Romancing the Stone (1984)

From the safety of their desks, writers dream of adventure, danger, and falling in love with slightly sinister, vaguely disreputable strangers. Occasionally an author steps away from the typewriter and is thrust into a maelstrom of spectacular real-world events. The results may surpass all the magic of fiction but will invariably fall short of the fantastical joyride of thrills and chills that claims the novelist heroine of Romancing the Stone (1984). Conventionally pretty, moderately bright, and averagely courageous, this literary-minded young woman travels to Colombia on a mission to retrieve her kidnapped sister and is transformed into an icon of bravery and beauty under the square-jawed tutelage of an American mercenary who just might prefer the rewards of making love to the wages of waging war.