A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) | Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando

A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) | Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando | Torrid Summer at New Orleans.

DVDs:

A Streetcar Named ...

	A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando Warner Home Video, 1997 average customer review:based on 120 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Even with the "morality" changes, a classic adaptation

A film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' famous play Streetcar Named Desire inevitably ran into trouble with the Hollywood censors. After all, the play frankly portrayed many taboo subjects, such as mental illness, nymphomania, homosexuality, rape, and domestic violence. The director Elia Kazan (who directed the Broadway production) was forced to cut several scenes, and "tone down" other scenes. This dvd restores some 5 minutes missing from the original cinematic release, although we have is still considerably tamer than the original Williams play. The famous line that Stanley snarls to Blanche before raping her ("We've had this date from the beginning") is still missing, sadly. The tacked-on "moral" ending (which i won't give away) is also still here.
However, the strength of the 4 lead performances as well as Kazan's stylized-yet-realistic direction packs an incredible wallop, Legion of Decency be damned. Marlon Brando (Stanley), Kim Hunter (Stella), and Karl Malden (Mitch) reprised their Broadway performances. Hunter and Malden won Oscars, but of course it's Brando's performance that made the most impact. Sweaty, leering, sexy, violent, Brando's Stanley Kowalski is absolutely magnetizing. Everyone loves the big moments, like him screaming "STELLLLAAAAAA!!!" in front of the apartment complex, but Brando can also be quietly chilling. Watch the cold smirk he gives Blanche as Stella hugs him.
Jessica Tandy was the Broadway Blanche du Bois, but Vivien Leigh made the film. Leigh won an Oscar for her portrayal fo the troubled Blanche, and for once the Academy got it right. The British actress, who in real life suffered from bipolar disorder, makes Blanche a sympathetic person, despite her horrid affectations and manipulative personality. Leigh's Southern accent is still imperfect (although better than it was in Gone With the Wind) but I can't watch any other Blanche duBois without remembering Leigh;s shy smile as she sits with Mitch on the stairways, or the matter-of-fact way she puts on an ugly pair of glasses to read some papers. For those accustomed to seeing today's Botoxed actresses (thinking, uh, Nicole Kidman) that the closeups of Leigh's beautiful but wrinkled face seem poignantly realistic. If Brando represents the harsh brutality of Williams' play (the drunkeness, lust, and violence) than Leigh's performance emphasizes it's poetic, almost surreal side. The movie omits any mention of Blanche's husband's homosexuality, but the sad, nostalgic way Leigh mentions her marriage is still riveting -- she's opaque and matter-of-fact at the same time.
Kim Hunter as Blanche's sister Stella is a disturbing character -- so sexually attached to her husband that she'll betray her sister and tolerate violence and drunkenness. Hunter makes Stella wholesome, charmingly plainspoken, the perfectly nice lady you'd see on a bus. Karl Malden as Mitch is not nearly as preachy and overwrought as his performance as the Father in On the Waterfront.
Elia Kazan ended up a much-loathed man because of his decision to "name names" for the HUAC. But he was a skilled filmmaker. He wisely does not really "open up" the play except for a few scenes. The hub of the action still takes place in Stanley and Stella's squalid, cramped apartment in New Orleans. This gives the film a claustrophobic effect. Kazan likes to use harsh lighting during close-ups. We see Stanley's sweat and grease, Blanche's wrinkles. Since Kazan had the censors to worry about, he found clever ways to suggest the unspeakable. For instance we don't see Blanche's rape, but instead we see a mirror image of Blanche struggling with Stanley. The image of the shattered wine bottle and the frail Blanche might be more uncomfortable than a brutal more explicit scene.
Williams' play has held up remarkably well despite its age. The faded Southern belle may seem less recognizable to viewers today, but the sensitive issues that Williams tackled so fearlessly are still very relevant. This film deserves its classic status.

for more information click here

Torrid Summer at New Orleans.

