A Streetcar Named Desire

Released: September 19, 1951

Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre: romance

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 8.0 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 231.20 Worldwide: --

Directing: Elia Kazan

Screenwriting: Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

Review:

This is a “powerful, frank dramatic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, based upon Oscar Saul’s adaptation.” ^FS “The performances…remain among the most electric in American film.” ^TV

This is the story of Blanche DeBois (Leigh), “a neurotic, fragile, aging Southern belle,” ^A07 who visits her sister (Hunter) “in a down-and-out New Orleans project in the French Quarter.” ^FS Hunter is married to Stanley Kowalski, a “blue-collared brute.” ^A07 Marlon Brando recreates the role of Stanley, “the role that made him a star on Broadway.” ^A07

“Mitch (Malden), one of Stanley’s buddies takes an interest in Blanche until Stanley strips and ultimately reveals the secrets of her embarrassing, lurid past. After being ‘raped’ by Stanley in a heavily-censored and edited sequence, the vestiges of her shattered self are led away to a mental institution.” ^FS

“The brutish Stanley Kowalski reminds us how Marlon Brando became Marlon Brando. And Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois is a heartbreak, and not just because she evokes an aging Scarlett O’Hara: Of all the screen actresses who played one of Williams’s doomed heroines, Leigh best personified the fate that befalls fragile souls in a world of Stanleys. Censors forced Williams to alter the play’s ending, but Streetcar is still a steamy hothouse of a movie.” ^TV

Sources:

^A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition”
^FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films”
^TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video”

Awards/Honors/Lists:

Eras:

Awards:

Oscars:

Wins: 4: Best Actress (Leigh), Best Supporting Actor (Malden), Best Supporting Actress (Hunter), Best Art/Set Direction

Nominations: 12: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Recording, Best Musical Score