Overboard (1987)

The golden age of the screwball comedy might have been the 1930s, but for one all-too-brief moment in late 1987, it was glimpsed once more.

Post-Private Benjamin, pre-Pretty Woman, Goldie Hawn and director Garry Marshall teamed up to make Overboard, a Preston Sturges-style clash-of-the-classes romp set off the coast of Oregon.

With Hawn’s real-life beau, Kurt Russell, as the blue-collar foil to her rich-bitch heiress, the film had that rarest of things – a real-life couple with as much chemistry onscreen as off.

Bored yacht-dwelling socialite Joanna Stayton (Hawn) throws local carpenter Dean Profitt’s (Russell) toolbelt overboard when he fails to construct her fancy cabinets from cedar.

He swears revenge, and when Joanna falls overboard herself in search of mislaid jewellery, hits her head and ends up with amnesia, he gets his chance.

Dean sees Joanna on the TV news and, with her husband (Edward Herrmann) denying he knows her, claims the heiress as his wife, setting her to work raising his four unruly children and running his ramshackle home.

Will this Park Avenue princess finally find her milieu, as a loving wife and mother? and can Dean prevent himself from falling overboard in love with her?

Joanna Stayton/Annie
Goldie Hawn
Dean Proffitt
Kurt Russell
Grant Stayton III
Edward Herrmann
Edith Mintz
Katherine Helmond
Billy Pratt
Mike Hagerty
Andrew
Roddy McDowall
Charlie
Jared Rushton
Joey
Jeffrey Wiseman
Travis
Brian Price
Greg
Jamie Wild
Captain Karl
Frank Campanella
Dr Norman Korman
Harvey Miller
Wilbur Budd
Frank Buxton
Rose Budd
Carol Williard
Adele Burbridge
Doris Hess
Thud Gittman
Ed Cree
Gertie
Mona Lyden
Sheriff Earl
Bing Russell

Director
Garry Marshall