The Night of the Iguana

source: The Night of the Iguana

I just watched this movie for the first time today, after having heard so much about it and Burton's performance. And since I've seen a few other Tennessee Williams films, I thought this would be a good one to watch. Unfortunately, I came away very disappointed. This seems to be one of those films that you are required to love if you want to be taken seriously as a fan of classic films. Well, if that's the case, I'll have to turn in my membership card, because I thought this movie was a complete waste of my time. Probably the biggest reason I didn't like this movie was that I just didn't care about the characters. I've seen The Sandpiper several times, which is another Richard Burton movie in which he plays a minister who struggles with temptation. Though I don't like The Sandpiper all that much, at least I was interested enough in the film to watch it all the way through. In fact, I've seen it multiple times. But I wouldn't watch Night of the Iguana again unless you paid me to do it. Quite frankly, I didn't buy Burton as a former (or current) minister. Plus, I didn't really care for the character anyway. And I didn't think any of the other characters were particularly likable or interesting, either. Simply put, the characters in this movie are just bland, one-dimensional and not at all endearing. I can enjoy a good character sketch every now and then, which is exactly what I've come to expect from Tennessee Williams. In all of his films that I've seen, characters are always more important than the plot. But considering the fact that I didn't care for any of the characters in the first place, the plot certainly becomes much more important. There have to be enough events in the film to keep the viewers interested in watching the characters develop. But that's just not the case in this particular movie. I was bored almost to death when watching this movie. I really couldn't tell you what happened in this movie, but if I had to try, this is it: Richard Burton gets fired as a minister. He takes a job as a bus tour guide in Mexico. He goes nuts one day and drives the bus to a friend's Bed and Breakfast hotel outside Puerto Vallarta. Then he prevents everyone from getting back on the bus and going to the hotel they had already booked inside the city. When this movie ended, I wondered why this movie was even necessary. It seems they didn't know what kind of movie they wanted to make. Is this a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Is it a character drama? Most likely. But as I said before, nothing happens and nobody cares about these characters. So if that's the kind of movie it really is, then it stinks. As far as acting, nobody does a very good job here -- the best actors seemed to be mailing in their performances, while the rest of them just didn't have any talent. I didn't buy any of the characters at all because they weren't credibly portrayed. So that leaves just one thing - the cinematography was excellent. But unfortunately, that's just not enough of a reason for me to recommend this movie. After all, you can find travelogues of Mexico that are just as beautiful and don't require you to waste two hours of your time.

Night of the Iguana 6 out of 10 A defrocked tourguide, a Nantucket spinster, a wild widow, two cocoa colored cabin boys with maracas, a host of Texas Baptists, the original Lolita, and the oldest working poet drown in words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Huston typecasts well. He lets Burton swear, sweat and swig. Need a nymphette, get Sue Lyon. Ava Gardner replays Marlene Dietrich in Touch of Evil, substituting pot and rum for tobacco and tequila. Those not Afraid of Virginia Woolf should like this movie more. I'll take the cinematography, scenery and cast, and leave behind about 20 pages of script

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? Or Gardner to be a businesswoman –or in fact any of the principals to be real people with real problems? Did we really believe the mute beach boys? Did we really believe that anyone, let alone a busload of Baptist tourists, was accommodated at that hotel? Did we even believe there WAS a hotel? - or that Sue Lyon typified either in dress or modesty, a young Baptist? Strutting of her pouting stuff in those shorts Sue Lyon provided a little prurient sexual relief to this tired old film/plot. The way Houston Williams] dispensed temptress and ladies as soon as their moral significance was surplus to requirements was banal. Houston was out of his depth here, better suited to handling the thespian subtleties of John Wayne, Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. This wasn't a movie, it was a ‘deal' -set up among Hollywood executives -with Names. And to disguise all its failings it's got a Tennessee Williams tag, or as the producer might have spieled it to investors, ‘Not only has it got Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner -but culture.' Ben Frankel's musical contribution, artfully unexpected [and we could've done with more] ‘sparkles out among the fern' like a sprinkle of Wendy dust to bicker down an empty, dry alley

I've never had a migraine, only had them described to me. I can't identify but I feel sympathy for the sufferer. This movie was like that, but did not provoke any sympathetic reaction. Two hours of tedious scenery chewing. Angry yet obtuse dialogue. Gobs of irony spread thick as cake frosting. A string of contrived painful situations involving a berserk Richard Burton, Baptist church ladies, an iguana on a leash, Lolita, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I'm sure it comes across much better on stage. But for me the filmed version came across like the description of a migraine. I had to shut it off for a while out of sheer boredom, then politely heard out the rest of the sufferer's tales.

