The Night of the Iguana

Plot synopsis:
The defrocked Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) is to be the tour guide and historian for a church ladies' bus tour of Mexican religious historical sights. Even before boarding the old fashioned school bus, Shannon develops a contentious relationship with the lesbian leader of the women's group, Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall) who is protective - read jealous - of the delinquent Charlottes (Lyon) interest in the reverend as her potential rescuer from being placed with the aged travelers. Driven to distraction by the attentions of the delinquent Lolita, Reverend Shannon has a alcoholic breakdown - as does the bus, right on cue - as they arrive nearby the Puerta Vallarta version of Bed & Breakfast establishment of the wildly over-the-top Maxine Faulk played by Gardner. Shortly after their arrival, the tour begins to heat up as the Reverend takes the bus's distributor thereby preventing the ladies' escape or the continuation of their tour. Shortly after the tour bus arrives, come an aging poet and his niece (Kerr). The heterosexual mirror to the appropriately named Fellowes, Hannah Jelkes proves to be less conservative than her spinster-like appearance indicates. Gardner's character has two native "beach boys" who chase down and chain up the titular Iguana so that it might be "fattened up" to be eaten up for dinner. All to the excitement and shock of the touring women. All the while Lyon is pursuing Shannon while as Jelkes and Faul pursue him as well and he pursues the bottle. Fellowes is either protecting Lyon's honor or hoping to convert her to lesbianism. An impromptu party develops and builds to a crescendo of death - Kerr's character's elderly poet uncle; jealous fighting - the beach boys and the bus driver, Lyon's character's other protector; and (verbally) Shannon and almost everyone else but the senile Miss Peebles - the author's tour ladies' personification. After sharing her secret sin with Shannon and the timely and sweet death of Miss Jelkes's poet just after finishing his last and lengthy poem, all the players find a weird peace. This acceptance that world must continue in its flawed manner and all must forgive, accept redemption and move on, arrives towards the end of the Night of the Iguana.

Tags: dramatic

Review:
Whether or not Richard Burton always plays a drunk, whether or not it should have been in colour, are not in the least bit relevant to the significance, the concepts and the issues at play in this brilliant film, this monument to the resilience of human souls, to the compassion that can bring such succour on long, tortured nights, to the precious decency that is for some a perpetual struggle to attain, and the search, the life-long search, for belief, love and light.The backdrop to the exploration of these issues that are so fundamental to individual lives is a Mexican coastal hotel.
On his arrival he meets his old friend, the lascivious but no less desperate Maxine (Ava Gardner), a poet on the verge of death who is nevertheless striving for one last creative act, one last stab at beautiful self-expression, and his grand-daughter Hannah (Deborah Kerr), a resilient woman painfully trying to reconcile herself to loss, loneliness and the bitter struggle she faces with her own personal demons.
It is in this conversation that Tennessee Williams explores the issues make this film so important: through his characters, who are throughout depicted not as mere shallow cliches but individuals with histories and feelings that run deep, with subtleties that bring them to life, he meditates upon the struggle to find meaning in one's life, the need for companionship, the importance of compassion, and the way in which people endure, all the time grasping at what dignity they may have, and which may be forever threatened by trials, doubts and pain.
It's a shame that Richard Burton never played Shannon in "Night of the Iguana" on stage - ditto Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner - because all three are perfect casting for Tennessee Williams' wonderful play, on which this film is based.
It ran 316 performances on Broadway during the 1961-1962 season and starred Bette Davis, Margaret Leighton, and Patrick O'Neal in the roles played on the screen by Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, and Richard Burton.
The 2006 DVD offers a couple of worthwhile extras - a vintage short, "On the Trail of the Iguana", which has interviews with cast and crew and give a sense of the paparazzi blitzkrieg surrounding the stars, especially Burton who was then living with Elizabeth Taylor before her divorce from Eddie Fisher was final; and a recent, more academic featurette, "Huston's Gamble" with comments from film historians on the movie's impact..
The fact that the lines are delivered by the likes of Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr make it an enjoyable film to watch.
A motley group of weary travelers converge on a rundown seaside resort in Mexico, and ruminate on the vicissitudes of life and on each other, in this Tennessee Williams play converted to film by Director John Huston.The plot begins with the travails of the good Rev. T.
