romancing the stone yacht

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Romancing the Stone

• Thread starter Ameribritalian
• Start date Oct 4, 2009
• Forums for All Owners
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Ameribritalian

Just saw the aforemention movie had seen it in the past. At the end Michael Douglas wisks away Kathleen Turner on a beautiful yacht with sails flying on a trailer down 5th ave, NYC. It's a beautiful boat, looks like a brand new Bristol (Ted Hood). Any know what the boat make actually was?  

As per Wiki answers it is a Mason 43  

Just had this Conversation the other Day at the Club Jack's boat is named Angelina and is a 43 foot Mason I understand  

Hermit Scott

what about the sailboat in lost, Elizabeth? It's a center cockpit.  

Was Columbia Still Making Boats Then? I forget when the movie was out early to mid 80s?  

The boat in Lost is Nautor's Swan 57 CC (for Central Cockpit), 57'/17.50m. Current price is generally $500,000 - $700,000 for 1995/98 modelst's a Nautor's Swan 57 CC (for Central Cockpit), 57'/17.50m. Current price is generally $500,000 - $700,000 for 1995/98 models  

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, romancing the stone.

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It may have an awkward title, but "Romancing the Stone" is a silly, high-spirited chase picture that takes us, as they say, from the canyons of Manhattan to the steaming jungles of South America. The movie's about a New York woman who writes romantic thrillers in which the hungry lips of lovers devour each other as the sun sinks over the dead bodies of their enemies. Then she gets involved in a real-life thriller, which is filled with cliff-hanging predicaments just like the ones she writes about. The writer, played by Kathleen Turner , uses her novels as a form of escape. Throbbing loins may melt together on her pages, but not in her life. Then she gets a desperate message from her sister in South America: Unless she flies to Cartagena with a treasure map showing the location of a priceless green jewel, her sister will be killed.

What follows is an adventure that will remind a lot of people of " Raiders of the Lost Ark ," but it will be a pleasant memory. After all the "Raiders" rip-offs, it's fun to find an adventure film that deserves the comparison, that has the same spirit and sense of humor. Turner lands in Colombia, and almost instantly becomes part of the plans of a whole lineup of desperadoes. There are the local police, the local thugs, the local mountain bandits, and the local hero, a guy named Jack Colton, who is played by Michael Douglas .

Movies like this work best if they have original inspirations about the ways in which the heroes can die. I rather liked the pit full of snarling alligators, for example. They also work well if the villains are colorful, desperate, and easy to tell apart. They are. Danny DeVito , from TV's 'Taxi' plays a Peter Lorre type, complete with a white tropical suit and a hat that keeps getting trampled in the mud. He's a gangster from up north, determined to follow Turner to the jewel.

There's also a suave local paramilitary hero named Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), who wears a French Foreign Legion cap and lusts after not only Turner's treasure map but all of her other treasures. And Alfonso Arau plays a rural bandito who turns out to have memorized all of Turner's thrillers.

Movies like this have a tendency to turn into a long series of scenes where the man grabs the woman by the hand and leads her away from danger at a desperate run. I always hate scenes like that. Why can't the woman run by herself? Don't they both have a better chance if the guy doesn't have to always be dragging her? What we're really seeing is leftover sexism from the days when women were portrayed as hapless victims. "Romancing the Stone" doesn't have too many scenes like that. It begins by being entirely about the woman, and although Douglas takes charge after they meet, that's basically because he knows the local territory. Their relationship is on an equal footing, and so is their love affair. We get the feeling they really care about each other, and so the romance isn't just a distraction from the action.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Romancing the Stone (1984)

105 minutes

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10 Facts about 'Romancing the Stone,' Which Turns 40 This Month

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The 1980s brought us many memorable trhilling movies with a romantic subplot — Romancing the Stone being a key example — as the hero and heroine chase down some precious artifact through foreign, treacherous jungles and deserts, the bad guys pursuing them. Meanwhile, the man and woman at least kiss, with the surrounding action and suspense heightening the emotion.

Indiana Jones and his series of adventures come to mind as the most famous example, but the 1984 hit Romancing the Stone – starring Michael Douglas as Jack Colton, the rugged bird hunter in mud-stained pants living in Colombia; and Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the damsel-in-distress New York City novelist who comes to the wild jungle to save her abducted sister – offers a happy ending for the romance, too.

In a flashy, wacky gesture, Jack comes to New York to claim his lady post-adventure via a yacht on a trailer. They had found the “El Corazon” jewel – a giant, heart-shaped emerald – in Colombia, and now it was time to tend to their own “corazones” (Spanish for “hearts.”)

MUST-READ: Bond, James Bond: See What Happened to All the Actors Who’ve Played Hollywood’s Top Spy Guy

For the movie’s 40th anniversary in March, enjoy these 10 mostly fun facts – but, be warned, the first one is tragic.

1. Romancing the Stone screenwriter died in an accident

For screenwriter Diane Thomas , selling the Romancing the Stone screenplay was a dream come true: It was her first script. Thomas, a marketing graduate from the University of Southern California, was working as a waitress when she sold the script to Columbia Pictures for $250,000.

Sadly, she didn’t get to enjoy her success for long, because Thomas was killed in a car accident the year after the movie came out. The screenwriter was just 39 when her Porsche Carrera, which her boyfriend was driving, spun out of control on the Pacific Coast Highway, according to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times.

Costar and producer Douglas said that Thomas being a novice made her script more attractive, according to the obituary. “It just had a spontaneity about the writing,” Douglas said. “She was not cautious. The script had a wonderful spirit about it … There was a total lack of fear to the writing. It worked.”

The sequel, Jewel of the Nile from 1985, was dedicated in memory of Thomas.

2. The movie was filmed in Mexico

Romancing the Stone was filmed in the Mexican jungles around Veracruz and Hidalgo. It was as treacherous as you would expect a jungle to be, with rain, mud, and critters.

“It was very, very tough,” director Robert Zemeckis told Variety . “When the movie was over, I said to my agent who gave me the script, who is now my partner – Jack Rapke – if another script ever comes across your desk that has a slug line in it that says ‘Exterior. Jungle. Night. Rain,’ never send it to me.”

