Am I Missing Something?

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

For those of you with sore heads who cannot figure it out let me see if I can help you. This movie is supposedly about a defrocked minister coming to terms with his values with a touring group of Baptists. So far so good but even as a teenager, like the Grinch, I puzzled until my puzzler was sore. Eventually I moved on with other things like getting a degree in Psychology along with my degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.My degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science didn't help me understand this movie but with the one in Psychology I went from a state of puzzling to enlightment. I finally understood that one of the ladies was a flaming lesbian. The other one played by Deborah Kerr is what I call a pseudo-lesbian. Frequently they become more religious and don't even realize themselves what is happening. If they say something like "I hate the Vienna Choir Boys because they sound like a bunch of Screech Owls" or other statements like that they are revealing their hatred for men. So watch for the segments that reveal that and this movie will finally start to make sense. I will not take the fun away from you finding the episodes that reveal this for yourselves.After that, you will have to decide whether or not you like the movie. Personally I like it because it does such a good job of showing what a pseudo-lesbian is like. What do I do when I encounter pseudo-lesbians? I avoid them! But then I am male, not a female.

Released in 1964 and directed by John Huston based on Tennessee Williams' play, "The Night of the Iguana" stars Richard Burton as a defrocked Episcopal minister who resorts to a job leading bus tours on the Mexican west coast. As he guides a group of middle-aged Baptist women to Puerto Vallarta, he struggles with the attentions of a teen sexpot (Sue Lyon) and the antagonism of her curmudgeonly ward (Grayson Hall). The group ends up at a bed & breakfast where the effervescent proprietor (Ava Gardner) and a spiritual artist (Deborah Kerr) aid the ex-clergyman in coming to terms with the failures haunting him. Skip Ward plays the hunky bus tour assistant.As much as I appreciate this drama, it's too bad it was shot in B&W as color would've really enhanced it, particularly considering the resort setting. (I'll never understand why filmmakers insist on shooting in B&W when color is readily available). The movie is also marred by some contrived melodrama with Burton guilty of chewing too much scenery. At the same time, it's interesting to go back in time with these old dramas and observe the artificialities of the (over)acting based on the contrivances of an inflexible script.Despite my criticisms, there's a lot to savor here. The rich (and sometimes synthetic) dialogue is full of gems to mine. The film is an honest rumination on the human condition. The theme is to cease struggling and to ride out the hardships of life, whether they're the result of one's own folly or otherwise. The answer will come; just be on the look-out for the "messenger" or "assistant" and, of course, accept. On other fronts, Sue Lyon is outstanding as the Lolita, probably because she literally played Lolita in her previous film, 1962's "Lolita." Thankfully, she's more womanly here. She was 17 during filming and thoroughly sumptuous, particularly in her short shorts. Gardner also looked great at 41, but her character is too boozy and it's a turn-off. She's well contrasted by the almost saintly Kerr.Interestingly, there's a brief denouncement of lesbianism, which wouldn't work today. In our current upside down culture it would be hailed as the highest good, worthy of a call from the President (rolling my eyes). RUNTIME: 118 minutes. SHOOTING LOCATIONS: Puerto Vallarta and Mismaloya Village, Mexico. GRADE: B