Maxine gets assistance from two youthful Mexican beach boys who shake their maracas but never speak.Into this sociological stew comes two proud guests, a wheelchair bound, senile old man (Cyril Delevanti) who writes poetry, and his New England, spinster granddaughter, Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), a sketch artist who peddles the two's artistry in lieu of payment, since they are penniless.The characters in this film are all rather worn and beaten, physically tired from the Mexican heat, and mentally drained from life's burdens, as desperate as a captured lizard at the end of its rope.
Grayson Hall, Ava Gardner, and Deborah Kerr are all terrific in their parts.As you would expect for a Tennessee Williams' creation, the film is very talky.
Director John Huston took an all-star cast to a remote Mexican location to film this adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play.
But only after he, in fear of being defrocked and also losing his job, attempted to kill himself by, as he said, swimming to China: or better yet drowning himself in the Pacific Ocean.Deep and thought provoking film about life death and the what it's, existence, all about with Richard Burton giving one of his most penetrating performances as the mentally unstable and suicidal Rev. Lawrence T.
Williams uses the tension created by this situation and these characters to explore the dark nights of the soul that each of us is bound to go through at one point or another in the course of our lives, and the salvation humans can find in one another.I'm not sure how closely the film follows the original stage play, but as presented here, this is one of Williams' more hopeful and optimistic stories.
The Night of the Iguana is a fantastic piece of drama that examines the human condition through a brilliant script adapted from Tennessee Williams' play of the same name.From the arresting opening to the heart-warming ending (well, near-ending), this classic motion picture directed by John Huston will have your attention in it's grasp and won't let go until it's finished mesmerising you with all its beauty.
Every shot whether it's in the crummy old bus or on a cliff looking down in the cradle of life, looks magnificent on screen and gives the film a fresh feeling and tone throughout.As can be expected from a film adapted from a Williams play, the writing and dialogue present is criminally witty and charming, often showing it's intelligence but always in the background, never destroying the real focus of the story being the characters.
Reverend Lawrence Shannon in particular is one of the most interesting and versatile characters I have ever seen in a movie, often moving between emotions and mind states faster than he can drive a bus, but never without cause and always with focus.The plot to the film is admittedly very much on the thin side but nevertheless more than makes up for it with thought provoking themes and dialogues that fill in the spaces where such action may have otherwise been noticed as missing.
Richard Burton plays a hard-drinking Episcopal clergyman, possibly defrocked after being involved in a scandal, who now hosts low-rent bus tours for Baptist church ladies; on his latest jaunt in Puerto Vallarta, he gets himself mixed up with mercurial teenager Sue Lyon, which could cost him everything.
Burton is theatrical but still in top-form, and he's actually less foreboding than usual (and he looks great in a two-shot with sexy Gardner--their dimples match); Kerr breezes along in a difficult role, making it seem effortless; Lyon's jailbait seductress doesn't amount to much (she's only here to get the action started), however she plays a tart like nobody's business.
Sensational for its casting and pedigree (Tennessee Williams), in its day, and for one of the most brilliantly orchestrated pre-publicity campaigns in film history (the revolvers with the bullets of the other actors' names etched on them?), Time has not been kind.Beautifully conceived and directed by John Huston, with some additional writing from Mr. Williams to his already complex and difficult script, beautifully photographed by Gabriel Figueroa, the Acting and actors ultimately fail the project.Except for Deborah Kerr (Hannah), Cyril Delavante (Nonno), and the supporting cast.Two of the female "stars" are simply not up to the task.
The male "star" is so far beyond the task, as Richard Burton nearly always was, that one is left with a remarkable record of yet another of his "vanity" performances.Sue Lyon was never much of an actress, as witness her virtually non-existent film career outside her "shocking" participation in "Lolita" and "Night of the Iguana." One can't make much of a career playing petulant.
Within the intimacy of film, however, did he EVER disappear inside a character and let us, for even a moment, forget he was a great "actor?" No.Nor did any of his directors, including John Huston here, once suggest that he "tone it down." By contrast, devour Deborah Kerr's indelible performance as Hannah.