3. The film's reviews were mostly good

Reviews were mostly positive . Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times favorably compared Romancing the Stone to Raiders of the Lost Ark in his review . “What follows is an adventure that will remind a lot of people of Raiders of the Lost Ark , but it will be a pleasant memory,” Ebert wrote. “After all the Raiders rip-offs, it’s fun to find an adventure film that deserves the comparison, that has the same spirit and sense of humor.”

But Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wasn’t impressed , and he called Romancing the Stone “a miscalculated clone of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ”

4. Some say the film is a rip-off of some other classics

What about Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark from 1981? A brilliant adventure thriller, some of us have probably watched this movie more than any other in our lifetimes. But is Romancing the Stone really a Raiders rip-off, as some have said? Opinions aside, the factual answer is, absolutely not . Screenwriter Thomas wrote her script around 1979, some two years before Indiana Jones and five years before Jack Colton.

5. Romancing the Stone was a first for this genre

It seems that Romancing the Stone is the original member of the “authors-in-their-own-adventures” subgenre of film – or at least, it’s the first major one. Other movies about writers transported into situations and settings they write about, like The Lost City in 2022 and Argylle in 2024, came decades later.

MUST-READ: Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas & More Best-Selling Romance Authors Reveal the Love Stories They Can’t Get Enough Of

6. Romancing the Stone was also a book — after the film's release

While the script was written first and is not based on a book, author Catherine Lanigan novelized the script for a matching book that was released in 1984. While the fictional Joan Wilder's name is printed on the cover of Romancing the Stone as the author, the real-life ghostwriter is Lanigan.

7. No animals were harmed in the making of this film

We animal lovers can rest assured that a real snake was not killed in Romancing the Stone – an unfortunate incident that happened during the filming of the original Friday the 13th (1980). In a scene where Joan and Jack are camping out in an abandoned, marijuana-filled airplane in the jungle, Joan gripes about Jack’s lack of manners. “Would you please do me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m speaking to you?” she says.

But Jack has a good excuse for avoiding eye contact: He’s looking over her shoulder at the snake rising behind her head. He jumps up and hacks the snake with a machete before it can bite Joan. The rising snake is real, but Jack "kills" a fake one. According to California Herps , the Romancing the Stone snake is supposed to be a Bushmaster, but doesn’t resemble one.

8. But there was an accident with the snake on set

Speaking of serpents, Danny DeVito claimed on The Talk that he saved Douglas’ life from a snake bite on the Mexico-based set of Romancing the Stone , where someone had a bunch of snakes in the bed of a truck. DeVito said he warned Douglas to stay away from the snakes, but Douglas couldn’t resist touching one, and got bitten on the hand. DeVito claimed that he sucked the venom out of Douglas’ hand and saved his life.

We’re not sure what’s weirder: that story, or the fact that DeVito came clean four years later and admitted that he made it up. (Seriously!)

MUST-READ: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Rhea Perlman: From Her Marriage to Danny DeVito to Her Hidden Talent

9. The film led to the beginning of a partnership for the ages

Romancing the Stone marks the beginning of the partnership between composer Alan Silvestri , who has created countless beautiful movie soundtracks, and director Zimeckis. They have been working together on scoring and directing movies since 1984, and together they have made classics including Forrest Gump and Back to the Future .

10. There is a real meaning behind the name Romancing the Stone

The phrase “Romancing the Stone” actually is jeweler jargon that describes the process of a jeweler deciding how to cut and facet a gem for jewelry. Neat, huh?

For more of your entertainment favorites, keep reading!

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Romancing the Stone

1984, Adventure/Action, 1h 45m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Romancing the Stone reaches back to the classic Saturday morning serials of old with an action-filled adventure enlivened by the sparkling chemistry between its well-matched leads. Read critic reviews

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Romancing the stone   photos.

A dowdy romantic-adventure writer is hurled into a real-life adventure in the Colombian jungle in order to save her sister, who will be killed if a treasure map is not delivered to her captors. She is helped out by a brash mercenary, and together they search for the priceless gem located in the map.

Genre: Adventure, Action, Romance

Original Language: English

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Producer: Michael Douglas

Writer: Diane Thomas

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 30, 1984  original

Release Date (Streaming): Nov 25, 2015

Runtime: 1h 45m

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Production Co: Twentieth Century Fox, Nina Saxon Film Design

Sound Mix: Surround

Cast & Crew

Michael Douglas

Jack T. Colton

Kathleen Turner

Joan Wilder

Danny DeVito

Zack Norman

Alfonso Arau

Manuel Ojeda

Holland Taylor

Mary Ellen Trainor

Robert Zemeckis

Diane Thomas

Screenwriter

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Critic Reviews for Romancing the Stone

Audience reviews for romancing the stone.

