The Night of the Iguana [VHS]
The Night of the Iguanamay be Richard Burton's finest hour on the screen:  beautifully cast as an anguished, defrocked reverend, doomed to his own purgatory in Mexico as tour guide to a group of nattering biddies. (The expression on his face as the ladies warble "Happy Days Are Here Again" on the tour bus is worth a Shakespearian monologue.) John Huston's clean, black-comic adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play is a forceful snapshot of a man down to his last chance, and the superb black-and-white location photography by Gabriel Figueroa captures the end-of-the-world vibe. The women who tempt and taunt the reverend are Ava Gardner (with her maraca-shaking beach boys), Deborah Kerr, and Sue Lyon. The movie--and its backstage publicity, with Burton and Liz Taylor carrying on theirCleopatraaffair--put Puerto Vallarta on the map, but it deserves notice for Burton's gutsy acting and Huston's characteristic sympathy for life's losers.--Robert Horton