edwagreen An excellent 1964 film showcasing the fine acting talent of Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr at their very best. Despite wonderful performances, these three perennial Oscar losers were all denied Oscar nominations for this interesting film which explores the inner-self. As the chaperon for Sue Lyon, Grayson Hall, (nee Shirley Grossman)garnered a best supporting actress nomination. I disagree with a previous reviewer. We don't know if her Miss Fellowes character is of lesbian nature. What we have here is a conservative minded individual, fearful of sex and over-protective to her charge and is willing to go all the way to beat down the Burton character.The movie splendidly shows the conflicts of the inner-self of 3 people. As the defrocked priest, Burton gives a towering performance. His spiritually is conflicted by his sexual desires. Gardner was never better as the recently widowed hotel owner searching for meaning and excitement in her tedious life. As the sketch artist, accompanied by her 97 year old grandfather, Kerr explores life around her, but in a restrictive way.The film often has comic over-tones, but its understanding of the human spirit makes it a superb vehicle.

frankwiener Having read several reviews of this film, I was disappointed that none of them even mentioned one of the most remarkable openings of any movie that I have seen recently. The congregants of Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon have braved a torrential rainstorm in order to seek spiritual fulfillment from the reverend's Sunday service, and, much to their horror, they witness a total nervous breakdown from the pulpit instead. Observe the shocked and disgusted expressions on their faces before they are forcibly driven from their holy sanctuary out into the cold, unforgiving rain. They may have grown suspicious of the respectability of their pastor, but they never expected anything like this. I'm surprised that he didn't strip naked during his very public and total psychological meltdown, but, hey, this was made in 1964. Just the mention of pot alone must have been considered risqué back then.The very powerful, carefully crafted opening and the ability to sustain the subsequent action, which could not have been easy, is to the credit of director John Huston. The director's success was assisted by a very intelligent original play from Tennessee Williams and a very able cast, most notably Richard Burton as Dr. Shannon and Grayson Hall, who deservedly gained an Oscar nomination as Judith Fellowes, the repressed and frustrated tour organizer. Deborah Kerr was very suitable for her role as the very reflective, articulate, and impoverished artist, and Ava Gardner was very entertaining as an emotionally volatile and vulnerable expatriate owner of a rustic hotel somewhere along the Mexican west coast near Puerto Vallarta. Sue Lyon looked great as Lolita, but this time her name was Charlotte. She still had no clue as to what she did to middle aged men, or did she? As good as Ms. Lyon looked, I found her acting flat and uninspiring, which is highly ironic when one considers her physical attributes.And how about Maxine's cabana boys and their unstoppable maracas? Once she finally abandoned them for Larry Shannon, I wonder if they ended up in MS-13 out of mere spite. That would be sad.

popcorninhell In the annals of twentieth history American art and entertainment, it's a wonder the works of Tennessee Williams didn't worm their way into the thoughts of director John Huston sooner. Seemingly always focusing on damaged people on the end of their ropes, Williams's output has the steamy, melodramatic tinge that a natural adventurer and provocateur like Huston would have enjoyed. While I am a big fan of Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), there's a dark, destructive part of me that yens to see what kind of on-location tumult Huston could have mustered.Yet in comparison to "Streetcar," or for that matter "The Glass Menagerie" and "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof", "Night of the Iguana's" script doesn't quite gel as confidently. Somewhere underneath the familiar lusts and libations there's just something a bit off that sabotages the film from within.The Night of the Iguana concerns a wayward priest whose inappropriate relationship with a young Sunday school teacher got him ostracized by his congregation. Two years, and a nervous breakdown later, Reverend Shannon (Burton) now guides Christian tours for a tacky Mexican bus outfit. He spends a few days on tour with a flock of Baptist women, and sees history repeat itself when a 17-year-old Texas flirt (Lyon) gets him hot and bothered. High noon occurs at the Costa Verde Hotel where the vitreous Miss Fellowes (Hall) vows to have Shannon fired, defrocked and possibly arrested for messing around with a minor.Along for the ride are two additional women who help stir the sticky pot Shannon finds himself in. The first is Maxine (Gardner) the bawdy hotel owner whose late husband was a dear friend of Shannon's. The second is a chaste and impoverished painter named Hannah (Kerr) whose serendipitous arrival at the hotel befalls Shannon like a guardian angel. As an un-eclipsed star of the silver screen, Deborah Kerr is, as always a demure, stately vision. Despite being written inexplicably as a charlatan with a heart of gold and a gift for talking people off the ledge, she still carries through with the same verisimilitude she gave Sister Angela in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957).Unfortunately she and perhaps Miss Hall are the only people who seem to bring surprise and depth; a tall order considering their characters are pigeonholed as lesser versions of Mother Teresa and the Wicked Witch of the West. Ava Gardner, by all accounts a fine actress can't seem to find Maxine's center. One minute she's cloyingly passive aggressive in the way all Tennessee Williams vamps are. The next minute she's in histrionics, trading libidinous kisses with the cabana boys.Though if there be any performance that outright sinks this boat, it's Richard Burton, the flop-sweaty captain of this unlucky tug. His silver-tongued screeching and bellowing flies thick like mole over beans and rice, yet the thespian can't seem to grasp he's not on stage this time. He never takes the subtler, quiet moments that celluloid can afford him but rather blows up like a cannon every time a modicum of drama can be had. One particular scene involving him, the young Sue Lyon and a floor of broken glass feels almost cartoonish if it wasn't so airless and uncomfortable.Night of the Iguana is an overcooked mess made memorable less for its story and more for the drama behind the scenes. Unwanted set visitors included Tennessee Williams and Burton's second wife Elizabeth Taylor whose relationship still lives in Hollywood infamy. Additionally Burton was famous for being a petulant drunk during filming. This in turn attracted the paparazzi to the secluded coastal set and guaranteed headaches for the majority of the shoot. Rumor has it that Huston bought the cast custom pistols with engraved bullets, each having the name of the other cast members. The idea was whenever someone wanted to kill the other, they could do so in style. With so much gone wrong with this thing, I'd be going out guns blazing.

classicsoncall If this film were made in the Thirties, it might have been one of those exploitation films delving into taboo subjects like repressed sexuality, homo eroticism and substance abuse. But by 1964, actors of considerable name recognition lent their services to this Tennessee Williams play and put it on the big screen. It's an odd name for a film, but the symbolism involved with the freeing of a creature at the end of it's rope does much to explain the characters of Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton), hotel proprietress Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner) and itinerant sketch artist Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr). All three appear to be at the end of their rope in one way or another, the script deftly exploring their inner fears and motivations as they come together in the Mexican coastal village of Puerto Vallarta.The film brought to mind the oddest of connections for me, such as Maxine's reference to her 'beach boys' and the way she picked up on those 'vibrations' between Shannon and Hannah. So a couple of years later in 1966, The Beach Boys released 'Good Vibrations', written by Brian Wilson in response to his mother's explanation of dogs barking at people who give off bad vibrations. It would all be just a little too surreal to draw a connection between these two instances, but you know what they say about life imitating art.This is probably one of those movies one needs to watch more than once to pick up all the innuendo and nuance in the characters. A sit up and take notice moment for me was when Maxine offered the shrewish Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall) some pot to mellow her out (see earlier comment). And didn't the choice of 'Happy Days are Here Again' strike anyone else as the last thing that would be on anyone's mind as the 'Tour of God's World' bus made it's way along the Mexican Coast with a band of female Baptist sight seers? With all that, the film is rich in dialog and the manner in which Hannah bares her soul to Shannon is truly heart rending. Definitely recommended for fans of character driven films.