Ernest Dempsey - Few would have forgotten the 1984 action-adventure romance Romancing the Stone by Robert Zemeckis. The film was too much of a stimulant for all lovers of adventure films, and for good films at large. What few, if any, know, however, is the participation of an uncredited, probably entirely missed presence of a female appearance. Surprising? Well, hardly!The film stars Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, an American romance novelist who is waiting for her dream boy, indistinguishable from her imaginary heroes that take her novels’ heroines in for love and happy-ever-after endings. But she doesn’t get any in her real life, that is until she is caught in a dangerous affair after receiving a call from her elder sister whose recently murdered husband had earlier sent Juan the map of a treasure. So we find Juan on an exciting adventure to Colombia where an American explorer Jack Colton (played by Michael Douglas) would prove her guardian against the antiquities smuggling group—and, of course, become her dream boy. So where is our mysterious character, never mentioned or credited?
She is right there in the film, waiting to be discovered, or perceived—to be precise. In the 51st minute of the film, when Juan and Colton are hiding in a crashed airplane in the hilly terrain with dense vegetation, a female figure briefly flashes out of the dark. Her hair almost neatly done and her eyes thoughtfully fixed ahead, the figure is visible from neck upward and defined by the space between the luggage against which the film’s protagonists are reclining and the wrecked plane’s ceiling. She looks fairly young and in make-up, her countenance perfectly calm and attentive. Yet, her appearance is brief, no more than a few seconds. Could that be the reason why there is no mention of her in one of the most fascinating films ever?
Perhaps yes. We can say it is just a perceptual entity, or coincidence. Like many ambiguous figures, she is there for the eye that can catch her (not even the director’s necessarily) in the moment. But then the film’s theme and story also make it improbable for this female figure to be revealed as an entity. At this stage in the movie, the audience (and the director), know with utmost confidence that they can expect some romantic proximity between the lead characters—alone at night in stormy weather in a desolate place. It’s adventurous, and romantically so. Had it been a horror movie, where the viewer’s eye is all set for detecting apparitions and ghosts appearing and disappearing in thin air, there would have been a better chance of our ‘lady’ to be spotted, and perhaps credited as a character or entity.
For now, let’s call her the belle and see how many perceive her charming face. As a remake of the film is expected to come out this year, hopefully the director will ‘not miss’ giving us more unseen cuties!
