Classic Film Friday: Romancing the Stone

Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is an author, she writes about love and romance. But she gets a phone call from her sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) begging her to come to Columbia as she has been kidnapped. She has sent Joan a map, and if she brings it to Columbia, she can use it as ransom. What happens next is a bit of miscommunication and "fish out of water" circumstances. Until Joan meets Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda) who Joan at first trusts but quickly discovers he is not a nice guy at all.

As Zolo is about to kill Joan on the side of a Colombian road, Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) comes along and unwittingly gets into a fire fight with Zolo. Joan hires Jack to get her to where her sister is, but the two fall in love and we are treated to a swashbuckling adventure. With Danny DeVito playing the comic relief as he is a part of the team that kidnapped her sister. His name is Ralph.

Well it all seems like it will be ok, Joan gets her sister back Jack got paid... that is until everyone comes back together for a massive gun fight... including a tug of war with an alligator. It is a movie from the 80's through and through. Joan has a new story to write about, and Jack now has the boat he has been saving up for (he won the tug of war with the alligator... eventually) and they "sail" off together.