, about two-thirds into the movie, was filmed on the Rio Antigua near the town of Jalcomulco, Veracruz.[citation needed]

This was the first Zemeckis film to feature an electronic-orchestral music score by composer Alan Silvestri; Silvestri has scored each subsequent film Zemeckis has directed.[citation needed]

Although, upon its release, comparisons to Raiders of the Lost Ark were inevitable (Time magazine called the movie "a distaff Raiders rip-off"),[6] the screenplay for Romancing had actually been written five years earlier. It was written by a Malibu waitress named Diane Thomas in what would end up being her only screenplay; she died in a car crash shortly after the film's release.[7]

Turner later said of the film's production, "I remember terrible arguments [with Robert Zemeckis] doing Romancing. He's a film-school grad, fascinated by cameras and effects. I never felt that he knew what I was having to do to adjust my acting to some of his damn cameras – sometimes he puts you in ridiculous postures. I'd say, 'This is not helping me! This is not the way I like to work, thank you!'"[8] Despite their difficulties on the film, Zemeckis would go on to work with Turner again, casting her as the voice of Jessica Rabbit in 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

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),[9] but the film became a surprise hit. It became 20th Century Fox's "only big hit" of 1984.[10] Zemeckis later stated that the success of Romancing the Stone allowed him to make Back to the Future, which was an even larger success.[11] The film's success also led to an equally successful sequel, 1985's The Jewel of the Nile, without Zemeckis at the helm but with Douglas, Turner, and DeVito all returning. Another sequel, called The Crimson Eagle, never made it past the development stage. This planned yet unproduced sequel would have seen Jack Colton and his partner Joan Wilder take their two teenage children to Thailand where they would find themselves blackmailed into stealing a priceless statue. DeVito reunited himself, Douglas and Turner in his 1989 film The War of the Roses. In 2005 and again in 2008, Michael Douglas was working on a second sequel entitled Racing the Monsoon, although there have been no further developments in recent years.

The novelization of this film was credited to Joan Wilder though it (and a novelization of the sequel movie, The Jewel of the Nile) was actually written by Catherine Lanigan.[12]

Sylvester Stallone was originally considered for the role of Jack T. Colton.[citation needed]


Critical reaction[edit]

The film was well received by critics and is considered by some as among the best films of 1984.[13][14][15][16] It holds an 87% approval rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews.[5]


Award wins:[17]

Award nominations:


  1. ^ Romancing the Stone (1984) - Box office / business
  4. ^ "Romancing the Stone". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 27, 2012. 
  5. ^ a b "Romancing the Stone (1984)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 27, 2012. 
  6. ^ Richard Corliss; Richard Schickel (April 23, 1984). "The Greening of the Box Office". Time. Retrieved February 9, 2007. 
  7. ^ "Biography for Diane Thomas". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved June 11, 2010. 
  8. ^ "The Last Movie Star". Entertainment Weekly. August 2, 1991. Retrieved February 9, 2007. 
  9. ^ Horowitz, Mark. "Back with a Future," American Film July/Aug. 1988. pp. 32–35.
  10. ^ "Musical Chairs in Hollywood". Time. September 24, 1984. Retrieved February 9, 2007. 
  11. ^ Supplements for the Back to the Future DVD.
  12. ^ The page of the Romancing the Stone novelization, mentioning Catherine Lanigan's ghost authorship of the book.
  16. ^ "Most Popular Feature Films Released in 1984". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved June 11, 2010. 
  17. ^ "Romancing the Stone: Award Wins and Nominations". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved June 11, 2010. 
  18. ^ a b "The 42nd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1985)". Golden Globe Award. Retrieved July 27, 2012. 

External links[edit]