.png)
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real is a 1966 American television film based on a 1946 one-act play by Tennessee Williams of the same name. This play later formed the basis of his play Camino Real.[1]
Jack Landau directed for NET Playhouse.[2]
Baby Doll is a 1956 American black comedy film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from two of his own one-act plays: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper. The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi.
Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, mostly because of its implied sexual themes, and the National Legion of Decency condemned the film.
Despite the moral objections, Baby Doll enjoyed a mostly favorable response from critics and earned numerous accolades, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Kazan and nominations for four other Golden Globe awards, four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards. Wallach won the BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Baby Doll has been listed by some film scholars as among the most notorious films of the 1950s, and The New York Times included it in its Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.[2]
In the Mississippi Delta, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, naïve 19-year-old "Baby Doll" Meighan for nearly two years. As part of his marriage negotiation with Baby Doll's terminally ill (now-deceased) father, Archie promised to provide for her. Terms included setting her up at a restored "Tiger Tail," once the grandest house in the county but now in dilapidated condition. Long eagerly awaited by Archie, the next day is Baby Doll's 20th birthday, when according to the agreement, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the meantime, Baby Doll sleeps in a crib because the only other bedroom furniture in the house is the bed in which Archie sleeps. Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall. Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort lives in the house as cook and housekeeper, much to Archie's chagrin.
Due to his failing cotton gin, Archie defaults on payments to a furniture company. When virtually all the furniture in the house is repossessed, Baby Doll threatens to leave, declaring a breach in the terms of the marriage agreement. Archie's competitor is a Sicilian-American named Silva Vacarro, manager of a newer, more modern, and more profitable cotton gin that has taken away all of Archie's business. The previous night, Archie retaliated by burning down Vacarro's gin. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro visits Archie's gin the following day with truckloads of cotton, feigning ignorance and "good will", offering to pay Archie Lee to gin for him.
Vacarro's foreman complains of the condition of the gin, which breaks down early in the process. Vacarro insists that Archie go some distance away to obtain the needed replacement part. Before departing, an obsequious Archie asks Baby Doll to entertain Vacarro to placate him. Flirting with Baby Doll to determine the status of her marriage and her attitude toward Archie, Vacarro elicits an admission from her that Archie was away from home during the time the gin burnt down. When Vacarro outright declares that Archie burnt down his gin, an alarmed Baby Doll runs to Archie at the mill for protection, but an impatient and irritable Archie slaps her in the face and leaves to purchase new parts for his gin. Vacarro comforts Baby Doll, confusing and arousing her innocence with sexual advances. When she retreats, he chases her through the house to a crumbling attic, where she attempts to elude him by climbing onto rotted planks that begin to collapse under her weight. As a price for bracing her from falling through the floorboards, Vacarro forces her to sign an affidavit admitting Archie's guilt. Tired from the previous night's and that morning's proceedings, Vacarro announces he's going home to nap, but Baby Doll offers her crib for his nap. Settling to sleep on the floor next to the crib, she sheds her dress to sleep in her slip.
When a drunken Archie returns and sees Baby Doll wandering around in her slip, with Vacarro making himself at home upstairs in her room, he is angry but impotent to confront Vacarro directly. Taking his anger out on Aunt Rose, he blames her for having left Baby Doll alone in the house to go visit a friend in the hospital and angrily tells Aunt Rose to move out of the house. Vacarro immediately offers to let her live with him as his cook. Baby Doll encourages Aunt Rose to accept, implying that she herself might join them in the future. As Archie seethes at the implications, Vaccaro and Baby Doll openly flirt with each other to taunt him. After Vacarro confronts Archie with the affidavit, Archie retrieves his shotgun and chases Vacarro outside while Baby Doll calls the police.
The police arrive, and Archie is arrested when Vacarro presents them with the affidavit. Vacarro then leaves the property, telling Baby Doll he will be back the following day with more cotton. Archie is taken away by the police, remarking bitterly that it is now past midnight and Baby Doll's 20th birthday. Baby Doll and her Aunt Rose return inside the house to await Vacarro's return, hoping he will remember them.