I've sure been putting in a lot of time with 'older' movies. And I say it like that because, I believe, that I haven't seen a movie that was released prior to 1984 on this run. This is thanks to an add-on subscription, or at least a trial for one, for HBO. Honestly, they don't have many movies that I haven't seen and this was one of them. I've always wanted to see this movie anyway, so it ended up working out in the end. Another thing worth pointing out is, obviously, if you play video games, the influence that this movie has had on a video game franchise like Uncharted. A lot of people point out the similarities between Uncharted and Indiana Jones, what with its quick-witted sarcastic hero, but the exotic locations, perhaps even more so than Indiana Jones, seem more inspired by this movie. Granted, the Uncharted franchise goes to far more exotic places than this movie, and its sequel probably, did. Honestly, while I had a lot of fun watching this movie, I think the Uncharted franchise does a better job at actually making you care about their characters than this one. But I think that's due to the fact that you can tell a story in games through multiple releases, so you end up growing attached to the characters. Whereas this movie was really more of a one-and-done, even if the sequel did come out a year after this. But the sequel wasn't as favorably reviewed as this one, so there's that. Anyway, the point is that there was no denying the fact that I think parts of the film don't age as well as they probably could have and, to me, I felt the pacing could have been tightened up a little bit, like maybe have Jack and Joan meet earlier in the film and have their relationship be more antagonistic. Not necessarily even more antagonistic, just let it go on for longer is what I mean. Once Joan and Jack do meet up, however, the movie does pick up quite a bit and kicks its action-adventure and pulpy thrills. The story is as such, Joan Wilder, a pulp-romance novelist, goes to Colombia to save her sister from these thugs who want a map that Elaine's, Joan's sister, husband had that will lead them to the stone in question. Elaine's husband mailed the map to Joan, which is where she fits in. Once there she immediately gets into trouble, before she meets up with Jack Colton, played by Douglas, and she hires him to help her get to Cartagena, where she is to meet the thugs. Joan leads a lonely life, the novels she writes are more of wishful thinking of her part as to what she'd wish her romance life to be. Of course, as if you couldn't have already predicted, Jack Colton doesn't end up being anything like the hero in her novels. And that's the basis for the majority of the movie. The journey to find this stone to save his sister while, simultaneously, falling in love with Jack. I do think, however, that this aspect of the film isn't as well-developed as it could have been. I don't wanna say that the romance is forced, because it's not, there's an obvious attraction between the two, only helped by Kathleen Turner's excellent chemistry with Michael Douglas. The problem is that there's only a few teases of a developing romance, before they're downright fucking. And I realize that films have far more time constraints, particularly this type, than other forms of entertainment. Like in a book you can build a romance between two characters that feels organic and interesting. Or in a game where, again, a romance can build for hours, like in Mass Effect where you put in 40+ hours into the game before the romance pays off. In a television series you can build the romance across several episodes or even an entire season. Films are obviously more limited in that regard and I think that hurts the overall film. It's not that the characters wouldn't have gotten to that point eventually because, again, the leads' chemistry is apparent right from the moment they meet each other. It is what it is. There are sections of the film that are really fun. Like the scenes with Juan, who's like a friendlier Pablo Escobar, are the clear highlight of the film. There's also this scene right after the stone where everyone, from Zolo and his army, to the mountains all following Jack and Joan, who are driving away in a stolen vehicle. That scene was actually really cool and something that I would have hoped they showed more. Though I guess that would contradict what I said earlier about the pacing. I think the movie's third act, while not without its highlights, does drag a little bit and it hurts the movie somewhat. If the pacing was a little tighter, I'd have no problem giving this 3.5 stars. As it stands, I'm definitely more comfortable giving it 3. Don't get me wrong, it's a very good 'good' movie and I really did have a blast watching this. But I can't overlook its flaws. With that said, I'd still give this a recommendation if you haven't seen it yet. It's not a perfect movie and, really, no flick is, but this is a fun popcorn flick. Good movie here.

A woman goes to Colombia to rescue her sister who has been kidnapped by "bad guys." Joan Wilder, Kathleen Turner's character, writes cliche adventure stories, then - shocking irony! - gets caught in a real-life adventure story with a fantasy-borne mercenary. Coincidences like this only occur in films like this, and the construction of the Wilder character is misogynistic, as she serves as a doe-eyed damsel in distress, never rising to anything about a screaming, high-pitched type, more annoying than remotely compelling. But, you might say, Jim, it's a fantasy-comedy. Well, in that case, it's neither fantastical nor funny. Stuck in faux-realism, the crazy, over-wrought performances are more the matter of sitcom than film. Overall, this film is stupid.

Director Robert Zemeckis delivers a fun and outrageous adventure in Romancing the Stone. When her sister is taken hostage in Columbia romance novelist Joan Wilder is forced to make ransom, but after taking a wrong turn she ends up on a wild adventure with a treasure hunter. Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito form a great cast and deliver solid performances. The story is fairly well told, however the characters are a bit underdeveloped and there are some weaknesses in the plot. Still, the action sequences are impressive and exciting, and the comedy works quite well. Romancing the Stone is a thrilling action film that's tremendously entertaining.

Is there any film that Douglas stars in where he doesn't manage to show or reveal bits of his anatomy?...mainly his ass. An early Zemeckis film with a cast that would reunite a few times after but was it any good? yeeeaa no. Made a few years after another certain popular fedora wearing adventurer you could be forgiven for thinking this was a poor mans rip of that franchise. Indeed the whole look of the film is similar but instead of hot yellow desert sands we have wet sweaty green jungle, plus its set in the present day of 84. Personally I really can't see why this was a hit upon release. The plot is quite a mess with many people all running around after other people and a map, poor action sequences, uneventful twists and dull villains...if any. I don't wanna mention 'Indy' but I just can't help it hehe. Douglas's character is decked out in virtually the same kind of gear and he has a silly macho type of name. Both him and Turner run around the jungle dodging snakes, soldiers, large ravines, crocodiles and drug runners doing pretty much what you would expect this type of film to offer albeit in a slightly more grown up fashion. Douglas really isn't the right kind of leading man for this type of film, the guy always was so sleazy looking. Devito also struggles to inject anything into the film in my view despite clearly being stuck in it for comedy, the guy is not right for fast paced actions films. Overall the casting was horrible if you ask me, worst line up ever!. Total hit and miss for me, really didn't like anything going on, found it dull and cliched. A typical mix of 'Indy' and 'Bond' yet adding nothing new or exciting to the fold. Had it come out before other films then it may have been a different story, oh and the films poster is way better than the actual film (common issue with some old 80's films).

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Romancing the Stone (1984)

Kathleen turner: joan wilder.

• Photos (80)
• Quotes (34)

Photos 

Quotes 

Joan Wilder : What is all this?

Jack Colton : All this? About five to life in the States, a couple of centuries down here.

Joan Wilder : Oh, marijuana.

Jack Colton : Oh, you smoke it?

Joan Wilder : [defensively]  I went to college.

Joan Wilder : These were Italian.

Jack Colton : Now they're practical.

Jack Colton : My minimum price for taking a stranded lady to a telephone is 400 dollars.

Joan Wilder : Will you take 375 in traveler's checks?

Jack Colton : American Express?

Joan Wilder : Of course.

Jack Colton : You've got a deal.

Joan Wilder : Why won't you take the elevator?

Mrs. Irwin : Oh, pumpkin, I never get into an elevator alone. You know... rapists.

[first lines] 

Grogan : What's it gonna be, Angelina?

