FAQ

Working as a cut-rate travel guide, defrocked, alcoholic Episcopalian Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) leads a busload of American teachers, all middle-aged Baptist women, down the Mexican coast while attempting to deal with his own life's failures. The leader of the group, Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall), is accompanied by her ward, the teenage nymphet Charlotte Goodall (Sue Lyon), who openly flirts with Shannon, and Judith threatens to get him fired. In order to prevent her from communicating with his employer, Shannon takes the group to the rundown hotel of his friend Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner), where his life is about to change.

The Night of the Iguana began life in 1948 as a short story by American author Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). Williams later adapted the short story into a stageplay. It is from the 1961 stageplay that The Night of the Iguana was adapted for the movie by screenwriter Anthony Veiller and director John Huston.

Proverbs 25:28, King James Version: "Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control."

During a Sunday service, he threw away his prepared sermon and announced that he could no longer conduct services in worship of a God that he called an "angry, petulant old man" and a "cruel, senile delinquent". Thereafter, he left the church and took a job as a tour guide for Stark Tours.

As he explains it to Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), he was approached by a female parishioner who declared love for him. He suggested that they kneel down in prayer, but the kneeling turned into a reclining position.

Instead of stopping at their hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Shannon went on to Mismaloya to stay at Costa Verde for three reasons. One, he knew the owner of the Costa Verde. Two, he was at the end of his rope dealing with the seductive and precocious Charlotte Goodall and her strict chaperone. Three, Judith had sent a telegram to Charlotte's father. The reply was due to arrive in Puerto Vallarta. By stopping at Mismaloya instead of Puerto Vallarta, Shannon hoped to delay the reading of the telegram and somehow clear his reputation as a Stark tour guide.

Yes. Mismaloya is a small village just south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on Hwy 200. In fact, it is said that Night of the Iguana is responsible for making Puerto Vallarta the tourist spot that it is today due to the sensationalized love affair that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were engaging in at the time this movie was filmed.

On a bus trip to Puerto Vallarta, Reverend Shannon and his charges stay at the Costa Verde Hotel in Mismaloya, where the owner's beach boys keep an iguana tethered by a rope. Between his weaknesses for the flesh and alcohol and the problems he's facing with Charlotte and her chaperone, Shannon finds himself at the end of his rope, just like the iguana.

In Spanish, it's the copa de oro. The English translation is cup of gold or gold cup.

There's probably a jillion recipes for rum cocos. Here's one. Combine in a shaker three parts of white rum, two parts of fresh coconut milk, one part of cane syrup, the juice from one lemon, and 10 ice cubes. Shake vigorously. Ice the rims of the glasses with a little of the lemon juice or coconut milk and dip the rims in sugar. Put a drop of strawberry juice at the bottom of the glasses and gently pour the punch into them.

Montezuma II (1466-1520) was the reigning ruler (1502-1520) of the Aztecs when they were conquered by the Spanish. Montezuma's Revenge has come to refer to a type of diarrhea that travelers may get when they ingest local water. Causative agents vary and may include E. coli bacteria, Shigella, and protozoan parasites, among others.

The witch of Endor is a character from the Old Testament of the bible, Samuel 28:3-25. She possessed a talisman through which she called up the ghost of the recently-deceased prophet Samuel, at the demand of King Saul of Israel.

Nonno (Cyril Delevanti) finishes his poem and has Hannah write it down, then he quietly dies. The next morning, as Hannah is packing to leave the hotel, Maxine makes her and Shannon an offer. Maxine intends to move to El Paso, so she offers to give the hotel to Hannah and Shannon in exchange for 50% of the profits. Hannah declines the offer and leaves. Shannon accepts Maxine's offer and stays on with her. Maxine suggests that she and Shannon go down to the beach. Shannon says he can make it downhill, but he's not sure about making it back up. Maxine says, "I'll get you back up, baby. I'll always get you back up."

(This version is the movie version of the poem.)

How calmly does the olive branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer With no betrayal of despair

Some time while night obscures the tree The zenith of its life will be Gone past forever And from thence A second history will commence

A chronicle no longer gold A bargaining with mist and mold And finally the broken stem The plummeting to earth; and then

An intercourse not well designed For beings of a golden kind Whose native green must arch above The earth's obscene, corrupting love

And still, the ripe fruit and the branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer With no betrayal of despair

Oh courage! Could you not as well Select a second place to dwell Not only in that golden tree But in the frightened heart of me?