Although the film's title card reads "Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll" and the film is based on Williams' one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Elia Kazan claimed in his autobiography that Williams was only "half-heartedly" involved in the screenplay and that Kazan actually wrote most of it.[3][4]
Kazan cast Baby Doll using numerous alumni of the Actors Studio, including each of the principal cast members.[5] Carroll Baker was Kazan's first choice for the title role, although Williams had considered Marilyn Monroe for the part.[3][6] Williams favored Baker after she performed a scene from his script at the Actors Studio. Kazan had been impressed by her performance in All Summer Long on Broadway the year prior.[7]
Eli Wallach was cast in his first screen role[8] but was hesitant, as he was unfamiliar with film acting and lacked confidence in his ability.[9]
Although racial segregation was still present in Mississippi at the time,[10] several local black actors appear in bit parts.[8]
Actors Studio alumnus Rip Torn appears in an uncredited role as a dentist.[9]
Principal photography began in October 1955 in Benoit, Mississippi[11] at the J.C. Burrus house, an 1848 antebellum home in Bolivar County.[8] Kazan asked the actors to dress the home's interiors with props that they felt reflected their characters' personalities.[8] Other shooting locations included nearby Greenville, Mississippi and New York City.[3] According to Kazan, Williams did not stay long while the film was shooting in Benoit because of the way locals looked at him.[3] Some locals were used for minor roles, and one called "Boll Weevil" acted and also served as the production unit's utility man.[3]
The working titles for the film included the name of the play and Mississippi Woman. Baker claims that Kazan changed the title to Baby Doll as a present to her.[8]
Reviews from critics were mostly positive. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote in a generally favorable review that Tennessee Williams "has written his trashy, vicious people so that they are clinically interesting...But Mr. Kazan's pictorial compositions, got in stark black-and-white and framed for the most part against the background of an old Mississippi mansion, are by far the most artful and respectable feature of 'Baby Doll.'"[12] Variety wrote that Kazan "probably here turns in his greatest directing job to date" and praised the "superb performances," concluding that the film "ranks as a major screen achievement and deserves to be recognized as such."[13] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "one of the finest films of this or many another year, a chilling expose of what ignorance does to human beings...and an excellent example of why the Motion Picture Association should follow Britain's lead in classifying films into distinct categories for children and adults."[14] John McCarten of The New Yorker praised the cast as "uniformly commendable" and wrote that the plot machinations "add up to some hilarious French-style farce, and it is only at the conclusion of the piece, when Mr. Kazan starts moving his camera around in a preternaturally solemn way, that one's interest in 'Baby Doll' briefly wanes."[15] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "Kazan has often fallen afoul of his own cleverness, but in Baby Doll he responds to a brilliant and astute scenario by Tennessee Williams with a great invention and the most subtle insight...There are no bad performances, and those of Carroll Baker as Baby Doll and Eli Wallach as the Sicilian are outstanding."[16]
Not all reviews were positive. Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "offers an experience so basically sordid, and so trying besides, that if one does not manage to laugh at its fantastic ribaldry, he will think that he has spent two hours in bedlam."[17] Harrison's Reports called the film "thoroughly unpleasant and distasteful screen fare, in spite of the fact that it is expertly directed and finely acted."[18]
The film holds a score of 83% on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews.[19]
In its review of the film Variety wrote the film "should make a barrell of dough."[20] Baby Doll premiered in New York City on December 18, 1956, opening the following week in Los Angeles on December 26 before receiving an expanded release on December 29.[8] During its opening week at New York's Victoria Theater, the film earned promising box-office returns, totaling $51,232.[21]
However the film struggled to receive bookings in the wake of Catholic opposition (discussed below).[1] In May 1957 Kazan claimed that the film would ultimately earn $5 million worldwide and had already grossed $3 million, and estimated his production company, Newtown, would make $1 million from the film.[22] However, according to Variety the film earned rentals of $2.3 million at the North American box office in 1957.[23] Kazan later wrote in his memoirs, "People were reading that the film was breaking box office records. This was not true; the cardinal's attack hurt us. There'd be one good week, then a quick slide down. I never made a profit."[24][25]
