Romancing the Stone

Revealing mistake: When Joan is about to get in the bus at the airport, there's a man in a red shirt walking from right to left who can't help staring at the camera and grinning all the time. (00:19:25)

Sacha

Romancing the Stone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Elaine gets knocked out with the ball her hat falls to the ground, next to her car. When the boy drives off the hat is gone. (00:12:55)

NancyFelix

Romancing the Stone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The piece of wood Zolo grabs as a weapon changes shape between shots. When he threatens Joan with it, seen from behind the end is quite even, but when seen from the front (and when he picks it up at first) it is pointy.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When Elaine is kidnapped she gets knocked out with a ball tied to a rope. Before the young kidnapper throws the ball he swings it around his head first anti-clockwise, then, in the next shot, clockwise. (00:12:55)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Joan and Jack arrive in the town, Danny De Vito is on the public phone to his cousin, Ira, and when he sees Jack and Joan, he says "You are the luckiest son of a bitch; she's coming right toward the phone booth," but he says this before Jack and Joan have even seen the phone booth, let alone walked towards it.

kh1616

Audio problem: When the military asks Jack where the heart is, after he replies it's in a safe place, another guard uses his rifle to hit him in the groin - the hit is clearly fake.

Sacha

Visible crew/equipment: At the beginning when the mysterious man is at Joan's door, the manager tells him to get away from the door. The camera moves closer to the bad guy. A piece of equipment produces a shadow on the manager's back.

manthabeat

Continuity mistake: When Jack and Joan crash into the river above the waterfall, the hood on their car pops open and appears to be seriously askew. In the next scene, as they float down the river, the hood has become tightly closed.

stevewaclo

Continuity mistake: When Jack and Joan's Renault takes a nose-dive in the river, Elaine's hair is dry and fluffy in the angles shot from behind, but drenched in water in the ones shot from the front.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: After zooming through the cornfield in the SUV, the windshield swaps from dry and clean to covered in water between frames.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Joan asks the bus driver where her blue suitcase is and takes her left hand to brush her hair. When the angle changes, the hand is down holding her bag firmly.

Sacha

Character mistake: The map has the word Corazon missing the accent: "Corazón". This is so basic grammar that maybe it was done on purpose.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: After Joan arrives at Cartagena, Ralph exits his car and asks a guy if the plane has landed. In the first shot there's a huge crowd surrounding him, a frame later the place is empty. (00:19:20)

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When they go over the waterfall, the white bag leaves their hands going over the falls. When they come up it is magically in them.

shawn.hhvp

Continuity mistake: When Juan jumps the creek in his truck it lands on the other side, and then lands again in a following shot.

Factual error: Joan ends up taking the "wrong bus," which takes her "hell and gone from Cartagena." Its destination is labeled as "Castillo de San Felipe." However, in Colombia, Castillo de San Felipe is located inside the city of Cartagena itself.

Revealing mistake: When Jack drives through the field to reach the cave, tyre tracks are already in the grass, showing it was not the first time the scene was shot. (01:15:40)

Kaltenmeyer

Revealing mistake: When Jack and Joan's car goes into the river, a rope is visible holding the car to prevent it from flipping over. (01:21:10)

Kaltenmeyer

Continuity mistake: When Joan slides down the hill through the jungle, she lands in a pool of water, with her back to the 'slide'. But in the next clip she has turned 180 degrees.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When the people step off the crashed bus, depending on the shot they're either outside the bus or coming out again. Furthermore, once outside, their positions change randomly depending on the shot.

Sacha

More quotes from Romancing the Stone

Trivia: The studio was so sure the film would be a flop, they preemptively fired director Robert Zemekis from his next project, "Cocoon," and instead gave the job to Ron Howard. Ironically, the film ended up being one of the top-ten grossing films of the year.

TedStixon

More trivia for Romancing the Stone

Question: What is it likely that the stone (an emerald, I gather) was worth in 1984 US dollars?

Answer: Any emerald over 1 carat in that beautiful cut and condition would probably go for over 250 million. Real emeralds over 5 carats are rare and the price goes up exponentially after 2 or 3 carats. 305,000 per carat after 5. So yeah that one was probably like 800 or more carats.

More questions & answers from Romancing the Stone

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.