Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Tuesday's Overlooked Film: Continental Divide



This week's Tuesday's Overlooked Film is the 1981 movie Continental Divide.

The film stars John Belushi as a hard-nosed Chicago newspaper reporter who makes a name for himself by exposing the actions of a corrupt city official. When Belushi gets roughed up by the official's thugs, his editor-in-chief sends him out to Wyoming's portion of the famed Continental Divide trail to cover a secluded ornithologist (Blair Brown) until the heat dies down back home.

Belushi quickly finds how unsuited he is for the great outdoors as well as for Brown's character, a serious-minded woman passionate about studying and preserving the bald eagle population of the area. Personality clashes ensue of course, as does a slow-burning romance. Can these two head-butting love birds make a relationship work? Spoiler: they certainly give it a try at the end of the film.

The movie contains a lot of opposites attract cliches, but it's interesting to see Belushi outside of a SNL/Blues Brothers context. Brown would go on to a mild success with the TV series The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.

Here is the film's trailer. Thanks!


3 comments:

Jamie Ghione said...

I rented this from Netflix in 2011.

Todd Mason said...

I've missed this one so far, though (sadly for me) I did catch the dire NEIGHBORS, his last complete film. You know the work of Mike Royko, the columnist that Belushi's character is loosely based on?

Any Underappreciated Music this month?

Phillyradiogeek said...

I'm certainly familiar with Royko's name, but don't know much about him.

I posted my Music article today, a day late but still within the month :)