Joan Wilder : [voiceover narration]  It was Grogan: the filthiest, dirtiest, *dumbest* excuse for a man west of the Missouri River.

Grogan : So, you can die two ways, angel: quick like the tongue of a snake, or slower than the molasses in January.

Joan Wilder : [voiceover narration]  But it was October.

Grogan : I'll kill you, goddammit, if it's the Fourth of July! Where is it? Uhh. Get over there!

Joan Wilder : [voiceover narration]  I told him to get out, now that he had what he came for.

Grogan : Not quite, angel.

[spits] 

Grogan : Take 'em off. Do it! Come on!

[Angelina kills Grogan by throwing a concealed knife] 

Joan Wilder : [voiceover]  That was the end of Grogan... the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible! But if there was one law of the west: Bastards had brothers, who seemed to ride forever.

Joan Wilder : You're the best time I've ever had.

Jack Colton : I've never been anybody's best time.

[last lines] 

[Jack shows off his new crocodile skin boots made from the crocodile he has killed] 

Joan Wilder : I like your boots.

Jack Colton : Yup, that poor old yellow-tailed guy... developed a fatal case of indigestion. He died right in my arms.

Joan Wilder : I can't blame him. If I were to die, there's nowhere on earth I'd rather be.

Jack Colton : I couldn't stop thinking about you. I even read one of your books.

Joan Wilder : Then you know how they all end.

Jack Colton : Yeah. Hi.

Joan Wilder : Hi.

[they kiss passionately] 

Joan Wilder : Excuse me, mister. Can you tell where can I get to a telephone?

Jack Colton : No, lady. I don't have any idea. I'm sorry.

Joan Wilder : But it's very important that I get to one.

Jack Colton : Well, we've all got our problems today. Don't we?

Joan Wilder : Can you tell me where the nearest town is?

Jack Colton : English speaking? How about Miami?

Joan Wilder : Will there be another bus?

Jack Colton : Another bus? This is it.

[looks around a deserted, dirt mountain road] 

Jack Colton : You've got rush hour.

Joan Wilder : I need to get to Cartagena.

Jack Colton : Cartagena? Angel, you are hell and gone from Cartagena. Cartagena's over there on the coast.

Joan Wilder : But they told me this bus...

Jack Colton : Who told you that? Who told you this bus was going to Cartagena?

Joan Wilder : That man...

Jack Colton : That nice man who pulled a gun on you? What else did he tell you?

Jack Colton : I understand you have a car. We would like to buy it or rent it, we need to get to a town.

Juan : What do you call this I'm living in, a pigsty?

Jack Colton : Oh, no this is great...

Juan : Hit the road.

Jack Colton : No, senor, see we...

Juan : Hit-the-road.

Jack Colton : But we...

Juan : [points a gun at him]  Vaya con dios, gringo.

Jack Colton : [Jack and Joan back off and turn around, to find that all of Juan's men have pulled guns on them too]  Okay, Joan Wilder, write us out of this one.

Juan : Joan Wilder... Joan Wilder? *The* Joan Wilder?

[lowering gun, opening door and walking out] 

Juan : You are Joan Wilder, the novelist?

Joan Wilder : Well, yes, I am.

Juan : I read your books! I read all your books!

[turning to his men, in Spanish] 

Juan : This is Joan Wilder, who writes the books I read to you on Saturdays!

Bad Hombre : [awestruck]  Juanita... Juanita, it's Juanita!

[all the men put away their guns and wave enthusiastically] 

Jack Colton : [looking at a photo of his dream yacht whilst lying in bed with Joan]  Someday if I had the money, I'd take you... we'd sail away... around the world and back again. I promise you. I promise you we'll do that.

[they kiss and Joan holds Jack more tightly] 

Joan Wilder : Why haven't you taken the map away from me?

Jack Colton : What are you talking about?

Joan Wilder : I saw that tree today, the Devil's Fork, it's on the map. You know how close we are?

Jack Colton : Yeah sure I do. What's that got to do with it?

Joan Wilder : I was thinking about something you said... about having more to bargain with.

Jack Colton : Yeah. The best way to help your sister is to get that treasure and if you waltz into Cartagena you're holding all the cards.

Joan Wilder : [looks at the picture of the yacht, then back at Jack]  I'd love to see you on that boat. But Jack if we have to give it up... to save Elaine?

Jack Colton : Then we give it up. I mean it's your sister. Hell yeah. Of course we give it up. That's the point. At least we've got the leverage to do it.

Joan Wilder : [looks at the picture of the yacht again, then back at Jack]  OK. OK. Let's got for it.

[they kiss] 

Joan Wilder : What about the bridge?

Jack Colton : That ain't a bridge. That's goddamned pre-Columbian art!

Joan Wilder : You're leaving? You're leaving me?

Jack Colton : You're gonna be all right, Joan Wilder.

Jack Colton : You always were.

Jack Colton : Wait a minute, he's after you. Who the hell are you?

Joan Wilder : Well, I'm a romance novelist.

Jack Colton : You're what? What are you doing here?

Joan Wilder : I told you, my sister's life depends on me.

Jack Colton : Ah, don't give me that shit. I thought you were donating a kidney or something.

[after reading Joan's new novel based on her adventure] 

Gloria : Joanie, you are now a WORLD-CLASS hopeless romantic.

Joan Wilder : No, hopeful. Hopeful romantic.

Jack Colton : [picking up a magazine]  Dammit man, the Doobie Brothers broke up! Shit! When did that happen?

Joan Wilder : How long have you been down here?

Jack Colton : Forever.

Joan Wilder : Which way to do we go?

Jack Colton : Follow that stone!

Joan Wilder : You're a mondo dismo!

Jack Colton : I'm... what am I? I'm what?

Joan Wilder : You're a man who takes money from stranded women!

Joan Wilder : Can we get there in your car?

Juan : Who told you I had a car?

Joan Wilder : The men in the village.

Juan : They told you I had a car? They are such comedians. They meant my little mule: Pepe.

Joan Wilder : What do you want? Seriously, I'd really like to know.

