Continental Divide (1981)

Released a mere six months before his death, funnyman John Belushi showed off a dramatic side he'd never gotten to display on film before in director Michael Apted's film Continental Divide (1981)! Belushi plays Ernie Souchak, a burned-out and bitter Chicago Sun-Times journalist whose ties to organized crime bring him to the attention of some crooked cops. When his big mouth lands him in the hospital courtesy of said crooked cops, Ernie's editor Howard—played by Coppola regular Allen Garfield—sends him to Colorado for two reasons. First and foremost, to let the heat die down in Chicago and secondly, to look into an ornithologist named Nell (Blair Brown) with some rather dubious dealings surrounding bald eagles. Though Nell and Ernie are an oil and water mixture from minute one, it isn't long before they both realize that they're each victims of circumstance and have a lot more in common than they initially thought. When one of Ernie's most trusted sources turns up dead back in Chicago, he must choose between the first woman he's ever had romantic feelings for and his own journalistic integrity. The sexual tension between the two starts early in this Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, The Empire Strikes Back) scripted affair, with Blair Brown baring her buns in the shower 33 minutes in! 49 minutes later, Brown goes topless in bed with Belush for the actor's only sex scene on screen. Brown, of course, had just been nude seven ways from Sunday in the prior year's Altered States (1980), but if you're looking for a John Belushi sex scene, Continental Divide is the only way to fly!