The Night of the Iguana is a
1964 film based on the 1961 play
The Night of the Iguana by
Tennessee Williams. Directed by
John Huston, it starred
Richard Burton,
Ava Gardner, and
Deborah Kerr. It won the 1964
Academy Award for Best Costume Design, and was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. Actress
Grayson Hall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and
Cyril Delevanti received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
The film drew considerable attention for stories around its production, since Richard Burton had brought his soon-to-be-wife
Elizabeth Taylor to the location shoot.
The filming attracted large numbers of
paparazzi, and turned the city of
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico into a world-famous tourist attraction.
Summary
The preface to the story shows Episcopalian minister Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon (
Richard Burton) having a "nervous breakdown" after being ostracized by his congregation for having an inappropriate relationship in Virginia with "a very young Sunday school teacher." The film's main story then begins at a point two years later, where Shannon, now a tour guide for bottom-of-the-barrel Texas tour company Blake Tours, is taking a group of Baptist School teachers in a rickety and sweltering bus to
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The group's brittle group leader is Miss Judith Fellowes (
Grayson Hall), whose 17-year-old niece Charlotte Goodall (
Sue Lyon) tries to seduce Shannon. Charlotte's aunt, described as "
butch" by the other characters, accuses Shannon of trying to seduce her niece and fires him, declaring that she wants to ruin him. In a moment of despair, Shannon shanghais the bus and occupants, and tries to prevent Fellowes from calling his boss by stranding their bus at a cheap (and, he mistakenly thinks, phoneless) Costa Verde Hotel in
Mismaloya on the coast of Mexico. Shannon thinks that the hotel is still run by an old friend named Fred, but finds that Fred has died a month earlier, and the hotel is now run by Fred's widow, Maxine Faulk (
Ava Gardner). Maxine is more interested in Shannon than her current two maraca-shaking cabana boys. Shannon also meets another woman there, Hannah Jelkes (
Deborah Kerr), a beautiful and chaste itinerant painter from Nantucket who appears at the hotel with her elderly poet grandfather (
Cyril Delevanti). Hannah and her grandfather have run out of money, but Shannon convinces Maxine to let them have rooms. Over a long night, Shannon battles his weaknesses for both flesh and alcohol: Miss Fellowes' niece continues to make trouble for him, and he is "at the end of his rope", just like the iguana kept tied by Maxie's cabana boys. Shannon suffers a breakdown, the cabana boys truss him in a hammock, and Hannah ministers to him there with poppy-seed tea and frank spiritual counsel.
Hannah's grandfather delivers the final version of the poem he has been laboring to finish and dies. The characters try to make some resolve of their confused lives with the final reconciliation of Shannon and Maxine deciding to run the hotel together, and Hannah stoically walking away from her last chance at love.
