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The Night of the Iguana (1964)

Director:
John Huston
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Drama
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Iguananatten
RUNNING TIME
148 minutes
Producer:
John Huston
Ray Stark
Screenwriter (based on the play by Tennessee Williams):
John Huston
Anthony Weller


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon Richard Burton ½
Maxine Faulk Ava Gardner
Hannah Jelkes Deborah Kerr
Charlotte Goodall Sue Lyon
Hank Prosner James Ward
Judith Fellowes Grayson Hall
Nonno Cyril Delevanti

 

Review

The impressive cast of this rather tedious John Huston movie is given a challenging task to keep the narrative appealing. Dramatically, The Night of the Iguana should have been compelling and interesting, but Huston's screenplay is poorly paced and the dialogue far too theatrical. Remarkably, the movie works great on a comedic level, mainly due to Richard Burton’s brilliant performance and Ava Gardner's outlandish character. It is mainly these two that keep the movie afloat, as a lot of great dramatic potential is wasted by artificial scenes that fail to explore the characters in any sort of depth.

Copyright © 26.06.2019 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang
(previously unpublished review written in 2004)

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