Filmink argued this box office failure was in part because Carroll Baker's character "clearly doesn’t want to have sex with anyone. Baby Doll is basically a child who Eli Wallach seduces through manipulation and guile. Maybe if Wallach had been played by a conventionally sexy actor... and/or Baker was more knowing, there would be an entirely different reading of the movie. As it is, Baby Doll is basically a film about a victim. The film was marketed as something titillating but when you watch it, the end result is far more complex."[26]
| Institution | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | Best Actress | Carroll Baker | Nominated | [27] |
| Best Supporting Actress | Mildred Dunnock | Nominated | ||
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Tennessee Williams | Nominated | ||
| Best Black-and-White Cinematography | Boris Kaufman | Nominated | ||
| BAFTA Awards | Most Promising Newcomer | Eli Wallach | Won | [28] |
| Best Film | Baby Doll | Nominated | ||
| Best Foreign Actor | Karl Malden | Nominated | ||
| Best Foreign Actress | Carroll Baker | Nominated | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Director | Elia Kazan | Won | [29] |
| Best Actor – Drama | Karl Malden | Nominated | ||
| Best Actress – Drama | Carroll Baker | Nominated | ||
| New Star of the Year | Won | |||
| Best Supporting Actor | Eli Wallach | Nominated | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Mildred Dunnock | Nominated | ||
| WGA Awards | Best Written American Drama – Screen | Tennessee Williams | Nominated |
Baby Doll courted controversy before its release with the display of a promotional billboard in New York City that depicted Baker lying in a crib and sucking her thumb.[30] Cardinal Spellman urged both Catholics and non-Catholics to avoid the film, deeming it a moral danger.[31]
Although Baby Doll received a seal of approval from the MPAA, Motion Picture Herald criticized the approval, noting: "Both the general principles of the Code and several specific stipulations are tossed aside in granting the film a Code seal. Among these, the law is ridiculed, there are sexual implications, vulgarity, and the words 'wop' and 'nigger.'"[8] Religious groups continued to apply pressure following the film's December 18, 1956 premiere, and the Catholic Legion of Decency rated the film as a "C" ("Condemned") and deemed it "grievously offensive to Christian and traditional standards of morality and decency."[8] The group succeeded in having the film withdrawn from numerous theaters.[3] Variety noted that it was the first time in years that the Legion of Decency had condemned a major American film that had been approved by the MPAA.[3]
Response to the film from Catholic laity was mixed.[32]
Episcopal bishop James A. Pike argued that The Ten Commandments contained more "sensuality" than did Baby Doll.[3]
According to Baker, the cast and crew were unaware that the material would be perceived as controversial.[33] The main reason for the backlash was believed to be the seduction scene between Baker and Wallach.[33] Speculation arose among some audiences that during their scene together on a swinging chair, Wallach's character was fondling Baby Doll underneath her dress because his hands are not visible in the frame.[33] According to both Baker and Wallach, the scene was intentionally filmed as such because Kazan had placed heaters all around them in the cold weather.[33]
The film was banned in many countries, because of "exaggerated sexual content." It also was condemned by Time, which called it "just possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited."[34] Such heated objections and the ensuing publicity earned Baby Doll a reputation as one of the most notorious films of the 1950s.[35]
In the 1970s, Williams wrote the full-length stage play Tiger Tail, based on his screenplay for Baby Doll. The screenplay and stage play have been published in one volume.[36] In 2015, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, premiered a stage version of Baby Doll,[37] adapted by Emily Mann, the theater's artistic director, and Pierre Laville, who had written an earlier version that premiered at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris in 2009.[38] The latest adaptation supplemented parts of the film script with material based on several others of Williams' works, including Tiger Tail.[39]
This Property Is Condemned is a 1966 American drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, Charles Bronson, Robert Blake, and Mary Badham. The screenplay, inspired by the 1946 one-act play of the same name by Tennessee Williams, was written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, and Edith Sommer. The film was released by Paramount Pictures.
The Depression-era story takes place in the fictional Mississippi town of Dodson. Owen Legate (Redford), a representative of the railroad that provides much of the economic base for the town, comes to Dodson on an unpopular errand. Wood plays Alva Starr, a pretty flirt who finds herself stuck in the small town and is attracted to the handsome stranger. For her performance, Wood received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. However, the film received mixed reviews.
