ROMANCING THE STONE – 40th Anniversary

 Starring: Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito

Director Robert Zemeckis
(Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Contact, Who Framed Roger Rabbit )

First time writer Diane Thomas

I joined some fellow members of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle to discuss this milestone anniversary on episode 120 of the Film Scribes Podcast:

My Pocast Notes:

This has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. Partly because I started reading romance novels at the tender age of 11 – more than likely why I’m still single, always looking for my Jesse or my Jack – and neither exists.  My favorite romance novelist had my same last name, only spelled with an “ey” instead of “ay”, Joanna Lindsey and the opening scene to Romancing The Stone with Angelina & Jesse out West, always felt like one of her books to me.

I like that we find out Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a successful romance author by just looking around her apartment at the awards and the posters instead of it coming out in conversation with her publisher.  Who wasn’t always going to be Holland Tayor. I watched some deleted scenes on YouTube where the role of the publisher was originally written for a man who had a thing for Joan. There’s a test screenings of them where Joan Wilder is bossing this publisher around and instead of the Joan we meet who is dowdy and makeup-less, full of nervous energy. She’s instead glamorous. And her apartment is completely different, none of the 80’s peach tones that make her place warm and comforting, which I always felt was a good set up for the stark difference she experiences in the Jungle.

Then another scene completely opposite, where she’s nervous about doing a book signing and at first this publisher is irritated with her, and then he switches tactics and tries to come on to her. The scene really drags. Thank goodness they scraped all of that. Because one of the things I admire most about the movie is it’s a runaway train, non-stop, no fat, edited to perfection.  They showed some other scenes with Joan and Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) fighting in the jungle. These also got cut to the betterment of the film.  This couple’s romance arc is perfect. Just enough happens between them that you believe he’d come looking for her again in New York.

I also watched Siskel & Ebert’s review of Romancing the Stone when it premiered and they both liked the movie and gave it 2 thumbs up, but hated the title. I’m always complaining about bad titles for movies, like this new one coming out with Austin Butler called The Bikeriders, about a motorcycle gang, kinda on the nose. But I especially hate pedestrian rom/com titles like “It Could Happened to You” “As Good As It Gets” “Just Like Heaven”.  But I never had a problem with “Romancing the Stone”. Siskel also said he thought the movie could be tighter, what!?! That’s nutz! Where would you tighten it? And they both felt it was a knock off of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark because everyone was doing swashbuckling after that movie came out, but the writer Diane Thomas had written the script in 1978 and it had everything already baked in. The adventure, romance, snakes and what not, way before Indy swung into action.

I think suitcases on wheels were probably invented shortly after this movie cause her dragging that suitcase during a monsoon is an indelible image, along with Douglas throwing it off the mountain.  I also love that quilted coat because all of us, no matter your age, had that coat back in the day. And the colors were always muted shades of grayish pink or pinkish gray.

Additional Notes:

The film was shot on Location: Veracruz and Hidalgo, Mexico

42nd Golden Globe Awards: Romancing the Stone won the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical, and Turner took home the Globe for best actress in a comedy or musical.

Screenwriter’s Death : Diane Thomas was killed in a car bought for her by Michael Douglas – her boyfriend had been driving when the Porsche struck a telephone poll. Thomas was only 29 and was becoming a sought after screenwriter.

Douglas Production Company: Big Stick – Although Douglas had won the Oscar for producing the 1975 best picture winner “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and had produced and appeared in such films as 1979’s “The China Syndrome,” he was thought of more as a television actor due to his starring role in the 1970s detective series, “The Streets of San Francisco.” His role as Jack Colton cemented him as a movie star.

Debra Winger was the first choice to play Joan Wilder.  But from what I now know about her, she would have made the set a living hell. Definitely not a good sport like Kathleen Turner, who took many lick’ns during the making of this film and kept on tick’n, with a smile on her lovely face.  I listened to the “You Must Remember This” Podcast about Polly Platt, amazing, non-directing, filmmaker, but the driving force behind “The Last Picture Show”, “Paper Moon”, “What’s Up Doc”,  “Pretty Baby”, and so many more classics. She worked closely on “Terms of Endearment” and boy, she didn’t have a good thing to say about Debra Winger, personally.  I always wondered why she just kinda faded from Hollywood, but guess no one wanted to work with her. 

I’m always amazed that Turner has been able to deal with the considerable loss of her looks.  If I were once so desirable with that rich, buttery voice, shapely legs, and figure, only to lose it ALL at a fairly young age; I would have been so devastated I’d probably never show my face again. But to Turner’s credit, she’s been able to make a new career for herself.  She was really funny as Chandler’s Dad on Friends. She’s good teamed up with Douglas again on the Kominsky Method. Although, that show suffered when Alan Arkin left.  But he didn’t live long after, so I hope he enjoyed a year or two of retirement.

I love that Alan Silvestri’s score was only supposed to be a place holder, and then director Robert Zemeckis started liking it, and not only kept it in the movie; but after that Silvestri worked on every movie Zemeckis did. Even the most recent terrible Pinocchio, which came out about a year before Guillermo del Toro‘s much better adaptation.  But way before Pinocchio of course, Zemeckis was the hit maker of the 80’s and early 90’s, just not before Romancing the Stone. The studio had little to no faith in him delivering RTS as any kind of hit. And in fact, he was also supposed to direct Cocoon which they took away from him, presuming a box office flop for RTS. As we all know now, just the opposite happened. This became the runaway hit of 1984, spawning the trio of Douglas, Turner, Devito as a thing. And more importantly, giving Zemekis the greenlight to make Back to the Future!  And the rest, as they say, is movie magic history.