Die Nacht des Leguan

Flamboyantly flawed characters are Tennessee Williams' oeuvre, and I doubt if any of his plays has more of them wallowing in their debilitated states of psychological disrepair than "The Night of the Iguana". This richly acted 1964 adaptation directed by the estimable John Huston has its share of excesses, veering wildly from melodrama to black comedy, but they are all for the sake of illustrating Williams' broader themes of alienation and redemption while screenwriter Anthony Veiller stays true to the playwright's Baroque flourishes.

The protagonist is Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon, defrocked from his church in Virginia for an indiscretion with a young girl. He desperately takes a job as a tour guide for a group of spinster teachers from Texas headed by the belligerent Miss Fellowes. Vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, they end up shanghaied by Shannon to a dilapidated beach resort run by his old friend and lover, the hedonistic slattern Maxine Faulk. Enter a caricature artist named Hannah Jelkes and her poet grandfather, penniless travelers who find themselves drawn by fate to the resort. Complicating matters among the tour group is a nubile blonde named Charlotte, as she tempts Shannon to repeat his previous misdeeds. His unrepentant desires all come to a head when Hannah and Maxine tie him to a hammock, and a series of cathartic moments occur among the principals.

Richard Burton is ideally cast as Shannon, as he seizes the screen with his Shakespearean voice and increasingly manic behavior. With her trademark gentility, Deborah Kerr brings a curious mix of hucksterism and guile to Hannah, but it's Ava Gardner who gives her career-best performance as Maxine - brash, funny and undeniably sexy surrounded by her maraca-shaking beach boys. Having just read Lee Server's illuminating biography of the tempestuous star, I get the strong impression that the character mirrors Gardner's real-life persona to a T. The last act, which highlights the thematic dynamics represented by Shannon, Hannah and Maxine, shows the actors in peak form. Sue Lyon plays Charlotte in her most appropriate post-Lolita manner, and Grayson Hall does her best to avoid the gargoyle-like caricature that Miss Fellowes represents. The one casting flaw is the wooden Skip Ward, a Troy Donahue look-alike, as the tour group assistant.

Better than what he did with Arthur Miller's "The Misfits" three years earlier, Huston does an impressive job balancing all the disparate elements without falling into the trap of making it too campy, even if the chorus-like beach boys do seem silly in hindsight. Gabriel Figueroa's crisp black-and-white photography is effective, though it is the one Tennessee Williams-related work that I wish took advantage of the colorful flora and fauna of the area. 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.

Watched this film recently for the seventh or eighth time -it' always a delight. Classic Burton hamming it up just enough. . . calm, cool Kerr proping up "Shannon's" sanity. . . free-spirited Gardner charging around trying to keep her sanity and reaching out for Shannon. . .Lyon, the "precocious" seductress. . . all were amazingly believable. I didn't have a problem with the black and white, in fact, I think it added to impact of the film, leaving it up to the actors to pull out the heart of William's magnificent play without the benefit of color, although I'm not sure color would have made any difference anyway. The final dialogue between Kerr and Burton was spellbinding: the meeting of two souls, if only for the moment.

Kerr, Burton, and Gardner were at their finest in this film.

It is possible to watch a film on a wide range of emotional and intellectual levels. One can pay attention only to the visuals, only to the minute trivia related to actors and actresses, to the most obvious displays of physical action, to appeals to one's sympathies, or to the underlying content and profundity trying to be expressed and communicated to the viewer. Thus, films can be judged to fail on the one hand when they succeed on the other, and this, I think, explains the lukewarm response to what is the finest films ever made in the English language. 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. The central character is a de-frocked and unstable priest, T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) who, like the iguana that is tethered up in preparation to being eaten, is at the end of his rope. He walks alone, without the crutch of facile beliefs or human companionship beyond sterile physical conquests which only serve to heighten his own self-loathing and isolation. He arrives at the hotel in search of sanctuary in light of his mental deterioration. 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. They are united in that they are divided, in that they are all tortured souls seeking beauty, life, meaning and engaged in battles to stand tall, to live with integrity and love. On a hot, cloying night, a night of the iguana, when all their ropes snap taut, they meet.

