FOLIO
Premiering on Broadway in 1961, The Night of the Iguana was Tennessee Williams’s last hit, its popularity with audiences largely fueled by the presence of the formidable Bette Davis (in a comeback bid of her own) as salty Maxine Faulk. Even though the play itself was nominated for a Tony, its only win was for Margaret Leighton, as artist Hannah Jelkes. And the critics were far less enchanted with showboater Davis than were her devoted fans.
Her fellow actors agreed with the critics. In fact, at one point during rehearsals, co-star Patrick O’Neal literally knocked her down on stage and started choking her, having been driven to drink and near-madness (like his stage character) by Davis’ considerable ego and its accompanying demands.
With the announcement that the film version would star Richard Burton and Ava Gardner, along with Sue Lyon (Kubrick’s “Lolita”), the rabid press and eager public anticipated even more shenanigans. Directed by hard-drinking wild man John Huston, The Night of the Iguana (1964) certainly whetted the appetites of the curious. It was also one of the best film adaptations—with A Streetcar Named Desire and Suddenly, Last Summer of Tennessee Williams’ work, maybe even more so than those predecessors, capturing the author’s lyricism and dramatic soul-searching.
Co-written by Huston and Anthony Veiller (who also wrote Moulin Rouge and The List of Adrian Messenger), the movie widens the limited stage design to take advantage of the tropical setting of Puerto Vallarta and its surroundings, earning Oscar nods for cinematography and art and set design.
The film’s terrific opening scene is a marvelous example of how Huston broadened the palette of the theater to enhance the flexibility offered, even demanded, when adapting a play into a movie. We see the exterior of an Episcopal church in the pouring rain. Moving inside, we witness The Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) address his congregation in the style of a traditional sermon about God’s love and human frailty before reverting to a tirade about his own guilt and their hypocrisy, literally driving the hapless churchgoers into the torrent outside.
In the play, the scene is described by Shannon to explain why he was banished by his bishop. Huston gives it dramatic visibility, setting the tone for the rest of the film and then cutting abruptly to the film’s impressive title and production sequence, highlighted by close-ups of an iguana counter-posed against an ominous tropical night.
The next sequence opens in bright sunlight on the exterior of a Mexican cathedral as Shannon reclines outside, his head covered by a newspaper as he sleeps off a hangover. The ironic contrast delineates without dialogue the fractured identity of Shannon, now reduced to his brochure identity as a “man of God” conducting worldwide tours “of God’s creation.”
Shannon’s clients are a group of middle-aged women from Texas Baptist College, headed by formidable Miss Fellowes (Grayson Hall) who’s also chaperoning her niece Charlotte Goodall (Sue Lyon), a sexually precocious 17-year-old obsessed with Shannon. Conflicts and compromising situations involving the three results in Shannon diverting the bus from its scheduled accommodations in town, to seek refuge in an isolated hostel run by widow Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner) whose husband, Shannon’s close friend, recently died.
At the end of his rope and in the throes of a nervous and alcoholic breakdown, Shannon faces his grim “spooks,” his wasted life, his religious faith/despair, his sexual weakness in the company of an iguana who is literally tied up as well, awaiting his doom in the cooking pot.
During the film’s titular night, Shannon must cope with vicious Fellowes, shallow flirtatious Charlotte and goodhearted Maxine. A late arrival is another middle-aged woman, Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), a quick sketch artist, who’s travelled the world with her 97-year-old grandfather (Cyril Delevanti), “the world’s oldest practicing poet” who, during the course of the night, will finish his last poem.
Like all Williams’ plays, The Night of the Iguana is a character study more than a drama. Hannah Jelkes is one of Williams’ greatest female characters. The film’s cast was largely (and unfairly) ignored by the Academy; the only Oscar nod went to Hall for her supporting performance.
Watching the movie today, though, we savor Burton’s equal blend of histrionics and humor, Gardner’s sensuality and Kerr’s quiet magnificence. Credit John Huston as well for eliciting the nervous energy, questioning intelligence and haunting poetry that was the heart of Tennessee Williams’ tortured genius.
The Night of the Iguana is an underrated masterpiece.
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