Night of the Iguana
If you have never seen this 1964 classic black and white film by legendary director John Houston, rent it. The film is the stuff of legends: The movie featured a defrocked priest (Burton), bawdy widow (Ava Gardner), spinster artist (Deborah Kerr) and nymphet (Sue Lyon, fresh from Lolita). But Liz Taylor upstaged the entire 1964 film with her saucy shenanigans. Her passionate affair with the leading man – both were married to other partners – garnered headlines around the world. After the filming, the couple lingered in the idyllic tropical town. For her 32nd birthday, Burton gave her Casa Kimberly, a $57,000 villa linked to his own by an arched, cotton-candy-pink bridge, one story above the cobbled street. Also present were the peculiar playwright Tennessee Williams and rowdy, pistol-packing Mexican director-actor Emilio Fernandez. Once Huston reminisced: "The press gathered down there expecting something to happen with all these volatile personalities. They felt the lid would blow off and there would be fireworks. When there weren’t any, they were reduced to writing about Puerto Vallarta. And, I’m afraid, that was the beginning of its popularity, which was a mixed blessing." One only wonders if Williams had his way with the two very sexy Mexican servants, Pedro and Pepe, who literally shake their maracas throughout the movie. The film was made in 1963; while filming, President Kennedy was assassinated. Houston, fed up with America, would renounce his US citizenship. He would eventually retire to Puerto Vallarta. The film itself is extraordinary for its performances: Richard Burton casts a sexy, boyish charm to his defrocked priest. Ava Gardner plays Maxine, a kind of retired beat poet hostess who gets to keep the Mexican boys, but yearns for Burton. Deborah Kerr is the unsuspecting key to the movie. Clearly there was something going on (in character) with Burton and Kerr, and she gets to deliver the best Williams lines. Tennessee Williams certainly did have this themes, and one them was poetry. In this film, a 97 year old poet completes his final poem and dies. But there is poetry throughout this film, in that fascinating mood that only Tennessee Williams could create, which is a world where people speak in beautiful metaphors with lush prose that nearly borders the ridiculous, but manages to stay just on the side of reason.
Planet Homo