A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

A Streetcar Named Desire is an American film first released in 1951, directed by Elia Kazan.  The film stars Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden and Rudy Bond.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


Having lost her job and her grand Mississippi home, Blanche DuBois heads to New Orleans to visit her sister, Stella.  Blanche can hardly believe the level to which Stella has fallen.  She lives in a cramped apartment in a seedy district of the town, married to a labourer named Stanley, who looks and behaves as if he has just walked out of the Stone Age.  It isn’t long before Blanche’s ladylike airs and viperous criticisms make her an unwelcome guest, and Stanley becomes convinced that she is hiding something about her past...

Tennessee Williams’s adaptation of his 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play courted controversy but became a landmark film that was to herald a significant change in the portrayal of sex in American cinema.  In spite of several alterations to Williams’s original play and a few last-minute cuts to comply with the Hollywood Production Code, the film initially drew widespread criticism, if not outright condemnation, for its erotic undertones and overt sexual references.  Yet the film was a great success and was nominated for no less than twelve Academy Awards, although it only won four (in the best actress, best set design and best supporting actor/actress categories).

The film was directed by independent filmmaker Elia Kazan, who had previously directed the first Broadway production of the play.  The cast was made up mainly of actors who had appeared in this stage production, including, most notably, Marlon Brando – this was only his second film role, following Fred Zinnemann’s The Men (1950).  The main change to the original Broadway cast list was Vivien Leigh, as Blanche - reprising the role she had previously played in the first British production of the play (in London, 1949), directed by her then-husband Laurence Olivier.

What is so striking about this film, even today, is its intensely sensual and earthy realism – and this is in spite of Williams’s highly stylised prose and the obviously theatrical set design.   The claustrophobic sets (which ultimately resemble a cell in an asylum) and the almost film noir style of photography create a stifling sense of oppression which both reflects and accentuates the mounting sexual tension in the Kowalski household and Blanche’s descent into mental derangement. Even the music is deeply evocative, suggesting the fetid, sultry atmosphere of a cheap Parisian brothel.

What elevates this film to the status of a classic is the exceptional contribution from its two lead actors.  Marlon Brando takes film acting into a whole new league (making good use of his Method Acting training), and brings a raw animalistic nastiness to his portrayal of Stanley (Blanche’s "a little on the primitive side" description of the character being the most understated line in the play, if not film history).  Brando’s brazen, line-fluffing, seemingly improvised performance does jar with the polished delivery of his co-stars, but the film is certainly well served by his daringly uninhibited representation of bestial machismo, something that helped make him the most iconic actor ever.

By contrast, Vivien Leigh’s portrayal is composed and assured, the complete antithesis of Brando’s.   This perfectly suits Blanche’s dangerously repressed nature, hinting at some very sinister character traits, such as a penchant for deceit and cruel manipulation.  In one of her last great performances (before mental and physical illness took their toll), Leigh suffuses the film with subdued femme fatale menace and pathos in equal measure, richly meriting the Best Actress Oscar she was awarded for her chilling portrayal of a woman tragically going off the rails.

Possibly the best film adaptation of a stage play, A Streetcar Named Desire surely rates as one of the highpoints of 1950s Hollywood. It is a hauntingly poetic film – a simmering cauldron of dark primeval impulses, set alight by some remarkable acting performances that bring out the best in Tennessee Williams’s timeless dramatic masterpiece.

© James Travers 2008

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