Jack Colton : Came down here in a coffee boat, about a year and a half ago. Right. Christ, what job that was. But, I couldn't get over that ocean, though, you know. Yeah. I love the ocean. You know you just got to get out there - all by yourself - nobody else around. It's beautiful. So, that's what I want. Try to get enough money together to buy a boat and sail around the world.

Joan Wilder : So, you're just gonna sail away? All by yourself?

Jack Colton : Yeah.

Joan Wilder : Sounds lonely, Jack T. Colton. Well, what does the "T" stand for?

Jack Colton : Trustworthy.

Joan Wilder : Well, wait a minute, now. Going for the stone was my idea.

Ralph : Ah, that's what all the good con artists want you to think. He made you think you needed it, you sap!

Gloria : [sniffling while reading Joan's latest novel]  Well, that is far and away your best book. I can't believe how fast you cranked this out.

Joan Wilder : So you really like it?

Gloria : Like it? What? Look at me. Look at me, I'm a mess. It made me cry. You tell anybody, I'll cut your heart out. I love the end where he dives off the high wall and swims away. Then he meets her at the airport. They sail off around the world together. God, I can't believe how this got to me.

Joan Wilder : Well, I was, uh, inspired.

Gloria : [observing men in a bar]  Wimp. Wimp. Loser. Loser. Major loser. Too angry. Too vague. Too desperate. God, too happy. Oh, look at this guy. Mr. Mondo Dismo. I actually used to date him. Total sleaze bucket. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold everything. Get a load of this character. What about him?

Joan Wilder : No, he's - he's just not...

Gloria : Who? Jessie?

Joan Wilder : Maybe it's silly, but, I know there is somebody out there for me.

Joan Wilder : [Jack kills a snake by her head and removes its body]  Is it, uh, poisonous?

Jack Colton : Yeah. But very tasty.

Jack Colton : I think I'm going to throw another key on the fire.

Joan Wilder : No, please, I'm getting dizzy.

Joan Wilder : What I would really like - would be a phone.

Juan : No. No. No. No. No phones. No phones. I hate phones. I don't have a phone. But, have a drink! Let's hang out!

Jack Colton : [as he's about to leave Joan]  All right. Here's what we got to do. Get to the American Consulate. Just tell them everything.

Joan Wilder : Where are you going?

Jack Colton : They might believe you, but just one thing: don't mention my name. Cartagena cops and I go way back.

Joan Wilder : Well, you said you just lost everything you owned.

Jack Colton : Not my sense of humor.

Joan Wilder : [following the treasure map and coming to an apparent dead end]  Well, this... this can't be all. There's got to be another clue here.

Jack Colton : Yeah, well, landmarks change, things grow, all that stuff, you know?

Joan Wilder : [seeing something on the map]  Oh.

[hearing rushing water nearby] 

Joan Wilder : Hey, you hear that?

Jack Colton : Waterfall.

Joan Wilder : Look, Jack.

Jack Colton : [as she folds the map over itself, it creates an image of a waterfall]  All right, Joan!

Juan : See that river?

Jack Colton : What, the one without the bridge?

Juan : This river is the main water supply for many villages.

Joan Wilder : What do you mean the one without the bridge?

Juan : It feeds right into the Amazon.

Jack Colton : The one without the bridge! Where the hell are you going?

Juan : To Lupe's Escape. I used it many times in the past.

[taking out a remote control and pressing a button, a bridge raises and the jeep jumps over the river] 

Joan Wilder : What are you doing?

Jack Colton : I'm hot-wiring the car.

Joan Wilder : [pointing to the ignition]  Try the key.

Jack Colton : So they're ransoming your sister for this El Corazon. That's Spanish for "the heart." This map here leads to the heart. But the heart of what?

Joan Wilder : I don't care.

Jack Colton : You see here where it says this El Corazon is hidden in Cordoba province?

Joan Wilder : Mm-hmm.

Jack Colton : So, we're sitting right in the middle of it.

Joan Wilder : All I care about is my sister, and that map is her life.

Jack Colton : Like hell it is. Whatever's at the end of this map is your sister's life. Now, we get our hands on this El Corazon, then you got something to bargain with.

Joan Wilder : I knew it would happen.

Jack Colton : You knew what would happen?

Joan Wilder : All you care about is yourself, isn't it? I knew that from the first moment I laid eyes on you.

Jack Colton : Oh, was that the first moment when I saved your ass?

Jack Colton : [after going over a waterfall]  You okay?

Joan Wilder : [sarcastic]  Oh, sure. I'm great. I'm fine! Only you're on that side!

Jack Colton : There's no way across this sucker!

Joan Wilder : You did this on purpose!

Jack Colton : What the hell are you talking about? We just went over a waterfall!

Joan Wilder : Admit it! You planned this all along! I knew I couldn't depend on you! I knew it!

Jack Colton : What's the name of that hotel in Cartagena?

Joan Wilder : Hotel Cartagena! What do you care?

Jack Colton : All right. Now, you just head towards the sunset, and you'll make it! And I'll be there!

Joan Wilder : Oh, yeah, sure. With El Corazon in your pocket. What about my sister?

Jack Colton : Well, they don't have to know about this. You got the map!

Joan Wilder : Well, you've got the stone!

Jack Colton : Yeah, but...

[ducking gunfire from Zolo and his men] 

Jack Colton : I'll meet you there! Trust me!

Gloria : Colombia? Do you have any idea what it's like in Colombia? I do. Your books do very well in these macho countries. They have jungles there, Joanie, insects the size of sanitation trucks. Revolutionaries. Have you had your shots?

Joan Wilder : Shots? What shots?

Gloria : You see? You're completely unprepared. Wait a minute. Just hold on. Would you tell me what's going on? Why are you doing this?

Joan Wilder : Elaine is in some trouble. She has a... little domestic problem.

Gloria : Domestic problem? Elaine's last domestic problem was finding her husband cut into small pieces. I'm not gonna let you do this. You cannot go!

Joan Wilder : [giving her a pet carrier]  Here's Romeo. Now, I want you to promise me to feed him and hold him at least once a day.

[taking a small bottle of alcohol from a cabinet] 

Joan Wilder : Gotcha.