Her "confession" is unbelievably powerful.Kerr was a "star." But first she was an actor.Grayson Hall's harrowing turn as Judith Fellowes is equally brilliant and frightening.Cyril Delevanti, a hale and hearty older actor, is equally impressive in a largely silent and immobile role as Nonno.So one is confronted with a beautifully directed and photographed Tennessee Williams play anchored by amazing "supporting" performances that in fact support "stars" who were amateurishly inept (Lyon) or whose aging vanity trumped their acting (Gardner and Burton)..
Sidney poitier is the only other actor off hand i can think of with this quality."Iguana" is one of the best adaptations of the much-maligned Williams, seconded only to "Streetcar Named Desire", with a "is that her?" appearance from Grayson Hall (of Dark Shadow's Dr. Julia Hoffman fame), a slightly older than I'm used to Ava Gardner, and another deliciously nymphetic performance from Sue Lyon ("Lolita").
Over all, it's a must see for those who love watching Burton, Kerr, and Gardner in films, but for those people who watch Tennessee Williams' films but have not read his plays, they may be less impressed by the subject matter and ultimately not as happy with it, as compared with the more well-known Cat on a Hot Tin Roof..
Done from a play by Tennessee Williams: depicting women of different ages and venues, a preacher that is "building his own nest without realizing it" (as Deborah Kerr says to him at the end of the movie.) I have watched it 40 years after first seeing it in the cinema.
And Sue Lyon is, well, doing what Sue Lyon does best, chase older men.There's also a really outstanding performance by an actress, Grayson Hall(wasn't she in Disney's 'That Darn Cat' with Haley Mills?)as a frustrated, frumpy baptist chaperone who frightens poor little Richard Burton and almost makes him flip-out and kill himself.There are some really great lines here by theater lion Tennessee Williams.
T. Lawrence Shannon, Williams's defrocked, alcoholic clergyman, is also not considered one of Huston's best films, but is nonetheless an interesting venture.Burton gives a steady performance while Ava Gardner is excellent in a limited role as Maxine Faulk, a woman of a certain age: too old for boy toys and too young to toss in the towel.
Overall, Huston manages to make the whole thing work in the stifling heat of a Mexican summer, with Maxine and Hannah helping Shannon fight for his soul and sanity while Charlotte and Ms Fellowes drag him into "Hell and damnation..." It's a good companion to the later and superior Mike Nichols film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" when fellow ham hall-of-famer and two-time spouse Liz Taylor has her turn at battering the infinitely batterable Burton.
The only regret I have about this movie is that it wasn't filmed in colour; there is a short documentary which follows its production which is, but the main feature remains stubbornly black and white.John Huston's pictures are usually fairly reliable, often simmering cauldrons allowing their leading actors to burn up the screen - you only have to think of Bogart and Hepburn in 'The African Queen' to prove that, or Bogart and Astor in 'The Maltese Falcon'.Here, defrocked hard-drinking priest Shannon (a fabulously cast Richard Burton, in one of the few key roles worth his talent) is pursued by three women, no less.The gorgeous Ava Gardner is perhaps the most memorable, as the sultry Maxine taking a midnight dip with her water boys.
Released in 1964 and directed by John Huston based on Tennessee Williams' play, "The Night of the Iguana" stars Richard Burton as a defrocked Episcopal minister who resorts to a job leading bus tours on the Mexican west coast.
Tennessee Williams, John Huston, Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner and a few more, all at their best..
There is something really enigmatic and magical about American film "The night of the Iguana" as it captures the raw beauty of Mexico as a preferred destination for pleasure seeking American tourists.It is one of those acclaimed films directed by renowned American director John Huston which succeeds at almost all levels.It is quite a pleasure to watch such a mature,serious film full of intellect and wit based on a humanist play by acclaimed American playwright Tennessee Williams.This film has its own balanced share of comedy and drama as everything in it is a remarkable ode to human judgment."The night of the Iguana" is able to strike a chord in viewers' minds as it has been transformed into a great character study thanks to amazing acting performances by famous actors Richard Burton,Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr.How can a moody man retain his sanity in an environment full of doubts and passion seems to be this film's core issue.It is an extremely complex issue for both men and women who have to deal with it using their limited resources.Both men and animals need to be freed from shackles to act and think freely appears to be this film's humane message..
