The Night of the Iguana

A defrocked priest (Richard Burton) ekes out a living as a tour guide in Mexico with the help of a widower (Ava Gardner).

The Night of the Iguana is a movie that grips you. Director John Huston takes Tennessee Williams’ play and makes it his own, and gets some great performances out of his leads in the process.

Richard Burton plays his role to perfection as a man too flawed for his own dreams. His simmering struggle with his own inequities is every bit as relatable today as it was thirty years ago. Equally impressive is Ava Gardner, whose tough but vulnerable performance is made all the more believable by Huston’s decidedly unglamorous atmosphere. Indeed, only Huston could take two larger-than-life stars and shrink them to flawed, relatable characters.

The movie’s only weakness is a somewhat talky third act that betrays its stage origins. However, these same origins allow the movie to eschew the traditional Hollywood ending in favor of one infinitely more satisfying.