It says much for the quality of the performances here that, from a cast that includes Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr, it was the little-known Grayson Hall who was nominated for an Oscar. As you would expect of a Tennessee Williams play, every performer has something to sink their teeth into. Yet Burton's defrocked cleric, Gardner's hotelier and Kerr's artist owe more to polished technique than flesh and blood. This may have something to do with director John Huston viewing this steamy story from his own laconic perspective. It's intriguing, but not infallible.

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.