John Belushi. I remember driving on Sunset Boulevard the afternoon he passed away, hearing the news when I was only blocks from the hotel where it happened. He was amazing with physical comedy and wordplay. But romantic comedy was just too much of a stretch for him, in the years when he was still hitting the booze and drugs so hard; maybe if he’d lived another 15 or 20 years he would have grown into it but we’ll never know. I always think of Bill Murray’s film from the same period, The Razor’s Edge, when Continental Divide comes up.
So 1981’s Continental Divide was not the great leap forward he probably hope for. Blair Brown was beautiful and well-suited to the part of the nature nut love interest. Belushi played Ernie Souchak, a Chicago newspaper columnist, who needs to get out of town in a hurry and heads to the Rockies to try and get the inside story on Brown’s ornithologist. He goes nuts in the wild, misses his cigarettes, comes on to her to a negative reception, but then charms her by hurting his back and getting attacked by a mountain lion. They fall in love but his time on the mountain is up and he returns to the city. Boo hoo. She comes to the city for a lecture, they have wild sex and can’t say goodbye. Woo hoo. Neither can stand living where the other does but they get married anyway and then go home alone. Huh?
Mildly recommended
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