Director Elia Kazan has been criticized for his appearance on the Un-American Activities Committee that lead many people related to cinematography to be ostracized.
This been said, regardless of his political stand, he had directed many great Oscar winner films as: "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), "Viva Zapata!" (1952), "East of Eden" (1955), "Splendor on the Grass" (1961) and the present "Streetcar Named Desire" (1951).
He has directed two "Movie Icons" as Marlon Brando (more than once) and James Dean obtaining the best from them. All his films explored the inner depth of human soul with unflinching stare.

"Streetcar Named Desire" is not an easy play to film; Tennessee Williams touches many critical issues here, some are shown in the movie and some didn't cross the censor's barrier.
Nevertheless what is left is more than enough to shake the viewer.
This is the plot: a middle aged woman from a small Southern town arrives to New Orleans in search of her sister, which has married "a stranger from the big City".
She has an unstable personality and looks for some one to give refuge and sense to her life.
Different conflicts arises: she clashes with her brother-in-law on cultural and economic issues; she stresses her relation with her caring sister; finally try to engage into matrimony a friend of her in-law. All this happen while she is psychically deteriorating.

Actor's performances are really top-notch. Vivien Leigh is Blanche DuBois, the troubled fleeing sister and won the Oscar with her performance.
Marlon Brando is... just Marlon Brando... giving the first steps of his successful career: He fleshes the pedestrian Stanley Kowalski, which resent and despises her sister-in-law, with a feral untamed force.
Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski gives the best performance of her extended lifework, earning the Oscar to Best Actress in Supporting Role.
Last but not least Karl Malden also earned his Best Actor in Supporting Role Oscar with a sober but convincing characterization of Harold Mitchell, Stanley's friend.

Classic film for adult audiences.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

for more information click here

One of America's Great Films!

All the critics agree about one thing: there had never been a performance before in American movies like Marlon Brando gave in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. I have seen this movie many times and never tire of it. Although Brando would make other fine movies, he would never make one better. Vivien Leigh is also amazing as the fragile Blanche who is sinking into madness. Even with the stagey set, which looks like a set, the characters explode on the screen.

It seems to me that you do not compare Brando's performance and this movie to other films but rather to other great American artistic works: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", Toni Morrison's BELOVED, ANGELS IN AMERICA, for example. A truly great movie.

for more information click here

Why does not Hollywood make mature films like this one?

Superb and terrific film about the desperation , the disaffection and bitter loneliness of a disturbed woman with deep inner demons who wished to be loved for a man who never came to her life .
Tennesse Williams masterpiece was supported for a very fine cast where everybody were abosultely outstanding . Kim Hunter as the wife , Vivien Leigh as the disturbed woman and Marlon Brando as the macho man in a lonely home with the hopeless and disillusion crossing the emotional borders of their miserable souls . Every one of them hiddes something and nobody is really sure about nothing ; the future is just a sum of equal days where the time does not seem change anything .
The bitter metaphor is more than obvious . Brave and incisive film filmed with a resource economy but a powerful message to state . One of the superb masterpieces of the american cinema in that glorious and creative decade .
Stella ! is the last scream .

for more information click here

EXCELLENT!!!!

THIS IS A GREAT FILM. MARLON BRANDO AND VIVEN LEIGH HAS SONES SOME SUPERB ACTING IN THIS FILM AND I THINK IT WAS WONDERFUL. THIS MOVIE IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE BOOK. WOW, MARLON WAS REALLY A CREEP IN THIS MOVIE. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY STELLA NEVER LEFT HER HUSBAND HE WAS A TERRIBLE PERSON. I ALSO CAN'T BELIEVE HOW HE HAD GAVE BLANCHE BUS TICKETS TO GO HOME FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT THAT WAS COLD BLOODED. BUT OVERALL THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE THESE PEOPLE PLAYED THESE ROLES WITH ALL OF THEIR HEARTS AND SOULS.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

products you might be interested in