Though uneven and not as powerful as other Williams-based films, Huston's version benefits from a high-profile cast, headed by Burton, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon and best of all Ava Gardner as the lusty hotel owner and Grayson Hall as the repressed lesbian
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:10
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.2/10
Synopsis: Residing is a small hotel on the west coast of Mexico, Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, a defrocked Episcopal preacher, hides from his lecherous past. He finds work as a tour guide for a group of... Residing is a small hotel on the west coast of Mexico, Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, a defrocked Episcopal preacher, hides from his lecherous past. He finds work as a tour guide for a group of American teachers, but soon comes under criticism from their prudish leader when an 18 year-old in her care starts lusting after him. Shannon also receives a good deal of attention from the seductive hotel owner. He spends most of his time, however, with an idealistic spinster and her 97 year-old grandfather. This wheel chair-bound poet claims that he will expire upon the completion of his final manuscript -- a literary endeavor he has been laboring on for the last twenty years. [More]
Starring: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon
Starring: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon, Grayson Hall, James Ward, Cyril Delevanti, Emilio Fernandez, Mary Boylan, Gladys Hill, Billie Matticks, Eloise Hardt, Thelda Victor, Liz Rubey, Bernice Starr, Barbara Joyce, C.G. Kim, Fidelmar Duran
Director: John Huston
Director: John Huston
Producer: Ray Stark
Screenwriter: Anthony Veiller, John Huston
Composer: Benjamin Frankel
Reviews for The Night of the Iguana
Direction by John Huston is resourceful and dynamic as he sympathetically weaves together the often-vague and philosophical threads that mark Tennessee Williams' writing.
No one but Tennessee Williams could have concocted it, but anyone other than John Huston should have directed it.
Films of Tennessee Williams' plays now often look very artificial and overwrought, but with this Huston came up with one of the best.
This adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play is heavy on melodrama and earnest performances, but weak on dialogue and lasting meaning.
Mr. Huston has got some scenic beauty of the Mexican coast here and there in black-and-white. But the setting, at the last, becomes monotonous -- just like the all-talk, no-play film.
Noteworthy for Burton's acerbic performance and Ava's seen-it-all portrayal of an earthy lady.
Huston always had a sensitive hand in adapting great literary works and this is no exception, successfully bringing Williams' writing to the screen while effortlessly adding the Huston touch.
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