Gloria : You're gonna need something stronger than that.

[cut to them leaving the building] 

Gloria : Listen to me. You get bus-sick, seasick, plane-sick, train-sick. You practically puke riding on the escalator at Bloomingdale's, for God's sake!

Joan Wilder : Well, a lot of people get sick in department stores.

Gloria : Joanie, please don't go. You're not up to this, Joan, and you know it.

Joan Wilder : [hailing a taxi]  I know. But she's my sister.

Gloria : [meaning Joan's cat Romeo]  I'll feed him, but I'm not picking him up.

Joan Wilder : Friendly, aren't they.

Jack Colton : Drug runners. Just try to look mean.

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The Irrepressible Charm of ‘Romancing the Stone’

The 1984 film imagined a writer as the next indiana jones – and spawned generations of imitators..

The early 1980s were a crazy time for adventure movies. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” had come out in the summer of 1981 and was a huge box-office success, spawning sequels that would continue more than 40 years later and imitators that adapted old adventure tropes like “King Solomon’s Mines” in 1985 and “High Road to China” in 1983, the latter starring the man who might have been Indiana Jones if not for prior commitments, Tom Selleck.

So it’s interesting that the best of the Indiana Jones follow-ups spun the story in a direction that was infrequently explored: what better plot than one revolving around a writer, and what better way to thrust a writer into action than thrusting them into one of their own stories?

Released in 1984, “Romancing the Stone” beat by decades latter-day “authors in their own adventures” films like “The Lost City” and “Argylle.” “Romancing the Stone” – and its lesser-and-lesser-remembered sequel, “The Jewel of the Nile,” from 1985 – got there first, by decades. “Romancing the Stone” really perfected the formula. 

And – tragically – it is the fate of the film’s novice screenwriter, Diane Thomas, that is the strangest story connected to the film.

Mudslides and arduous filming

It’s honestly debatable how much “Raiders” influenced “Romancing the Stone” because both were in the works, at least in pre-production, years before Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders” came out.

As early as May 1978, newspaper accounts noted that Spielberg and friend and “Star Wars” creator George Lucas were working on a project called “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” A California paper cited it as a project about which little was known.

Then in September 1979, the Los Angeles Times published a profile of Diane Thomas, not long after she had been working as a waitress and after she had spent a year writing “Romancing the Stone,” “which neither she nor (producer and star Michael) Douglas nor her agent will say much about. The fear, as with many film ideas, is that someone will steal the idea and turn it into a quickie TV movie or low-budget feature.”

“I’ll never sell my first screenplay again,” the 33-year-old Thomas is quoted as saying. “I know this is a Cinderella story, although I don’t have any glass slippers around my house. Maybe I should get a pair.”

Thomas could afford them. She had famously been paid $250,000 for the screenplay for “Romancing.”

The headline on the Times article: “A New Career with a Cinderella Ending.”

“Romancing the Stone,” in the meantime, wouldn’t be released until the end of March 1984, when the competition at the box office included “Footloose,” “Splash,” “Against all Odds” and “Police Academy.” Even in April, the first full month “Romancing” was in release, it came in second in terms of tickets sold to “Police Academy.”

It seemed like the immediate payoff was not there. After all, star and producer Michael Douglas had been working on the film for five years, nurturing Thomas’ script. And production in Mexico was arduous.

“I had really underestimated the logistics of shooting a chase picture in the middle of the jungle in monsoon season in a foreign county,” Douglas said in an interview published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We were flying without a net a lot of the time. We were out on the edge.”

While the movie probably got made through Douglas’ perseverance, it was director Robert Zemeckis who pulled off the film. Zemeckis had made two films before making “Romancing the Stone.” He was not yet the seasoned director who would later make “Back to the Future” and two sequels, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Forrest Gump,” “Castaway” and other, lesser films.

Among Zemeckis, Douglas and Thomas, “Romancing” boasted memorable scenes, probably none as memorable as the mudslide scene, in which the leads slide down a steep hillside in the rain and mud. 

Douglas and Zemickis assembled a small but tight cast. Douglas played reluctant adventurer Jack Colton, but the standout was Kathleen Turner – who had a sensational debut in 1981 with “Body Heat” – playing successful romantic adventure novelist Joan Wilder. She’s a homebody – she has a cat, for goodness sakes, as if “Argylle” couldn’t find enough other plot points to cop – who goes to Colombia to help her sister and in the adventure becomes more confident, a woman able to stand up to gangsters and secret police and crocodiles. It’s not quite one of those woman-takes-her-glasses-off-and-is-a-beauty clichés, but Joan does reveal the beauty that is Turner.

Other cast members include Danny DeVito as a small-time hood who helps to move the plot along and while the movie isn’t as dated as I was afraid it would be, there’s not the kind of depth of character that we’d see in a movie like this today.

“Romancing the Stone” was a hit, though, grossing $115 million and Zemickis said the movie’s success ensured he could direct “Back to the Future.”

But Diane Thomas, the screenwriter of “Romancing the Stone,” did not have the Cinderella-like ending the Los Angeles Times had wished for her back in 1979.

Listening ‘while Diane saved the world’

After she wrote “Romancing the Stone,” Thomas co-wrote the Spielberg film “Always,” a romantic fantasy starring Richard Dreyfuss. 

She also finished a draft of a third Indiana Jones movie, which reportedly revolved around a haunted house. By some accounts, Spielberg decided against going forward with the idea because it reminded him too much of “Poltergeist,” which he had produced in 1982.

In October 1985, Thomas died instantly when her Porsche Carrera, which was being driven by her boyfriend, spun out of control while traveling at speeds approaching 80 miles per hour on the Pacific Coast Highway. Thomas had been sitting in the backseat of the sportscar. Another passenger died of injuries from the crash. 

Thomas died six weeks before the “Romancing” sequel, “Jewel of the Nile,” was released. Aside from a few characters she worked on for Douglas, Thomas had not been able to pen the script for the sequel because she was busy with her work on “Always.” She is one of three writers credited with the script for “Jewel of the Nile.” 