Another terrific Tennessee Williams cinematic presentation after the contently controversial SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959, 7/10), THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA is directed by the almighty John Huston, starring a trio of A-list names Burton, Gardner and Kerr, with a show- stealing supporting performance from the unknown Grayson Hall (who is the sole cast member reaps an Oscar nomination), and it also includes Sue Lyon's follow-up role after Kubrick's LOLITA (1962, 7/10), which foreshadows her career being typecast as a precocious siren with an ingénue disguise.Shot in standard Black & White, the opening scene is inside an episcopal church, we see Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon (Burton) normally preaches to his parishioners in a ceremony, but slowly he turns emotional and apoplectic-ally lashes out at them, we have no idea what has happened, then the opening credits jump in, and next thing we know, he is in Mexico and becomes the tour guide of a group of Baptist women, headed by a high-strung Miss Judith Fellowes (Hall). All the way, Lawrence is tantalized by an underage girl Charlotte Goodall (Lyon), who is under the supervision of Miss Fellows. Until one night, he succumbs to the temptation and is caught in the act by Miss Fellows. In order to keep his job and prohibit Miss Fellows from calling to his boss, Lawrence arbitrarily bring the group to a hotel, which is overlooking a sea view from the top of a hill and now run by a middle-age woman Maxine Faulk (Gardner), who is newly widowed. Meanwhile, a pair of uninvited guests arrive in the off-season, a spinster Hannah Jelkes (Kerr) who is peripatetic around the world with her ailing grandfather (Delevanti), who is a poet seeking the inspiration to finish his new poem. While Charlotte's caprice of carnal desires can be feasibly veered to another prey, and his job cannot avoid being sabotaged by Miss Fellowes' obduracy, Lawrence comes to term with the situation with the help from Maxine and Hannah, the growing attractions take the main stage, and it is a love triangle needs one to take the moral high ground, which is quite similar to John Ford's MOGAMBO (1953, 6/10), also stars Gardner with Clark Gable and Grace Kelly, in an exotic location (African safari). A decade later, Gardner remains and inherits her flair of being fierily passionate and emotionally unconstrained, more unadorned in her raw beauty, her Maxine is never afraid of betray her feelings, she will flip her lid immediately when witnessing the chemistry between Lawrence and Hannah. She is boldly spontaneous, she will not hesitate to enjoy a threesome with two young Mexican boys on the beach at night after being snubbed by the one she loves, but when she thinks it through, she will generously make the sacrifice to take the egress and fulfill others' happiness. Gardner is great, but Kerr is even more admirable in her refined mien and dignity, Hannah is altruistic, sensible and well-bred, she possesses a rare quality of being both sophisticated and naive, she embraces life in the direst situation (penniless, and scrapes a living by selling her scratch to hotel clientèle), her independence is super-modern at its time, and we will presumably fear she will fall into the victim of a dog-eat-dog world, but she is not the one who needs salvation, Kerr instills a steady crescendo of fortitude onto her character's eccentric life pattern, unlike Maxine, she doesn't need a man to compensate her sense of insecurity, she is fearless and awe-inspiring. Maxine and Hannah represent two sides of one mirror, a perfect woman for Burton's Lawrence, who is miserably lagging behind (being defrocked and jobless) to be the owner of his fate owing to his defects, there is no repulsive male-chauvinistic undertone which fatally tarnishes MOGAMBO. Burton's macho appearance may jar with Lawrence's innate vulnerability, but never judging a book by its cover, Burton sympathetically discloses his wounds with adequate pathos, eventually he will grow on you too like Gardner and Kerr, and their upshot considerably suffices our expectation and doesn't fall into stale cliché.Grayson Hall and Cyril Delevanti, both deliver indelible performances as well, the former completely overshadows Burton and Lyon in the first act, although one can argue, her character is basically one-noted, but she succeeds in setting off a fusillade of aggressiveness with her raspy squawk and acerbic accusations. As for the latter, great line- delivery of his last poem alone can neutralize the cringe-worthy disappointment of his prefigured destiny to consummate his life in the journey. It is a great showpiece with a brainy script, powerful acting and compassionate score, with one conspicuous slip-up, paraphrasing Lawrence earlier in the film, "(Mexico) It is a lost world of innocence", unfortunately, we fail to acknowledge that throughout the film and the native inhabitants are conveniently and consistently portrayed without any gusto apart from being pigeonholed as wacky exotica (catching iguana for food) or laughing stock (two Mexican guys persistently playing with maracas), so, why Mexico? It could be "The Night of Anywhere".

Richard Burton plays Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon, an Episcopal Priest who had a bit of a problem controlling his carnal desires to the point of his being tossed out of the church. Shannon winds up leading tours for vacationers in Mexico where we find him driving a bus load of older tourists from a Christian College. These tourists drive Shannon to such a breaking point that he takes his tour bus off the scheduled route to an out-of-the-way resort run by Maxine, an old friend (Ava Gardner). Among the older tourists is, puzzlingly, the nubile Charlotte Goodall (Sue Lyon). From what we know of Shannon's past as a priest it is inevitable that he would not be unaware of Charlotte's allure, especially since she eggs him on. Just coming off of "Lolita," Lyon risked type casting herself as a temptress of older men. Ultimately Debra Kerr is thrown into this as a sort of mediator.Burton, Gardner, Kerr under the direction of John Huston in a movie based on a Tennessee Williams play, what could go wrong? A lot as far as I am concerned. Richard Burton is perhaps my favorite actor and I never thought I would find so little to like about one of his performances as I did here. He never seemed to be engaged; I got the feeling that he was saying to himself, "Let's get this over with, I am not going to invest my awesome talents into this thing." Ava Gardner tries to infuse some life into the saucy Maxine, but tries too hard I think. I was always conscious that I was watching Gardner and not Maxine. In the end I was not emotionally engaged by either of the characters portrayed by Burton and Gardner.There are some good lines, like "You have to accept life before you can live it." But such philosophical gems seemed to be dropped in at random. The movie has its moments. The symbolic release of the leashed iguana was a nice touch, but, given that that was a pivotal theme, why did we not see the pet iguana until the freeing scene? Turning the original stage play into a piece of cinema seemed to be too much of a challenge even for John Huston, leaving more talk than cinema.The black and white filming is nicely done.