There is something really enigmatic and magical about American film "The night of the Iguana" as it captures the raw beauty of Mexico as a preferred destination for pleasure seeking American tourists.It is one of those acclaimed films directed by renowned American director John Huston which succeeds at almost all levels.It is quite a pleasure to watch such a mature,serious film full of intellect and wit based on a humanist play by acclaimed American playwright Tennessee Williams.This film has its own balanced share of comedy and drama as everything in it is a remarkable ode to human judgment."The night of the Iguana" is able to strike a chord in viewers' minds as it has been transformed into a great character study thanks to amazing acting performances by famous actors Richard Burton,Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr.How can a moody man retain his sanity in an environment full of doubts and passion seems to be this film's core issue.It is an extremely complex issue for both men and women who have to deal with it using their limited resources.Both men and animals need to be freed from shackles to act and think freely appears to be this film's humane message..
Huston also tends to highlight the male bonding in his films, which often have no prominent or three-dimensional female characters at all, and yet he draws deeply realized performances from Williams' significantly female-heavy work.But then, after we feel the story's milieu has already been established for the most part, Shannon escapes as the crow flies to a place of solitude, and his concern with the fiery, man-hungry hotel owner and an emotional, migratory artisan traveling with her 97-year-old poet grandfather, exudes such connotations elegantly carried through in a streaming flow of dialogue scenarios stimulating remarkable intrigue.
Tennessee Williams' play is here filmed, with a few flaws, but overall well-done performances by key players, and well worth more than one viewing.Ava Gardner as hotel owner Maxine Faulk is priceless and amusing as a cynical widow enjoying her later years in Puerto Vallarta, making the best of a transient life.Burton as defrocked and discouraged minister is indelible and effective, his particular nemesis played by Grayson Hall as Mrs. Fellowes, an irritating and uptight member of the church who intends to oversee his downfall.
I have seen every movie that has ever won a Best Picture Oscar, and none can reach Night of the Iguana.Huston's fantastic direction of the leads, a well-worked screenplay, intuitive dialogue and high-skilled cast make this the greatest story ever told.Richard Burton as the Rev. T.
Lawrence Shannon is a drunken ex-priest, hell-bent on blaming the world for his own dilemmas, constantly battling his moral demons (Sue Lyons "Lolita" chases him around!) Burton's finest performance.Ava Gardner stars as the middle-aged, boy crazy Maxine, who cares deeply for Shannon, but won't show it..a tough lady.
NIGHT OF THE IGUANA is immobile and stagy Richard Burton at best miscast, Ava Gardner worse than terrible, and Deborah Kerrwell Deborah Kerr with a genuine  Nantucket accent -if Nantucketians have upper class English accents...Tennessee Williams may be a great dramatist -and one hopes John Houston's poverised version of his script was the reason he appeared like a bad one but the moralising was small deal, the symbolism -hammock struggling representing moral struggle, freeing of the iguana freeing of the soul (when in actuality it was so the poor creature didn't die of boredom with the rest of us, old maid lesbianism etc, all over-mined topics to the point of tedium.Did we really believe in Burton?
Tenessee Wiliams, John Huston and Richard Burton (well supported by Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner, and others ) combined together to produce powerful medicine in this 1964 film of TW's play "The Night of the Iguana"; a film which still, despite its age, provides a very memorable viewing experience.
Another terrific Tennessee Williams cinematic presentation after the contently controversial SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959, 7/10), THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA is directed by the almighty John Huston, starring a trio of A-list names Burton, Gardner and Kerr, with a show- stealing supporting performance from the unknown Grayson Hall (who is the sole cast member reaps an Oscar nomination), and it also includes Sue Lyon's follow-up role after Kubrick's LOLITA (1962, 7/10), which foreshadows her career being typecast as a precocious siren with an ingénue disguise.Shot in standard Black & White, the opening scene is inside an episcopal church, we see Rev. Dr.
Ultimately Debra Kerr is thrown into this as a sort of mediator.Burton, Gardner, Kerr under the direction of John Huston in a movie based on a Tennessee Williams play, what could go wrong?
John Huston's film of the Tennesse Williams play is a nearly great movie featuring what is arguably Richard Burton's best performance.
An excellent 1964 film showcasing the fine acting talent of Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr at their very best.
Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton), hotel proprietress Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner) and itinerant sketch artist Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr).