Reeling Backward: "The Night of the Iguana" (1964)

James Garner was offered the lead role in "The Night of the Iguana" but said it was "too Tennessee Williams for me." I understand what he was talking about.

Stage-to-screen translations are often handicapped from the get-go. There's the feeling of being severely bookended -- both with locations and the number of characters. It's OK for a play to stay stuck in one place with a handful of people for a couple of hours, but movies tend to get claustrophobic if they aren't on the move.

Then there's Williams himself, whose plays tended to focus on lost, pitiable souls who struggle to articulate their own despair. Sometimes the film versions, some of them scripted by Williams himself, soared on the strength of the cast and direction -- "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Streetcar Named Desire." But with "Iguana" it often feels like the story is caught in an eddy, swirling about itself without ever going anyway.

The main character, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton), is a youngish man of the cloth whose ability to withstand temptations of the flesh is, shall we say, lacking. In the two decades since he was ordained he was without a parish to call his own for all but a single year, and his one stint as a pastor comes to a crashing end when he diddles with an underage girl of his flock. In the opening scene he suffers a near-breakdown from the pulpit, denouncing the worshipers for judging him, and literally chases them out of the church.

Flash to two years later, and Shannon is now working in Mexico as a guide for Blake Tours, a bargain-basement outfit catering to religious types. His current gig isn't going so well. As they pull into the coastal town of Puerto Vallarta -- a name made famous by this film; a statue of director John Huston still resides in the village square -- Shannon is being henpecked by Miss Fellowes, the domineering head of a group of Baptist women teachers.

Fellowes doesn't like Shannon because she senses the lecherous personality beneath Shannon's gentle facade. Her suspicions aren't unfounded -- her winsome teenage niece is played by Sue Lyon, who had the title role in "Lolita," and plays a similar part here as a teenage temptress. Shannon tries to hold off the girl's advances, but not very hard.

Fellowes is played by Grayson Hall, who earned an Oscar nomination for the role, though I find this style of screechy, google-eyed overacting hard to swallow. Late in the going it's suggested Miss Fellowes is a "butch" who secretly desires the girl for herself, though the harridan is too self-deluded to admit this to herself.

This is notable in of itself, to have a fairly overt reference to homosexuality in a mainstream 1964 film. There's also an explicit reference to smoking marijuana, though it's not depicted.

Anyway, Shannon's dalliance is discovered and Fellowes declares her intention to have him fired. So he hijacks the bus and takes them to the Costa Verde Hotel, a rundown little place up the beach run by an old friend of his, Fred. He confiscates the bus' distributor cap and dumps the old biddies there, since he thinks there is no phone and thus now way to contact his employer.

Alas, Fred has died, and one of his last acts was getting telephone lines run up the steep hill to the hotel. Shannon responds by getting good and drunk and waiting for the axe to fall.

The Costa Verde is now run by Maxine (Ava Gardner), Fred's widow, who is a real piece of work. She espouses a carefree attitude but has a short temper and plenty of vim left in her. An aging beauty, Maxine felt abandoned by her much-older husband the last few years, and took to openly consorting with her two cabana boys -- a pair of shirtless, perpetually smiling young studs who constantly hang around, rarely speaking, occasionally helping out the guests or the proprietress with luggage, or any other needs.

Maxine never wears any shoes or seems bothered by anything, but it soon becomes clear she's carried a torch for Shannon for a long time. She finds him pathetic but adorable, a man-boy who has regular crack-ups about twice a year, and clearly needs someone to look after him. And this is a woman who desperately needs some fun in her life.

Some unexpected competition for Shannon's attention arrives in the form of Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), an English portrait artist who travels the globe with her 97-year-old grandfather, whom she calls Nonno (Cyril Delevanti) and introduces as the world's oldest practicing poet.

Of course, it's been 20 years since Nonno last composed a poem, and the two are essentially well-bred vagabonds who fritter around, peddling their artistic services -- her portraits and his recitations -- in exchange for food and lodging.

