The star of the greatest show in Acupulco, is Richard Burton as "Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon", a "defrocked" minister who really strips his soul bare by the end of the movie; I think it's a brave part for any actor. And a nice, juicy, hammy part, just perfect for the Welshie show-off. Even if he did prompt me to wish that while they were about it, besides lacing him up in the hammock they might have stuck a gag (or an apple?) in his mouth on occasion.
Also starring in rings two and three:
Deborah Kerr, as "Hannah Jelkes", a nervous, achingly confined creature who seems to be doing some sort of inscrutable penance by condemning herself to a rather precarious existence as nursemaid and muse to Cyril Delvanti's doddering old "Nonno", a poet in forever search of the next stanza. I don't feel like I understood Hannah any better by the end of the movie than I did at its start, but her character did utter the one line that has probably resonated as strongly with me as any other in films: "Nothing human ever disgusts me, Mr Shannon." I think perhaps that is just as much the voice of the film's director speaking, as it is of the supremely tolerant Hannah.
Up on the high wire there is Sue Lyons as "Charlotte Goodall" (not all that good), reprising her role as resident nymphette, making putty out of Shannon and exciting yet another inappropriate obsession, this time from her strictly from hunger schoolmistress, "Miss Judith Fellows" (Grayson Hall).
And as Ringmistress---and Shannon's mistress---my girl Ava Gardner as "Maxine Faulk" (what a loaded name). I think it may be Ava's best work as an actress, along with her "Honey Bear Kelly". She's Honey Bear as Honey Chile, after many years and one too many Tequila-drenched sunsets with the local chiquitos. She wants Shannon and they probably are poison to one another but you want her to have what she wants to have (though she pretends not to want him at all, thank you very much she's just fine with her Mexican boys), that's how warm and very real Ava is here. You have to see some of the behind-the-scenes footage that was filmed during this shoot to appreciate how hard she did work on her character, I vividly recall seeing her doing a scene, either after a take or rehearsal, where she kept looking up expectantly at John Huston and like a kid, asking if she did it right. I wish she could have had more directors like him (and Ford), who really know what she had inside her. Some of this footage was put together for a featurette TCM airs quite often.
Finally, lest we forget the best actor in the bunch, making a rare screen appearance straight from the Amazon:
While this movie played on TCM it inspired me to write a thread about it; maybe you have some comments and opinons to share as well (insights and plot clarifications not wanted but begged for). If so, hop aboard the bus, but please don't sit too close to Charlotte or Miss Fellows will rap you across the knuckles.
And frankly, I'm not even sure WHY. There is just something about him as an actor that I like.
I fell for him when I saw him in an interview, the man had a fascinating mind, if a bit sour at times. 
