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A Streetcar Named Desire
1951 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Elia Kazan
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Script: Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul
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Photo: Harry Stradling Sr.
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Music: Alex North
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Cast: Vivien Leigh (Blanche DuBois),
Marlon Brando (Stanley Kowalski),
Kim Hunter (Stella Kowalski),
Karl Malden (Harold Mitchell),
Rudy Bond (Steve),
Nick Dennis (Pablo Gonzales),
Peg Hillias (Eunice),
Wright King (Collector),
Richard Garrick (Doctor),
Ann Dere (Matron),
Edna Thomas (Mexican Woman)
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Country: USA
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Language: English
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Runtime: 125 min; B&W
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Summary
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...
Review
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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