Tennessee Williams’ famous play, The Night of the Iguana, was reborn as a 1964 film with an all-star cast. The public library had a DVD copy, so, of course, it provided some much needed heat on a cold and dreary March night.
Legendary creep and gay basher, director John Huston, took an already overcooked thriller and boiled it to steam with a sexy Richard Burton, bombshell Ava Gardner, a luminous Deborah Kerr, and wild nymphet of the day Sue Lyons.
“One man …three women …one night …” was the sensational blurb on the DVD cover.
However, it didn’t tell the whole truth. Grayson Hall as a Baptist hellcat bent on destroying fallen minister Burton made four women.
The plot could only be a fever dream from the mind of Tennessee Williams. We see a staid Presbyterian congregation unaware that their minister, played by Burton, will unravel at the pulpit, threatening them with Hellfire. It seems a moist female needed him, and not only for her faith, but to satisfy her ravenous sexual hunger. He was locked out of his parish, eventually winding up giving ladies a religious pilgrimage around Mexico. His luck this tour was having a sex-obsessed teen in Sue Lyon infatuated totally with his body, and the martinet tour leader Grayson Hall hellbent to sniff out his raging pheromones she happens to be immune to. Cineastes will recall Lyon played Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick eponymously named film. Lyon was 15 when she filmed Nabokov’s and Kubrick’s wayward child.
Having a hissy-fit, the ex-minister hijacks the busload of church ladies to stay at old flame Ava Gardner’s hotel closed for the season. Fate dictates poetess Deborah Kerr happens upon this manic scene as well.
Kerr, a great film star, is absolutely luminous in her character. She is by far the most interesting and compelling figure in the film.
At one climactic point, Grayson Hall is chewing Burton alive, much to the consternation of both Kerr and Gardner. So much so that Gardner calls her the D Word!
Totally unexpected for its day.
Judith Fellowes called a Dyke by Ava Gardner!
Symbolism writhes in a pit where an Iguana had been trapped by the dancing boys who amuse and sensually satisfy Ava Gardner. It causes so much racket, that Kerr is disgusted by it, and Burton frees it.
There goes lunch!
The end is amazing and shall not be spoiled. Suffice it to say that Tennessee Williams sets everything right, and makes the world if not a happier place, it is at least sensible.
See The Night of the Iguana wherever you can, streaming, on DVD, or whatever.
It’s a ripping good drama, with some giggles and sex romping, with at least some terrific acting from a transcendent Deborah Kerr.
Can’t get enough from a Sapphic Grayson Hall? Here’s a treat:
Grayson Hall as lesbian boss Pepe in Satan in High Heels.
You’ll swear it must have inspired John Waters, Divine, and Charles Busch.