OMG!!! This is my favorite film of all time. Unless of course it's really late at night and TBS is doing a rerun of "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf". But that's a whole other post...
This film is so sordidly twisted it hurts. It's celluloid madness on a grand scale. It has my name written all over it. I love it!!! And amazingly, it doesn't have a god damned thing to do with the original Tennessee Williams short story it is allegedly "based" on. Not a fucking thing!!! Not a single character, plot line or even the location. Why John Huston bothered to pay Tennessee Williams for the rights still amazes me to this day...
It came out in 1964 and I was too young to go see it. In 1969 I managed to catch a rerun of it after the 11:30 news one Friday night. I sat there, power eating popcorn, slamming Fresca, my eyes wide open and my jaw dropping. This was cinematic excellence!!! I was sixteen. My little gay heart was afire at it's brilliance. The sexual tension in every frame was amazing. I giggled for two hours. It was like porn lite...
This film doesn't just have an amazing cast it has a mind boggling pallet of characters. And I do mean "characters". A defrocked priest, an aging, widowed and horny hotel owner that is shagging a couple of maraca shaking pinga boys named Paco and Pepe on a regular basis, a closeted and latent (WTF does that actually mean???) lesbian vocal coach at a private girls school (can you say girls gym coach???), a pot smoking Chinese cook, a fifteen year old slut hormoned out of her mind, a virgin from New England, a demented grandfather writing a poem and a couple of old ladies with intestinal distress. Oh, come on, what's not to love about this??? To me, this is a long lost home movie from my childhood...
I know every line in this film. Every word, actually. Ready for some trivia???
Eva Gardner later said that this was the most enjoyable role she ever did because John Huston let her be herself in the role of Maxine Faulk, the hotel owner. She was, afterall, a South Carolina farm girl by birth and a bit "earthy".
The pot smoking Chinese cook was actually John Huston's private chef. As a thank you for appearing in the movie and cooking for the main cast during filming he gave him the money to open his own restaurant in Vallarta. It's called "Archie's Wok" and is still open to this day and being run by his grand-daughter. She's gorgeous, the food is freaking wonderful and the restroom doors are the strangest things I've ever seen. They involve massively heavy doors, a large carved stone fish and a length of ski rope. Don't ask. It's Mexico...
The hotel was purposely built from the ground up with a small village around it to house the crew during filming. After filming was complete the village was torn down but the hotel was converted into a restaurant called "The Set" that featured wonderful food and bloody amazing views. A couple of years ago it was finally torn down because it was collapsing under it's own weight and age. I ate there twice. Loved it!!!
Every day after filming was complete the whole main cast would congregate at John Huston's house about a mile down the road and drink there brains out for the rest of the night. All except Deborah Kerr. Who did not drink, smoke or get rowdy. Oh, well... there's one in every crowd.
Elizabeth Taylor was NOT in this movie!!! Contrary to popular belief.
This movie was NOT, I repeat NOT filmed in Vallarta!!! It was filmed in Mismaloya, a smaller village about 8 miles south. The main cast stayed in one of two hotels in Vallarta at the time and traveled to the set each day by panga boats. Travel time was about an hour if you they lucky. It still takes that long today. Been there, done that.
Cyril Delevanti, the actor who played the demented grand father writing a poem was 75 at the time of filming and was so overcome by the humidity down there that in between takes would literally sit on bags of ice to recoup for the next shot. His role in the movie was eventually cut down to compensate for this.
Sue Lyon, the actress who played the underage, hormonally charged tart in the film actually was underage at the time of filming. This caused a bit of a problem with the censors who only reneged after heavy petitioning from John Huston who argued that she was never shot nude or shown performing a sex act on screen. Ah, yes, just leave it to the imagination... You may remember her from her screen debut two years earlier. The lead role in "Lolita". She was 15 when she filmed that...
Grayson Hall, who played the frustrated lesbian voice coach got an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her role in this. She is also remembered for a 5 year run on tv as MANY characters on the Gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows" in the late 60s. She died in 1985 at the age of 62 from lung cancer. About 3 to 4 packs a day from most accounts. Oh well, shit happens...
Oh hell, rent this movie, it's more twisted than string. It's too twisted for church. Hell, it's more twisted than me and that should give you a clue!!! Any movie with an iguana on a rope, a couple of hot Hispanic studs playing maraca's bare chested while swimming with Eva Gardner in the ocean and some under age nookie will do any one more good than they know what to do with. Trust me. Been there, done that... Would I lie to you???
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