If Maxine is a piece of work, then Miss Jelkes is an even odder bird. Her prim manners and reserved disposition resemble those of a missionary, and in some ways that is her role in the film -- to show up and minister to the troubled heathens. Jelkes has a very firm grip on who she is and what her shortcomings are, and seems not at all troubled by her current hardships.

"Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it’s unkind or violent," she says.

Things go on from there. Miss Fellowes and her flock of biddies, having successfully detached Shannon from Blake Tours, depart for more sightseeing, and we're left with Shannon, Maxine and Jelkes to figure out the dynamic between them. Jelkes offers counsel to the suicidal Shannon -- though, as Maxine correctly surmises, it's halfway playacting; the man has an inveterate theatricality about him.

There's some splendid acting in "The Night of the Iguana," particularly Kerr and Gardner. I found Burton to be a twitchy, sweaty mess, a whole lot of behavior substituting for a character.

Hanging around with this crew is like being trapped at an annoying party you can't leave. You might wander into a semi-interesting conversation or two, but in the end it feels like time wasted.

Reeling Backward: "Seven Days in May" (1964)

"Seven Days in May" is considered one of the all-time great political thrillers, but I found the 1964 film directed by John Frankenheimer a bit stiff and theatrical. It's still a good ripping yarn, but hardly worthy of the accolades that have been heaped upon it.

Partly is that its subject matter -- about an attempted military coup of the United States -- felt a bit stale, even in 1964. The nuclear age spawned a tidal wave of anxiety and fear, and movies like this played upon them. Frankenheimer's own previous film, 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate," touched upon very similar themes.

Also in 1964 we had "Fail Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove," two movies with schockingly similar stories about a runaway American military setting off war with the Soviet Union, that approached the subject from polar opposite ends -- straight and satirical, respectively.

I can only imagine what it must have been like in that year, right after the assassination of an American president for reasons that still remain murky, with all these movies coming out about sinister plots to subvert the presidency and the democratic process. In some ways, it makes the previous decades' duck-and-cover drills seem reassuring.

Rod Serling wrote the screenplay based on the book Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, which was the best-selling novel in the country for almost an entire year. Serling's version centers around three pivotal characters: General James Scott (Burt Lancaster), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Jordan Lyman (Fredric March), president of the United States; and Col. Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), the man caught in the middle.

Lyman has just agreed on a proposed treaty with the Soviets to disarm all nuclear weapons. A great outcry has risen up against the movie, calling it foolish, and a gripping opening scene shows a riot between protesters in front of the White House. (Astonishingly, this was shot in front of the actual building. President Kennedy, before his untimely demise, gave his permission due in part to his relationship with Kirk Douglas.)

Scott is the shadow leader of this movement, and Jiggs Casey is his unknowing right-hand man. Casey's internal radar is set off by some communications among senior military leaders over secure channels regarding a wager on the Preakness horse race, to be held next Sunday. Only the leader of the Navy (an uncredited John Houseman) has declined to place a bet.

Casey also gets a visit from "Mutt" Henderson (Andrew Duggan), an old friend who says he's just been given a new post at eComCon -- an installation he's never heard of. With a little digging, it turns out to be a secret military base in the Texas desert established by Scott to train special forces for a military takeover.

Interestingly, the wondering part is quite small -- Casey immediately goes to the president with the plot, and from there it's a battle of wits between the president's advisers and Scott and his cohorts to outflank each other. Lyman was scheduled to attend a huge military practice operation on the Sunday in question, and he correctly guesses that he would have been kidnapped and possibly executed while in Scott's custody.

This is the part of the movie I found weak. Once the president learned of the plot, why wouldn't he immediately fire Scott and have him arrested? There's this whole long section where Lyman frantically searches for proof of his joint chiefs chairman's treason before he can make a move. He sends top advisor Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) to coerce the Navy holdout into signing a confession, while the lush of a senator from Georgia, Raymond Clark, is dispatched to drive around in the desert looking for this mysterious military base. (Edmond O'Brien earned an Oscar nomination for his colorful portrayal.)