A few weeks after her death, Betty Spence wrote about Thomas for the Los Angeles Times and the remembrance paints a picture of every writer ever – or at least who they’d like to be – and every writer who’s ever written themselves into their own story.

“She worked relentlessly, with a discipline that amazed us. Her habitual eight hours at the typewriter might result in a dozen pages or only two, yet she persisted, even when writing on spec. One night before her movie was made, she showed her day’s output: a list of five neatly typed ideas. Eight hours’ thinking.

“Wine glass in hand, legs akimbo on the couch, she pitched one to me, her dreamer’s mind unleashed as she unraveled an original saga of a girl with the secret of the philosopher’s stone. In awe, I listened while Diane saved the world as naturally as she might recount her own history.”

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Keith Roysdon

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Romancing the Stone (1984)

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Though she can spin wild tales of passionate romance, novelist Joan Wilder has no life of her own. Then one day adventure comes her way in the form of a mysterious package. It turns out that the parcel is the ransom she'll need to free her abducted sister, so Joan flies to South America to hand it over. But she gets on the wrong bus and winds up hopelessly stranded in the jungle.

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‘Romancing the Stone’ and Its Screenwriter’s Tragic Tale

Diane Thomas was a waitress when she made headlines for the script sale of what would become a box office smash. But the Cinderella story had a sad ending.

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By Bob Mehr

Each day, before her waitressing shift began, Diane Thomas would plop herself onto the floor of her tiny Malibu studio apartment, in front of a low-slung desk, and begin typing. Throughout late 1978 and early 1979, she worked daily, hours on end, conjuring the tale of Joan Chase, a mousy romance novelist suddenly thrust into a life-or-death adventure.

“I wanted to write about a woman who became her own heroine,” Thomas would offer of her inspiration. “The notion that we can be whatever we imagine ourselves to be interested me.”

Forty years ago, Thomas’s story, “ Romancing the Stone ” — and its heroine, renamed Joan Wilder — reached big screens, becoming one of the top box office hits of 1984 and an enduring classic, owing to a perfectly measured blend of action, comedy and romance. “It’s still the most well-rounded script I’ve ever read,” Michael Douglas , the film’s producer and co-star, said in an interview. “In many ways, it was a reflection of Diane — she wasn’t quite as shy as Joan Wilder, but she poured a lot of herself into this story of a writer who experiences a metamorphosis.”

During a golden era of action-adventure pictures, the novice Thomas turned the genre on its head. “A woman being the impetus for that kind of movie hadn’t been done, certainly not in that way,” said Kathleen Turner, who played Wilder. “I mean, the girls in those types of movies were just that — they were always sidekicks or scenery.”

Thomas’s friends, like her fellow writer Betty Spence, said the sweep of the story — which moved from the posh Upper West Side of Manhattan to the raw jungles of South America — was the product of a fertile imagination. “Diane was a pure storyteller,” Spence said. “She could sit there and spin a tale out of nothing, and it would have a perfect beginning, middle and end.”

When Thomas sold her script in the summer of 1979, she went from minimum-wage worker to one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. It was the start of a meteoric career that would include a pair of major movie hits and multiple projects with Steven Spielberg. Yet “Romancing the Stone” would be the only film to ever bear a Thomas writing credit because her life was tragically cut short.

At the height of her success, in late 1985, Thomas, just 39, was killed in a car accident. As Spence would note later, Thomas “strove to make her life the stuff of fantasy” — and, for a little while, anyway, she succeeded.

LONG BEFORE DIANE THOMAS became part of Hollywood’s dream factory, her life had been shaped by it. Born in 1946 in northern Michigan, she attended the University of Southern California business school and worked for years in advertising. “That came out of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies,” Thomas once told a journalist, “where advertising was always this glamorous profession.”

She eventually tired of writing ad copy. She went on to study with the Actors Studio sage Jack Garfein, write short sketches, perform with an improv troupe, attend grad school for clinical psychology and work at a halfway house. “What made Diane such an interesting writer,” Douglas said, “was that she’d done a lot of different things before she ever got to the movies.”

In her mid-30s, Thomas finally decided to channel her storytelling instincts into screenwriting. To pay the rent, she began waitressing at the Corral Beach Cantina, a Mexican cafe on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, while she developed “Romancing the Stone.”

She’d gleaned the title — a bit of jewelry industry jargon referring to the mythmaking surrounding precious gems — from an old boyfriend, but the premise was all hers: Joan, a romance writer is shaken out of her staid world after her sister is kidnapped in Colombia. She sets out to save her sibling while pursing the film’s titular stone, dodging a small army of villains, finding both herself and romance with a charming rogue, Jack Colton. “The best part for her was conjuring that character,” Spence said, “coming up with the man of her dreams.”

The screenwriter John Hill, a friend of Thomas’s, read her script and called his agent, Norman Kurland, raving about it. In a long career, Kurland had read thousands of spec scripts. “But Diane’s was unique,” he said, and he agreed to represent her. “Actually, I had one other experience that was similar, and that was a script sent to me by an ad copywriter from the Midwest, who turned out to be Larry Kasdan. And it was the screenplay for ‘The Bodyguard.’”

In August 1979, Kurland was about to shop the script when Sherry Lansing, an executive at Columbia Pictures, suggested he funnel the project to Douglas, who’d just brought his production company to the studio. Douglas had given up a successful TV career (as co-star of “The Streets of San Francisco”) to produce films, winning a best-picture Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and earning accolades for the political drama “The China Syndrome.”

Douglas was searching for a different kind of project, and was wowed by “Romancing” and the bravura of its first-time author. Thomas “was not cautious,” Douglas said at the time. “Unlike so many screenplays by people who have had material rejected, there was a total lack of fear to the writing.” He persuaded the Columbia studio head Frank Price to pre-empt the sales process and buy the script outright for a hefty $250,000 (roughly $1.1 million today). “People criticized me for paying so much for a first-time screenwriter,” Douglas said in an interview. “My feeling was, first time or 10th time, the script is the script, and hers was wonderful.”

