Romancing the stone

Best-selling romance writer Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) specialises in stories replete with heroes in white, villains in black and damsels with heaving bosoms. For Joan however the reality is that she has a staid life without true adventures. All that changes when she receives a desperate call from her sister in South America who, having been kidnapped by mercenaries, is desperately in need of rescuing. Joan is in possession of a valuable treasure map, sought after by the police trailing her and the kidnappers who are holding her sister, both of who will stop at nothing to get it. Once in South America Joan falls in with soldier of fortune Jack Holton (Michael Douglas) who happens to be a handsome, dashing hero. Many films followed in the wake of “Raiders of the lost ark”, hoping to mimic the success of that film, but few films managed, as successfully as this one does, to capture the same energy and sense of rollicking, great, Saturday afternoon matinee fun.