We’re skipping 1983; Fox’s Mr. Mom is a bit too trivial, and To Be or Not To Be redundant as Mel Brooks is already represented.
I would’ve considered Silkwood but
it’s out of print on DVD, and so we’re up to 1984, and my selection from that
year is obvious: Romancing the Stone.
I mean, c’mon! This absolutely needs to be in this
collection – it was a commercial ad critical huge hit, spawned a sequel the
following year, kickstarted the careers of stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen
Turner, Danny Devito and director Robert Zemeckis, and was just simply a
freaking entertaining movie! Easily a classic in every sense of the word.
But it didn’t start out that way. It all began when Michael
Douglas, who, despite having received lead billing in several films from 1978
to 1983 but was never a major movie star, was approached by a waitress at a
café in Los Angeles. Her name was Diane Thomas, an aspiring screenwriter with
just one script under her belt, but when she showed it to Douglas, he just knew
had to make it. He and Columbia pictures bought it, but when they got cold
feet, he took it to Fox, where it would be helmed by a neophyte director by the
name of Robert Zemeckis.
But Fox was nervous, and with no real stars, a green-lit
budget of 10 million but steadily rising due to remote location shoots in
Mexico, an untried director and the worst movie title in Hollywood history, they
soon lost all faith in the project. Zemeckis was fired from his next Fox
assignment, Cocoon, and their
accountants were all set t write it off as a colossal bomb.
But it wasn’t, even though they dumped it for a March
release – word of mouth made it the must-see film of that spring. (Back then,
movies had staying power; it played in theaters all the way up through the
summer.) I remember seeing it for the first time at the Depford Mall – loving
it, clearly, and responding, I think to its freshness; it was an old-fashioned,
serial inspired adventure film, sure, but it looked crisp and vibrant, with a cool-jazz, modern-sounding score,
and an exotic up-to-date setting of drug-war-ravaged South America. I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark, don’t get me
wrong, but Romancing felt more adult
to me, with more mature concepts and themes, still then a distant concept but
one for which I had an insatiable curiosity. I saw it as second time, with my
mother, and, as I expected she loved it too. It sort of validated my own
appreciation of it.
And, in keeping with the early 80s, it was all filtered
through a female sensibility, specifically, that of Joan Wilder (Kathleen
Turner), Stone’s protagonist. She’s a
best-selling adventure-romance novelist, desperately wishing her real life
could match her fantastical exploits, until one day she gets a call from a
Colombian druglord, Ira. He, and
his henchman, Ralph (Danny DeVito), is holding her sister for ransom, demanding
the map that was sent to her by sister’s now-dead husband. Off she goes to the
Amazonian rainforests, carting along the map but unaware that a far more
sinister threat is on her trail: Zolo, the bloodthirsty head of a local
militia, the one responsible for her brother-in-law’s murder. Zolo successfully
sidetracks her from Ira by mismarking her bus, and soon she is stranded in the
jungle.
Zolo almost gets the map, but along comes an American ne’er
do well, a lone mercenary named Jack Colton (Douglas), whose recent livelihood
of bird-raising has just gone kaput. He accepts her offer of $375 to direct her
to a phone, a well-earned sum considering he now has to evade two parties after
Joan’s coveted map. But Jack may be considering finding the map’s treasure
first, before anyone – after all, he can use the priceless gem to fulfill his
dream of sailing around the world. When Joan learns of the plan, he convinces
her that it would make a great bargaining chip for her sister’s life, but she
(and we) isn’t so sure, particularly after Jack separates from her with the
jewel in his possession. Joan brings the map to the kidnappers, she and sis are
free to go, but Zolo has already gotten to Jack, demanding the goods (Jack,
apparently, was good to his word). But when the renegade general clutches the
gem in the grubby little palm of his hands, an even hungrier crocodile rips
that hand (and jewel) right off, and it’s just a matter of time before the rest
of Zolo is fed to those reptilian maneaters. Back at home, Joan uses the
experience for her newest bestseller, but longs to see Jack again.
Conveniently, on the city street, she finds her long-lost beloved, with his
boat, bought by the gem he retrieved, and they “sail” down 5th
Avenue together.
I literally hadn’t seen the film in 32-odd years since
seeing it now, and it holds up remarkably well. The reasons for its freshness
back then – updated adventurism, coolly adult tone – are what make its so
resonant (and nostalgic) nowadays. At the time, some critics called it
derivative of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but
its screenplay was actually written before that film’s release. And despite
their comradeship, I don’t think Zemeckis had Spielberg’s classic on his radar
– Stone is actually more akin to The African Queen than The Perils of Pauline, and all the other
serials that are Raiders’ inspiration.
Its focus is more on the est of female longing – the possibility that the
Harlequin dream can co-exist in the nascent era of female empowerment.
And somehow, Douglass made it fresh, too. His Jack Colton is
a loner, a not-entirely-chivalrous hero but not really Steve McQueen either. He
has a sensitive side to him, but that may yet be his fault. Thereafter,
Douglass made a career of playing the confused, postfeminist male – working
between concepts of manhood and masculinity, and the ever-increasing hegemony
of the female presence in society, for better or worse (usually worse). Turner,
too paved her own archetype too: the mousy turned stalwart adventure heroine,
and one which she herself would mine in future roles as well.
My only complaint: the ending. It sort of squeaks by, given
the fairy-tale tone, but it feels all too easy – maybe the hint that she’ll meet up with him someday, or should it take place long after her Colton-inspired book?
Again, it’s all in the tone – same reason Pretty
Woman’s uber-happy ending worked too.
But it’s a nitpick. This is grand-slam entertainment of the
highest order. A favorite from my childhood, and a classic for the ages.
Rating: ****
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