Oh, My Precious Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! John Huston Really Livened Up Tennessee Williams' "The Night Of The Iguana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                              With "Svengoolie" ending the year last week with "The Undead," we both agreed it was not worth a second viewing.  After seeing that stilted version of Tennessee Williams' play, inexplicably still running at Signature Perls, we decided to explore the film version of "The Night Of The Iguana," never expecting what fun we would have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                Start with the actors coming at the audience from all sorts of acting styles.  Ava Gardner, still looking good, hons, goes all sultry and sexy with Maxine--can you believe Bette Davis did this on stage? --who has everybody's number, including herself.

                                     Richard Burton as a defrocked clergyman, now running bus tours, with a penchant for young girls, is pretty much Burton flown to the location by Central Casting.  And when it comes to torment, no one does it better than he, especially when trussed.  I bet Liz was laughing herself silly off camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       Just look at the seething tension between Gardner and Grayson Hall, as that most repressed of lesbians, Miss Judith Fellows, a role I am anxious to play!!!!!!!!!!!!  From her first bit to her last, Grayson hoots it up all over the place.  And yet, thanks to Huston all of this becomes cohesive, which it did not in the Signature Perls production.  You haven't lived till you have heard Grayson Hall sing "Three Little Fishies!"  And the spinster church ladies looked like they really came from Texas, which is what Texas if full of, to begin with!  They are just as batty as Grayson.

                                         This is an 'Iguana' wisely set in the present day, judging from Sue Lyon's clothes.  The issues explored, after all, are universal.  And it wisely eliminates those faux Nazis who in the stage version we saw, were played like comic relief.  Maybe they should walk up to the August Wilson, where "Cabaret" is getting another warm up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          But this movie is pretty daring for its time.  Scantily clad Mexican boys, cast only for their bodies, and playing the maracas, cavorting with nubile Sue Lyon--the girl you called when you needed a nymphet at that time! --and audacious Ava by night!  My, my!  And Ava freely using words like "butch" and "dyke" whenever Miss Fellows is around.  But Richard scores the best zinger, with Williams at his most poetic, when he says, "I think if Miss Fellows really knew the truth about herself, it would destroy her."  He is right.  She is not ready to admit she is a lesbian, the way she goes after nubile Charlotte all the time, even calling to her in the water famously--"Charlotte! You defied me! You deliberately defied me!"  Girls, we all love Miss Fellows, and it is a shame when Grayson Hall steps out of the picture.

                                          Then there is Deborah Kerr--oh, my God! --as Hannah Jelkes.  Her performance here is like a master class in acting.  She gets all the poetry out of the Williams text, and her facial transitions and gestures are near perfection.  She is the definitive Hannah, the real thing, and thank God Huston got it on film.

                                            Even real iguanas have fun in this movie--and are set free!  They cavort merrily throughout.  The only false note is the bar cart fight between Maxine and Shannon --here it looks like a sitcom, but at Signature it was the show's only real moment.

                                              Treat yourselves, darlings, to "The Night Of The Iguana."  It is an exploration of the human condition, outsiders down on their luck, and lots of rum and cokes!

                                                 Have some with it!  Because it is so much FUN, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!