Romancing the Stone is a 1984 American action-adventure romantic comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It 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. The film stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito, and was followed by a 1985 sequel titled The Jewel of the Nile. Romancing the Stone earned over $86 million worldwide in box office receipts. It also helped launch Turner to stardom, reintroduced Douglas to the public as a capable leading man, started Zemeckis’ frequent collaboration with Alan Silvestri, and gave Zemeckis his first box-office success.