The pivotal and most crucial part of this film is the conversation between Lawrence and Hannah. The former is in the throes of a nervous breakdown, the latter has survived and endured through the same. They are kindred souls that aid one another through the therapy of human connection, of empathy in the long, lonely walk. 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. These are not issues that date, that diminish in relevance, or that relate only to certain people - they are concepts that are universal, that speak to each individual and relate to fundamental facets of the human mind and spirit.

Because Night of the Iguana sets out to tackle such issues, it is elevated far beyond the level of most films. It is profound, but also deeply emotional, made more so by the superb characterisations (aided, in addition, by universally superb performances). One is afforded an insight into characters, into people, who live, breath, cry, shout, scream, and endure. They are fallible, capable of spite, caprice, and baseness, but they are also thoughtful, courageous and strangely noble. To watch them interact, thrown together as they are on a Mexican veranda, is affecting both emotionally and intellectually, and it is this interaction which is responsible for creating a film that stands (tall and dignified) above nearly all others.

SYNOPSIS: A shammed priest finds anonymity in Mexico where he wrestles with his past while serving as tour guide to a bus full of vacationing church women.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: What happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico. Mexico has become a fantasy land that folks escape to these days. A place where cares, worries and responsibilities cannot follow you. This is a film that fosters that ideal. Cut off from the trappings of button-down 1950s American society, the characters find themselves in a world seduced by cabana boys, wanton desires and tropical sunsets.

PROS AND CONS: The dialog of this film still has the affect of the stage play from which it was based. Like "A Street Car Named Desire" and "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", the characters in this film are struggling with inner turmoil sprinkled with sexual frustration. 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. One of the better performances is turned in by Grayson Hall (whom I had never heard of prior to this film). Her performance as the repressed and bitchy Miss Fellows is fascinating to watch and she more than holds her own with Burton and Gardner.

Most of the film is a long setup to the evening scene between Burton, Kerr and Gardner, in which their demons are discussed, exposed and cast away. It is very good acting although it takes a long time to get there. Comic relief in the film is provided by Skip Ward (the essential early 60s screen idol persona) as the bus driver and the two beach boys that continually dance around Gardner's character while shaking maracas. When the likes of Burton, Tennessee Williams and John Huston get together to make a film, it is bound to be worth watching. Especially, now that I am older and my life experience make me appreciate what the film is all about.

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.

The story concerns a man of the cloth - well, sort of - Shannon, who, after an accusation of fornication and the nervous breakdown that followed, is locked out of his church and forced to take work as a tour guide for a cheap touring company.

He is taking a group of Baptist women through Mexico showing them religious places when, while fighting off the advances of an underaged girl on the trip (Sue Lyon), he is accused by her chaperone (Grayson Hall) of giving into them.

In order to keep her from reporting him to the tour company, he steals the bus distributor and holes up with them at the hotel of his friend, Maxine (Gardner). It is there that he meets the gentle artist, Hannah Jelks, and her aged poet grandfather Nonno.

Under a dark Mexican sky, as an iguana being fattened for dinner is tethered below, the three confront their demons.

Knowing the actual play as well as I do, and having seen it performed, it's a little hard for me to judge this film, except that the acting across the board is marvelous. Gardner is fabulous as Maxine, the no-nonsense, earthy owner of the hotel who hankers after Shannon and isn't above a little jealousy.

This is a role originated on Broadway by Bette Davis. It is rarely cast with someone as sexy and beautiful as Gardner, but those qualities make great additions to the role.

Kerr as the spinster Jelks, facing a life of loneliness once her grandfather dies, is exquisite in the role, bringing to the role an analytical quality that normally isn't as apparent.

Shannon could have been written for Burton - funny, drunk, with an underlying kindness, he is handsome, spirited, and a little nuts.

The additional characters of the underaged girl and the bus driver seem unnecessary additions, though Lyon was very good in a well-written role. Grayson Fall was great, but why was the recurring line she yells at Shannon - "Please take your hand OFF my arm!" removed from the script?

Somehow the stage version is funnier and moves faster, though if you haven't seen it, you will still find this version amusing in sections and thought-provoking in others. The ending is changed as well.

The play is a little heavier, a little more compelling, a little sadder, a little better and, naturally, pure Williams. But you couldn't ask for a better cast.