50 Fun Facts About Romancing the Stone

Which Taxi star plays Ralph, the hapless crook who trails Joan through Colombia in Romancing the Stone?

Danny DeVito was working for an old roommate: he and Michael Douglas, the film's producer, met as young actors at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and shared a New York apartment in the 1960s.

In Romancing the Stone, what is the cargo of the crashed plane where Jack and Joan shelter from the rain?

Marijuana, in bales: Jack burns some of it as firewood, and the pair spend a mellow night by the blaze sharing a dead pilot's tequila.

What is the name of Joan's cat in Romancing the Stone?

Romeo is the only male in her life when the film begins: she finishes a love story in tears and celebrates by opening him a can of tuna.

To which Colombian city is Joan told to bring the treasure map as a ransom in Romancing the Stone?

Cartagena should have been one bus ride from the airport, but the villain steers her onto the wrong one, and its crash deep in the jungle is what throws her together with Jack.

What does Jack T. Colton deal in for a living when Joan meets him in Romancing the Stone?

Exotic birds: he loses his whole catch when Joan's bus ploughs into his parked jeep, which is why he is in no mood to guide her out of the jungle for free.

In Romancing the Stone, in what form does Joan pay the $375 Jack charges to lead her to a telephone?

Traveller's cheques, $375 of them: she pays up as promised when they reach a town, and instead of walking away with the money Jack asks her to dinner.

Why does the drug runner Juan help Jack and Joan escape instead of turning them away at gunpoint?

He loves her novels and reads them aloud to his men, so once he learns who is at his gate the gun comes down and he helps the pair outrun Zolo's soldiers.

What treasure does the map lead to in Romancing the Stone?

An enormous emerald, El Corazón, turns up inside a cheap porcelain figurine, and Joan knows to smash it because she hid a treasure inside a statue in her own first book.

What happens to Zolo's hand at the climax of Romancing the Stone?

A crocodile bites it off and swallows the emerald along with it; Jack later turns up in New York wearing the animal as a new pair of boots.

How does Jack make Joan's expensive pumps fit for a jungle trek in Romancing the Stone?

He chops off the heels with his machete, having already flung her suitcase into a ravine. 'Is nothing I own sacred to you?' she asks.

What does Jack buy with his share of the treasure at the end of Romancing the Stone?

A sailboat, the one he had been saving for: he hauls it on a trailer to Joan's street in New York, and has named it Angelina after the heroine of her books.

Which first-time screenwriter wrote Romancing the Stone, the only script of hers ever filmed?

Diane Thomas sold it for $250,000 and was hired by Steven Spielberg on the strength of it, but she died in a car crash in October 1985, a year and a half after the film opened.

What job was the writer of Romancing the Stone doing when she sold the script for $250,000?

Cocktail waitress, at a Mexican cantina on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. She wrote in every spare hour for a year, then hated being called Hollywood's 'Cinderella screenwriter'.

Before producing Romancing the Stone, Michael Douglas had won a Best Picture Oscar as producer of which film?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had made him a producer studios listened to, which is why Columbia bought this unknown writer's script the day after he read it.

The writer of Romancing the Stone had drafted which sequel, set in a haunted mansion, when she died in 1985?

A third Indiana Jones was her assignment, with Indy in a haunted house. Spielberg decided it sat too close to his own Poltergeist, and the series went looking for the Holy Grail instead.

When Joan asks what the T in 'Jack T. Colton' stands for, what does he tell her?

'Trustworthy', he says with a straight face, throwing back her own complaint that a real man would be exactly that. The film never reveals his actual middle name.

Which two stars turned down Jack Colton in Romancing the Stone before Michael Douglas cast himself?

Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood both said no, and the first studio lost interest. Other actors disliked playing second fiddle to the heroine, so the producer ended up hiring himself.

Which actress was the first choice to play Joan in Romancing the Stone, but turned the part down?

Debra Winger was courted on the set of Terms of Endearment and said no, so the mousy heroine went to Kathleen Turner, until then known for playing a femme fatale.

In Romancing the Stone, what do Jack and Joan hurtle down together soon after they meet?

A mudslide sweeps them down the hillside and lands Jack face-first in Joan's lap, from where he cheerfully welcomes her to Colombia.

Although set in Colombia, Romancing the Stone was filmed mostly in which country?

Mexico stood in for Colombia, around Veracruz and Xalapa. Shooting through its rainy season brought storm after storm, and the film fell behind schedule.

Which singer recorded a title song for Romancing the Stone that the film barely used?

Eddy Grant, of 'Electric Avenue' fame, wrote 'Romancing the Stone' as the film's theme. Only an instrumental snatch survived the edit, yet the single still reached No. 26 in the US.

Fox rushed Romancing the Stone's release to get ahead of which 1984 rival?

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the fear: Fox thought the Raiders sequel would bury its jungle romp. Time called the film 'a distaff Raiders rip-off' anyway, though its script was older than Raiders.

Which film's producers fired Robert Zemeckis as director after seeing a rough cut of Romancing the Stone?

Cocoon went to Ron Howard instead. Its producers had taken the rough cut for a flop in the making; within weeks of release the finished film was one of the surprise hits of 1984.

Which film did Robert Zemeckis say the success of Romancing the Stone allowed him to make?

Back to the Future had been turned down some forty times before he had a hit to his name. Made at last, it became the highest-grossing film of 1985.

Which 2022 comedy about a romance novelist stranded in the jungle borrowed its premise from Romancing the Stone?

The Lost City sent Sandra Bullock's novelist into the jungle with her cover model. Kathleen Turner was unmoved: an imitation, she said, is 'never going to be as enticing as the original'.