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. Which Natalie Wood and Tuesday Weld and a host of others did better, and earlier, and more convincingly. An enormous selling point, at the time, for "Night of the Iguana" was the return of Ava Gardner to the screen. In a supposedly "shocking" dramatic role. Instead, we are forced to watch Miss Gardner, as Maxine, crane her neck, hoisting her chin skyward no matter the scene's context, in order to hide her jowls. Maxine is perhaps the LEAST vain female character in all of Tennessee Williams. Gardner, here, is all about "star" vanity, trying to conceal her "chins." So is Burton. "Look at me! Aren't I brilliant?" He was a magnificent stage actor with magnificent presence and a magnificent voice. 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. Every seemingly subtle nuance is simple, pure and perfectly in character. 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).

I found Hannah's soliloquy about her personal battle with Blue Devils the most poignant writing I have ever heard. It is amazingly beautiful. She talks, a full shot of her face, her back to Burton, about the ways we manage to battle them, all unique, some grand, some destructive. She is so kind. The conversations she has with Ava Gardner's character are taut and honest, there can be no competition between them, Hannah will not play the game and responds with love. Sounds so corny when it is written out, so different from what we see in many of today's movies. I have to find the script and read her soliloquy.

I don't get it. What do the ten star enthusiasts see in this that I can't? It seems to me a mediocre-to-poor effort. Richard Burton is unconvincing as a preacher on the edge of madness. I don't understand why he's so bothered about losing his job if he's as stressed as he claims to be. I also don't get his bizarre change into solicitous nursemaid when Nonno turns up. Ava Gardner's sudden switch from thigh-slappin' good time girl to needy widow is equally bizarre. Deborah Kerr manages to keep it together, but her sermon on the nature of man and god comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. And what has the first half of the film (bus trip for middle-aged baptist ladies) got to do with the second half (dying old man and uptight grand-daughter)? My theory is that people sing the praises of stuff like this because it is old. Well, know this - just because it's old doesn't make it good!

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. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) who, after having lost his temper in a pulpit tirade, takes a lowly job as a Mexican tour guide, driving a decrepit old tour bus. On his current assignment he hauls around a bunch of moribund old church hags, led by the humorless and rather butch Miss Fellowes (Grayson Hall). She constantly nags and pecks, hovering over our good reverend, like some bird that can't quite kill its stubborn prey, as characterized in this verbal outburst directed at Shannon. "Now you listen to me. We girls have worked and slaved all year at Baptist female college for this Mexican tour, and the tour is a cheat. For days we've been hauled in that stifling bus over the byways, off the highways, shook up and bumped up ...". It's enough to drive a tour guide to drink. They arrive at the "resort", greeted by the effervescent manager, Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner), saucy, sultry, and just as outspoken as Miss Fellowes, but much more worldly wise. 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. And therein lies the film's theme: to accept one's station in life regardless of circumstances, to cease struggling, to endure the hardships, and be on the "realistic level". Although Burton does a fairly good job in the lead role, he's rather too Shakespearean, too theatrical, to be convincing as a priest, defrocked or otherwise. I would like to have seen what actor Maximilian Schell could have done with this role. Otherwise, the casting is great. 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. The B&W cinematography is fine, but it would have been even better in color. The vegetation is lush; and we hear the sounds of tropical birds and the ocean surf. All of which makes for a tropical paradise, human iguanas notwithstanding. "The Night Of The Iguana" is a high quality cinematic production that has a lot to say about the human condition, via the dialogue's subtext. The film's scenery, even in B&W, is beautiful. The acting is very good. The costumes are interesting. And John Huston's direction is flawless.

The Night of the Iguana was a Tennessee Williams masterpiece, probably the last one he ever did. 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. For some astonishing reason, John Huston changed the ending and ruined the whole thing. Why couldn't Huston follow the wise example of Elia Kazan who brought A Streetcar Named Desire intact to the screen is beyond me. Not that the performers do so bad here. Ava Gardner for instance is wonderful in the part of the earthy hyper sexed hotel owner from Puerto Vallarta living on her meager income and her two Mexican beach boys for those cold nights. Then again this was no stretch for Ava because she was merely playing herself in this part at this time of her life. Ava is reunited with Deborah Kerr who she co-starred back in their salad days at MGM in The Hucksters. Kerr is the itinerant artist who travels with her 97 year old grandfather Cyril Delevanti doing sketches for supper. Richard Burton chews up the scenery with his part as the disgraced Episcopal minister who let his libido get the better of him. With nubile Sue Lyons around, he's about to let it happen again. Margaret Leighton got a Tony Award for her performance on stage, but the only acting nomination for this film went to Grayson Hall as the repressed lesbian tour guide who takes an uncommon interest in Sue Lyons's virtue. Words like 'butch' and 'dyke' are used in the script to describe her character showing the Code was coming down. Tennessee Williams's work is loaded with sexual innuendo, but this was even kind of daring for him to be that upfront. Grayson Hall was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Lila Kedrova for Zorba the Greek. I'd see a stage production of The Night of the Iguana before seeing this film. It's the only way you can understand my critique about how the new ending turned a great film into a good one.