Still, The Los Angeles Times noted that she had become “something of a symbol to the legion of would-be writers” waiting for their big breaks. Suddenly everyone in Hollywood was inundated with scripts from amateur writers who all thought they were the next Diane Thomas. Among the many inquiries Kurland received was a call from another service-industry worker with a screenplay. “Get it over here right away,” he told her, “this is my week for waitresses.” The script wasn’t any good. “Which just goes to show,” Kurland said, “how unusual Diane and ‘Romancing the Stone’ were.”

THE SALE HAD BEEN EASY , but bringing “Romancing the Stone” to the screen would prove to be a challenge. Douglas struggled to get the film off the ground for years while Thomas — along with other writers — continued to refine her script. (She would also contribute to another Douglas project, “Starman.”) Further complicating his effort was the 1981 release of a vaguely similar treasure-hunting adventure, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” (“Romancing” would later occasionally be dismissed as a “Raiders” ripoff, even though Thomas had written her script years before.)

In 1983, “Romancing the Stone” fell apart at Columbia, but Douglas managed to revive the project at Fox, tapping Robert Zemeckis to direct. Zemeckis’s only credits were a pair of comedies that had underperformed, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “Used Cars.” But, Douglas said, “I thought he would be a great match for the tone that Diane had set, given the tongue-in-cheek thing that Bob did so well.”

For the principal role of Joan Wilder, the studio suggested the up-and-comer Kathleen Turner, who’d made a memorable debut as the femme fatale in “Body Heat” (1981). Turner met with Thomas, who thought she was right for the part, but the actress still had to persuade Douglas and Zemeckis. “There was a question of whether I could play this wilting wallflower of a woman,” Turner said in an interview. “So I put on some sloppy old clothes, went in and stumbled around during the test, and that seemed to reassure them.”

After offering the Colton role to his friend Jack Nicholson, who passed, Douglas got further rejections from Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood — largely because the part was secondary to that of Wilder. Out of options, Douglas cast himself. “After all the better-known actors had turned us down, Fox was open to me doing it,” he recalled.

The cast — which included Douglas’s old pal, Danny DeVito, as a comic baddie — set out for Mexico in the summer of 1983 for an arduous shoot, plagued by apocalyptically bad weather and production mishaps. Rumors from the set were so bad that Zemeckis was fired from his next project, “Cocoon,” because that film’s producers were convinced that “Romancing the Stone” would bomb. (Ron Howard eventually directed “Cocoon,” which became a 1985 hit.) “We weren’t even sure we were going to be allowed to finish the film, honestly,” Turner said. After some last-minute reshoots the film wrapped that fall.

Expectations were decidedly low when “Romancing the Stone” arrived in theaters in the spring of 1984, but the picture would become the surprise hit of the season, earning $115 million on a budget of just $10 million and going on to become a Top 10 release in a year filled with iconic blockbusters (“Ghostbusters,” “Beverly Hills Cop”).

The unexpected success elevated the careers of everyone involved. Thomas was immediately tapped by Steven Spielberg to adapt Jeno Rejto’s 1939 novel, “The Blonde Hurricane,” and to script a remake of the 1943 fantasy “A Guy Named Joe.” (That remake was eventually released in 1989 as “Always,” with several writers listed in the credits, but not Thomas.). Thomas also found herself being courted by top directors like George Lucas and Sydney Pollack. “She was a hot writer,” Douglas said, “and I was very happy for her.”

Thomas was so in demand that she was unavailable when Fox prodded Douglas to turn out a quick sequel to “Romancing the Stone.” Instead, he hired Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner to pen the follow-up, “ The Jewel of the Nile ,” but Turner balked at their story. “They’d turned Joan into a figurehead,” she said, refusing to take part, and was promptly slapped with a $25 million breach of contract suit by Fox.

Douglas hired another team, Ken Levine and David Isaacs, to rewrite the script, but the story’s opening act still needed work. Thomas agreed to spend a long weekend with the new writers, helping strengthen the first 30 pages of the screenplay. “She’d created those characters and had an incredible feel for them,” Levine said, “which made it very easy to do the work.” (He added that much of what he and Isaacs wrote ended up getting thrown out during the film’s chaotic shoot in Morocco, though Thomas’s contributions remained intact.)

As a thank you for her time, Douglas offered to buy Thomas a new car. Spence urged Thomas to pick something practical, a Mercedes sedan — but she opted for a Porsche Carrera instead. “The last time I saw Diane,” Douglas said, “was when I took her out to the parking lot to show her the Porsche.”

That fall, Thomas was dating a young actor named Stephen Norman. On Oct. 21, 1985, Thomas, Norman and another friend, Ian Young, attended an evening writing workshop at Pepperdine University, then stopped off at a bar. Afterward, Norman got behind the wheel of Thomas’s Porsche and headed down Pacific Coast Highway. On a rain- slicked stretch near Topanga Canyon, the car spun out of control when Norman misjudged the accelerating power of the Porsche, striking a wooden power pole at 80 mph, and shearing it at the base. Norman survived with only minor injuries. Young was airlifted to U.C.L.A. Medical Center and died a short time later. Thomas, who had been in the back seat, was pronounced dead at the scene. Although Norman was not legally drunk, he was cited for gross negligence and was later convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of Thomas and Young, receiving five years’ probation. (Norman did not respond to requests for an interview.)

Thomas didn’t live to see the release of “Jewel of the Nile” a few weeks later. The sequel would become another hit, grossing nearly $100 million worldwide, though critics would note that the screenplay lacked the inventive spark Thomas had brought to the original.

In the wake of her death, Spielberg established a memorial writing award in Thomas’s honor at the University of California, Los Angeles, but “Romancing the Stone” would become her legacy. Over the years, another sequel, a remake and TV adaptation have all been discussed but never materialized. Meanwhile, several recent movies like “The Lost City,” “Argylle,” even “Wonder Woman,” have attempted to copy the premise of “Romancing” and recreate its alchemy with varying results. “When you try and imitate something, it’s never going to be as enticing as the original,” Turner said. “Diane broke ground with that film.”

Four decades on, the pain of Thomas’s passing lingers with Douglas. “Her death is still one of the biggest losses of my life,” he said. “Diane was a lovely woman and a great writer, who would’ve gone onto a wonderful, magical career. She would have been right up there with the best.”

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