Which two Golden Globes did Romancing the Stone win?

Best Musical or Comedy and Best Actress for Turner both went to a film that its own studio had expected to flop.

Who composed the score for Romancing the Stone, beginning a long partnership with Zemeckis?

Alan Silvestri was a television composer, best known for CHiPs, when he got the job. He has scored every Zemeckis film since.

What did Kathleen Turner sue the makers of Romancing the Stone to pay for after filming?

Plastic surgery for on-set injuries: a fall during the rain-soaked shoot scraped her leg badly enough that she took the producers to court over the bill.

In Romancing the Stone, an old magazine brings Jack the unwelcome news that which band has broken up?

The Doobie Brothers had split in 1982, so Jack's dismay tells Joan how out of touch he is: asked how long he has been down there, he can only answer 'Forever.'

Where did President Reagan watch Romancing the Stone in May 1984?

Camp David was the Reagans' weekend cinema. Their viewing log has this film there on May 11, 1984, and the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, on the same screen in January 1986.

Which 1989 black comedy reunited the three stars of Romancing the Stone, with one of them directing?

The War of the Roses recast the screen sweethearts as a husband and wife locked in an outrageous, bitter divorce, with their old co-star behind the camera.

What is troubling Joan at the start of The Jewel of the Nile, six months after her jungle adventure?

Writer's block: having lived out her own happy ending, she can't invent another, and the film opens with her pitching her typewriter into the sea.

How does The Jewel of the Nile finally settle things between Jack and Joan?

They get married in the desert, the ending the first film had dodged; it takes a second adventure to cure Jack of his fear of commitment.

Which singer performed the hit theme of The Jewel of the Nile?

Billy Ocean took 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going' to No. 1 in Britain with a video in which the film's three stars mime as his backing singers, one of them faking the saxophone solo.

What is the 'Jewel of the Nile' revealed to be in the Romancing the Stone sequel?

A gentle holy man, played by Avner Eisenberg, is the 'jewel': Joan finds him locked in the dictator's palace jail and learns that everyone has been hunting a person, not a gemstone.

What does the charming ruler Omar hire Joan to write in The Jewel of the Nile?

His biography, and a flattering one: Omar wants a famous author to polish his image before he proclaims himself ruler of the Arab world, and Joan goes with him over Jack's protests.

In what do Jack and Joan make their escape into the desert in The Jewel of the Nile?

A hijacked F-16 fighter jet, which Jack can drive but not fly: he rips its wings off driving it out of town, then outruns the dictator's men on the afterburner.

The desert scenes of The Jewel of the Nile were filmed in which North African country?

Morocco tested the crew with fierce heat and with customs officials who expected a bribe before any film equipment could pass.

Why did Kathleen Turner try to pull out of The Jewel of the Nile before filming?

She hated the script and stayed only when Fox threatened a $25 million lawsuit. She and Michael Douglas then traded pages from three drafts on a hotel floor until both could live with it.

What do Jack and Joan miss when stealing a car in Romancing the Stone?

Its owner asleep in the back is Ralph, the kidnapper who has been tailing them all along, so the pair end up chauffeuring their own pursuer towards the treasure.

Whose kidnapping sends Joan to Colombia at the start of Romancing the Stone?

Her sister Elaine is seized by two antiquities smugglers who want the treasure map that Elaine's murdered husband posted to Joan in New York shortly before he died.

Which future Two and a Half Men star plays Gloria, Joan's publisher, in Romancing the Stone?

Holland Taylor's Gloria is the first reader of Joan's adventure: handed the finished manuscript, she weeps over it and declares it another best-seller. She returned for the sequel.

Robert Zemeckis came to Romancing the Stone after two flops, the first about teenagers desperate to see which band?

The Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show appearance is the prize in I Wanna Hold Your Hand, his 1978 debut. It and Used Cars both underperformed, yet Michael Douglas still picked him to direct.

Kathleen Turner came to Romancing the Stone from which steamy 1981 thriller, her film debut?

Body Heat made her a screen temptress overnight. She took comic parts next to avoid being typecast, which is how its schemer turned up as a shy, bookish heroine.

Romancing the Stone opens inside one of Joan's novels; which kind of story is it?

A Western: the heroine Angelina sees off a villain and rides away with her hero, Jesse, before the film cuts to Joan weeping at her typewriter. The sequel repeats the trick with pirates.

Despite their rows on Romancing the Stone, Robert Zemeckis later cast Kathleen Turner as the voice of which cartoon character?

Jessica Rabbit's voice was Turner, uncredited. On the earlier film she had fumed that his camera set-ups put her 'in ridiculous postures'; this time she never had to appear at all.

Romancing the Stone received its sole Academy Award nomination in which category?

Best Film Editing: a film its own studio had written off as a likely flop ended the year as an Oscar nominee, for editors Donn Cambern and Frank Morriss.

The actor who plays the drug runner Juan later directed which 1992 Mexican art-house hit?

Like Water for Chocolate, from his wife Laura Esquivel's novel, made Alfonso Arau an international name. In 1984 Fox had sent him across America to sell this film to Hispanic audiences.

What is Zolo's day job in Romancing the Stone, when he isn't hunting for the treasure map?

A secret police officer, which is what makes him dangerous: he can loose a squad of armed men on two tourists, and he has already murdered Joan's brother-in-law for the map.

Which real-life performing troupe plays the desert tribesmen who adopt Ralph in The Jewel of the Nile?

The Flying Karamazov Brothers, a comic juggling act, play Tarak and his rhyming kinsmen Barak, Karak, Arak and Sarak, whose tribe captures Ralph and later turns up with him to rescue the heroes.