All this is hooey. All the president's cabinet and advisers serve at the pleasure of the chief executive, and can be dismissed by him or her at any time, for any reason. Lyman could fire Scott because he doesn't like the way he parts his hair.

There's a powerhouse of a scene near the end where Scott and Lyman confront each other, alone, in the Oval Office. The president reveals that he knows all about the plot, laying out his evidence in a prosecutorial fashion. Scott angrily denounces Lyman as a "weak sister" whose treaty amounts to a willing surrender to the enemy. Lyman persistently demands that Scott resign, and Scott refuses.

It's a fun scene, with Lancaster thundering away about protecting the country, and March makes a tidy speech about democratic processes must be respected or the nation into an abyss. Great acting, fiery dialogue, and all built on a premise that's utterly ridiculous. (My understanding is that in the book, Scott immediately resigns when confronted by Lyman.)

There's also a whole left-handed side plot about Ava Gardner as Scott's former mistress who supposedly has some incriminating letters written by him. Casey, pretending to pitch woo at her, gets his hands on the letters and turns them over to the president to use as leverage against Scott. But Lyman resists the urge to use the underhanded tactic -- which is supposed to demonstrate what a noble character he is.

It's a good, engaging movie -- great-looking, too, with top-notch photography and production design -- but it tends to fall apart when you start kicking the tires and peek under the hood.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "On the Beach" (1959)

Subtle as a sledgehammer, "On the Beach" is a movie about people waiting to die. Anyone who watches it will know exactly how they feel.

The 1959 film is set in the post-nuclear apocalypse. The entire world population has been erased except for Australia, and they'll soon be gone when the weather brings radiation poisoning to the holdouts in five months or so. Gregory Peck is captain of a U.S. submarine that escaped the bombs, and is sent out by the remaining joint Australian/American leadership to survey the spread.

(Even in 1959, scientists knew it wouldn't take five months for radiation to spread. But audiences probably didn't.).

Directed by Stanley Kramer, "On the Beach" was written by John Paxton from the novel by Nevil Shute. It's really heavy-handed stuff as the characters try to put a brave face on their impending doom, and take a break now and then to wail about how mankind could have been so stupid as to play around with nuclear weapons.

The story is set in 1964 -- the near-distant future. Peck plays Dwight Towers, the sub commander who still speaks about his wife and two children as if they're alive. He's not bonkers, or at least not more so than any of the other people trying desperately to maintain an even keel.

Anthony Perkins plays a young Australian naval officer assigned to Towers as a liaison, and Donna Anderson plays his nervous wife. Ava Gardner stars as Moira, a friend of theirs who soon gets caught up in romance with Towers. Gardner gives a vibrant, fetching performance as a woman with a big personality and an excess of passion, but there's a layer of self-hatred underneath.

Fred Astaire plays Julian, an English scientist who bears a guilty conscience, since he was one of those who helped build the bomb.

The most interesting thing about the movie is its depiction of how society adapts after the bombs have fallen. The short version is, not very much. They still have electricity, telephones and plenty of booze -- which all the characters help themselves to generously. About the only major change is that everyone gets around by bicycle or horse, since there's little gasoline for cars.

Although Julian does own the last functioning Ferrari in the world, which he intends to race in the upcoming (and last) Australian Grand Prix, despite being a bit long in the tooth for this sort of thing, not to mention a total novice as a race car driver.

The movie is quite dull and repetitive. There's lots of scenes of men and women sharing drinks and trying not to talk about the radiation that's coming to kill them.

Eventually, Towers and his crew do set out on their mission. It includes a side trip to San Diego to track down a mysterious Morse Code signal they've been receiving.

I don't mind a movie that's depressing, but "On the Beach" is simply a great bore. The anti-war and anti-nukes message is delivered so stridently, it feels more like a lecture than a forbidding cautionary tale.

1.5 stars