The film is noted for its song "Wish Me a Rainbow", written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, which is heard at the beginning and the ending of the film. Ed Ames, Astrud Gilberto, and Lawrence Welk have all recorded cover versions.
Willie Starr, an unkempt girl, tells the story of her sister Alva to Tom, a boy whom she meets on the abandoned railroad tracks of Dodson, Mississippi, in the 1930s.
Her story begins with a stranger, Owen Legate, arriving in the small town of Dodson and making his way to the Starr boarding house, where a loud birthday party is in progress for the landlady, Mrs. Hazel "Mama" Starr. He meets Willie, the youngest daughter of the house, and rents a room for the week, while remaining mysterious about his motives for being in town. The men at the party, including a conductor named Mr. Johnson, eagerly await Mama's oldest daughter Alva. When Alva finally appears, the men compete for her attention, including J.J., Mama's boyfriend.
Alva and Owen meet in the kitchen, where she tells a story about a worker who took her dancing at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Willie is entranced, but Owen suspects that the story is fictitious. It becomes obvious that Alva is eager to leave Dodson and dreams of going to New Orleans, from whence Owen has come. Later, Alva enters Owen's room on a false pretense and confides in him. He discourages her, suggesting that she is no more than a prostitute, and she leaves in tears. Mama explains to Alva that she must be kind to Mr. Johnson, who has promised to look after her.
The next day, Willie, who is skipping vacation Bible school, sees Owen on his way to work. The purpose of Owen's visit to Dodson is to close the uneconomical Dodson branch line and release several railroad employees. In the evening, Mr. Johnson is again waiting for Alva to get ready for their date, but she is avoiding it. She makes an excuse to bring him inside and then leads Owen into the garden to show him her father's red-headed scarecrow. Owen confronts Alva about her arrangement with Mama, which Alva denies. She runs back angrily to Mr. Johnson and invites everyone in the house to join her swimming in the nude. J.J. finds Alva alone and makes advances to her. He tells her that Owen has come to deliver layoffs to most of the town. The workers grow increasingly hostile toward Legate, but Owen and Alva eventually become closer. They visit an abandoned train car decorated by Alva's father, and Alva talks once again of her dream to leave the town. When Owen is beaten by the men, Alva takes care of him, and they spend the night together.
Meanwhile, Mama has arranged for the family to accompany Mr. Johnson to Memphis, where he will take care of them. She will not let Alva go to New Orleans with Owen. When Alva protests, Mama persuades Owen to believe that he has been deceived and that Alva was planning to go to Memphis all along. Mama, J.J., Alva, and Mr. Johnson celebrate their new arrangement. Drunk and angered, Alva confronts J.J. and forces him to admit that he stays with Mrs. Starr to be with her. That night, Alva marries J.J., but the next morning, she steals his money and their marriage license and flees to New Orleans.
In New Orleans, Alva eventually finds Owen, and they share happy days together. When Owen is offered a job in Chicago, he proposes marriage to Alva and sends for Willie, but one day, the two come home to find Mama, who wants to reclaim Alva and involve her in a new scheme. She reveals to Owen that Alva had married J.J., but Owen is incredulous. Alva runs out into the rain, crying. Willie finishes telling her story to Tom on the railroad tracks. Willie, who now wears her sister's clothes and jewelry, explains that Alva has died. Mama has left with a man and Willie lives alone in the abandoned boarding house.
The play had been performed on television in 1958 starring Zina Bethune in Three by Tennessee.[3]
Film rights were owned by Ray Stark of Seven Arts, who had enjoyed a big success making a film of Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana. The script was written by Francis Ford Coppola, who was then under contract with Seven Arts. He had directed the play in college.[4] The film was originally going to star Elizabeth Taylor and be directed by Richard Burton (who had been in Iguana), with Taylor to be paid $1 million.[5] Seven Arts set up the film at Paramount as part of a slate of productions; others included The Man Who Would Be King, Oh Dad Poor Dad, Assault on a Queen, My Last Duchess, and Where the Tiger Sleeps.[6] Both Taylor and Burton, though, dropped out of the project. The lead role instead went to Natalie Wood, and she approved Sydney Pollack as director.[7]
Ray Stark offered the job of producing to John Houseman. It was the first film Houseman had produced where he joined the project after the lead star had already been selected and the script had already been written. Houseman wrote in his memoirs, "[A]ll important decisions on the picture would be made by Stark, who (though he could not have been more thoughtful and pleasant) was in the habit of making them capriciously, unilaterally, and often without informing anyone until long after they had gone into effect."[8] Houseman says Sydney Pollack tried to force him out of the film, and that five different writers worked on the script.[9]
Filming took place partly on location in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, and New Orleans. Houseman wrote, "Some of our footage, particularly the scenes between Natalie and her mother, had real dramatic quality, and Bronson lent his own special kind of energy to a scene at the water hole. But our love scenes (the combined product of five well-paid Hollywood writers) made little sense."[10]
The locomotive used in the film was Reader Railroad No. 1702. Today, it now operates excursions on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.[11][12]
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film "as soggy, sentimental a story of a po' little white-trash gal as ever oozed from the pen of Tennessee Williams or out of the veins of scriptwriters in Hollywood", and felt that the two main characters were "wholly implausible."[13]
Variety called it "handsomely mounted, well-acted... adult without being sensational, and touching without being maudlin."[14]
Filmink argued the film "is fatally sunk by continued attempts to make Redford’s character sympathetic."[15]
| Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Globe Awards[16] | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Natalie Wood | Nominated |
| Laurel Awards | Top Female Dramatic Performance | Nominated |
The Night of the Iguana is a 1964 American drama film directed by John Huston, written for the screen by Huston and Anthony Veiller, and based on the 1961 play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. It stars Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Grayson Hall, Sue Lyon, and Cyril Delevanti.[2]
The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on August 6, 1964. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Grayson Hall, and won for Best Costume Design. It also received five Golden Globe Award nominations - including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Actress for Gardner.
Episcopal clergyman Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon suffers a "nervous breakdown" after being ostracized by his congregation and defrocked for having an inappropriate relationship with a "very young Sunday school teacher."
Two years later, Shannon, then a tour guide for the bottom-of-the-barrel Texas company Blake's Tours, is taking a group of Baptist schoolteachers by bus to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The group's brittle leader is the stringent Miss Judith Fellowes, who has been entrusted as a chaperone by the parents of Charlotte Goodall, a man-crazy 16-year-old who tries to seduce Shannon. When Charlotte goes to Shannon's hotel room in the middle of the night, Shannon, mindful of past scandals, implores her to leave. Charlotte resists his feeble attempts to expel her, and the vigilant Miss Fellowes catches them together. Fellowes accuses Shannon of trying to seduce Charlotte and declares that she will ruin him.
While approaching the group's hotel in the bus, Shannon suddenly veers off and recklessly drives the terrified passengers to a cheap Costa Verde hotel in Mismaloya, then removes the distributor cap from the engine. The hotel is normally run by an old friend named Fred, but he has died recently and the hotel is now run by his widow, the bawdy and flamboyant Maxine Faulk. Shannon convinces Maxine to allow the tour group to stay at the hotel, believing that they will be unable to reach a phone or escape. He enlists Maxine to help him appease the ire of Miss Fellowes, to whom Shannon and Maxine privately attribute a lesbian obsession with her charge. Meanwhile, Charlotte has switched her seductive impulses to Hank, the bus driver, and Miss Fellowes declares she is no longer responsible for Charlotte's behavior though she follows through with her complaints to Blake's tours regarding Shannon.
Another new arrival at the hotel is Hannah Jelkes, a beautiful and chaste middle-aged itinerant painter from Nantucket who is traveling with her 96-year-old poet grandfather, Nonno. They have run out of money, but Shannon convinces Maxine to let them have a room. Over a long night, Shannon battles his weaknesses for both flesh and alcohol. Charlotte continues to make trouble for him, aided by Hank, and Shannon is "at the end of his rope," similar to how an iguana is kept tied by Maxine's cabana boys. Shannon suffers a breakdown, threatening suicide, and the cabana boys truss him in a hammock, while Hannah ministers to him with poppy-seed tea and frank spiritual counsel. Recovering a degree of rationality and making a magnanimous gesture in a savage world, Shannon frees the iguana from its rope.
Hannah's grandfather delivers the final version of the poem that he has been laboring to finish about having heart in a corrupt world and then dies. The characters try to resolve their confused lives. Perceiving the warmth between Shannon and Hannah, Maxine offers to walk away and let them have the hotel, on the condition that Shannon must stay to be valid. Hannah declares to Shannon that the arrangement would be impractical and not work, then leaves to make her own way in life. Shannon and Maxine accept their mutual attraction, and decide to run the hotel together.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Early in development, Bette Davis was attached to reprise her role as Maxine Faulk from the 1961 Broadway production, with Ingrid Bergman as Hannah Jelkes and Nancy Kwan in an undisclosed role.[3] Gavin Lambert wrote an early script, before being replaced by John Huston.[3]
James Garner claimed that he was originally offered the role of Dr. Shannon, played by Richard Burton, but he declined because "it was just too Tennessee Williams for me."[5] Christopher Plummer was also considered.[3] Mimsy Farmer screen-tested for the role of Charlotte.[3] After Sue Lyon was cast, the role was expanded from the stage version.[3]
Producer Ray Stark originally wanted Huston, who had just been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Cardinal, to play the role of Nonno himself. Huston declined so he could focus on directing.[3]
In September 1963, Huston, Lyon, and Burton, accompanied by Elizabeth Taylor, arrived at Puerto Vallarta – a "remote little fishing village" – for principal photography in Mismaloya,[6] which lasted 72 days.[7] Huston liked the area's fishing so much that he bought a $30,000 house "in a cottage colony eight miles outside town."[6][8][9][10] Because many of the shooting locations were accessible only by boat, a small village of 25 houses was built as a residence for the cast and crew.[3]
By March 1964, months before the film's release, gossip about the film's production was widespread. Huston later received a Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement at the 16th Writers Guild of America Awards for advancing "the literature of the motion picture through the years." At the award dinner, Allan Sherman performed a song to the tune of "Streets of Laredo" with lyrics that included, "They were down there to film The Night of the Iguana / With a star-studded cast and a technical crew. / They did things at night midst the flora and fauna / That no self-respecting iguana would do."[11]
In a session overseen by then recording engineer Don LaFontaine, a young, "very nervous", and, in retrospect, instantly recognizable James Earl Jones narrated the film's trailer.[12][13]
The film grossed $12 million worldwide at the box office.[1] According to Variety it earned $4.5 million in U.S. and Canadian theatrical rentals[14] and was the 10th highest-grossing film of 1964.
Contemporary critical reviews were mixed.
Time magazine's reviewer wrote, "Huston and company put together a picture that excites the senses, persuades the mind, and even occasionally speaks to the spirit—one of the best movies ever made from a Tennessee Williams play."[7]
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote:
Since difficulty of communication between individuals seems to be one of the sadder of human misfortunes that Tennessee Williams is writing about in his play, The Night of the Iguana, it is ironical that the film John Huston has made from it has difficulty in communicating, too. At least, it has difficulty in communicating precisely what it is that is so barren and poignant about the people it brings to a tourist hotel run by a sensual American woman on the west coast of Mexico. And because it does have difficulty—because it doesn't really make you see what is so helpless and hopeless about them—it fails to generate the sympathy and the personal compassion that might make their suffering meaningful.[15]
Crowther was particularly critical of Burton's performance: "Mr. Burton is spectacularly gross, a figure of wild disarrangement, but without a shred of real sincerity. You see a pot-bellied scarecrow flapping erratically. And in his ridiculous early fumbling with the Lolitaish Sue Lyon (whose acting is painfully awkward), he is farcical when he isn't grotesque."[15]
FilmInk called it "perhaps the most delightfully well cast Williams adaptation of them all."[16]
A statue of John Huston stands in Puerto Vallarta, celebrating the film's role in making the area a popular destination.[22]
