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

A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) | Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando | Blanche favors the light.

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A Streetcar Named ...

	A Streetcar Named Desire (Original Director's Version) Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando Warner Home Video, 1997 average customer review:based on 117 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Looking for a benchmark in movie acting? Breakthrough performances don't come much more electrifying than Marlon Brando's animalistic turn as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Sweaty, brutish, mumbling, yet with the balanced grace of a prizefighter, Brando storms through the role--a role he had originated in the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's celebrated play. Stanley and his wife, Stella (as in Brando's oft-mimicked line, "Hey, Stellaaaaaa!"), are the earthy couple in New Orleans's French Quarter whose lives are upended by the arrival of Stella's sister, Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh). Blanche, a disturbed, lyrical, faded Southern belle, is immediately drawn into a battle of wills with Stanley, beautifully captured in the differing styles of the two actors. This extraordinarily fine adaptation won acting Oscars for Leigh, Kim Hunter (as Stella), and Karl Malden (as Blanche's clueless suitor), but not for Brando. Although it had already been considerably cleaned up from the daringly adult stage play, director Elia Kazan was forced to trim a few of the franker scenes he had shot. In 1993, Streetcar was rereleased in a "director's cut" that restored these moments, deepening a film that had already secured its place as an essential American work. --Robert Horton

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Vivien Leigh's performance among the 20th century's very best.

There is really not much one can add by way of commenting on the magnificence of Miss Leigh's performance here. Perhaps Mr. Williams said it best when he told her that she brought aspects of Blanche's character to the surface, that he, himself never imagined.

That is not in any way to minimize the interpretations of Jessica Tandy, (who originated the role on Broadway) or, of Judith Evelyn, (and Miss Evelyn must have been superb as, in a sense, she too, was born to play Blanche.)

And despite the superb musical score, art direction, and performances of the rest of the cast, this is Miss Leigh's picture.

Blanche's complexity defies easy analysis. Does she represent the collapse of the Old South? (yes to a degree) but, more particularly, she represents a type of lady, (which Mr. Williams knew well and whom the feminists would prefer no longer existed--but in fact does--and not just south of the Mason Dixon line) who requires the protection and security of the plantation culture from which she sprang.

One can easily imagine her on the shaded portico of Belle Rive, in gauzy chiffons, and protected by a gallant (though tolerant) husband, while she spends her days enrapt in the dream world which so enthralls her.

Indeed, one may see her as the "flip-side" of Scarlett O'Hara--this time the Southern Belle who didn't triumph--how fascinating that the same actress played both roles.

Perhaps Blanche was not destined to triumph but she is far from being a fool. Notice how Williams cannily has her refer to Hawthorne and Poe, not to mention her having been to college. Then, too, a seemingly minor, but very telling detail is her wearing of reading glasses.

Yes, she represents the world of the intellect and the world of culture. Who else, for pity's sake, in that crumbling tenement would have any idea what she means in her reference to "Della Robbia blue..."?

Certainly not Stella, about whom Thornton Wilder rightly carped, does not seem in any way to be from the same lineage as Blanche, her temperement not at all in keeping with the daughter of an aristocratic house, (not even a renegade daughter who realizes she is slumming, and knows why she crossed over the bridge).

Indeed, excellent actress though she is, Kim Hunter is far too proletariat to believe as ever having been a part of Belle Rive, and seems quite at home with Stanley.

However, we musn't make too much of this, since she was in the original, and Mr. Williams in using Miss Hunter, seems to be saying something profound about the differences between her and Blanche, (note the facial expressions Blanche makes whenever Stella speaks admiringly of Stanley--particularly at the bowling alley--it's clear that Stella's temperament baffles her.)

Then there is their respective choice of mates (which speaks volumes), for Blanche, a sensitive poet, for Stella, the cretinous Stanley. It's too bad that we don't even get to see a photograph of Blanche's deceased husband, Allan, which might have served as an interesting visual contrast.

All of which suggests, these two sisters really don't seem to understand each other very well, and their mutual attempts to come to terms with what they do share, constitutes some of the film's most touching passages.

And Blanche for all of her imagined, and/or real superiority is a woman with a stained past--for she has fallen too, though as Miss Leigh herself averred, these lapses with soldiers and 17 year olds had little to do with the corporeal, and everything to do with the search for security and protection. For Blanche, and when seen through the unreal pink light of a Chinese lantern, even a callow teenage boy can become her knight in shining armor.

For his part, Mr. Brando is very effective, though his character is painted with a very broad brush, and it is a testament to his talent, that his Stanley avoids caricature, (though at times he comes uncomfortably close, seeming to anticipate Archie Bunker). Nonetheless, some of his lines are both priceless and hilarious, "...I met a dame once who said 'I am the glamorous type' I said, 'So what!'..."

A splendid though shattering film. Kudos to all involved.

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Blanche favors the light.

A Streetcar Named Desire is a rare film, no don't make movies like this anymore. It's based on a Tennessee Williams play of the same name, I have always enjoyed the screen adapations to his intense plays. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Vivien Leigh, and Karl Malden are smoldering together. All four actors are extremely talented and Leigh's performance as aging southern belle, Blanche Du Bois is so heartbreaking and real. I highly recommend this timeless black & white classic!

Lousy Commentary

Most of the commentary had nothing to do with the scenes in the movie. It was basically anecdotes from the play that had already been told on the bonus CD that accompanies the package. I felt that Brando was the only one of the 4 cast members that deserved the Oscar yet he is the only one that didn't receive one. Ironically, although we always hear about Brando mumbling, it was Vivian Leigh who was mumbling in which you couldn't understanding everything she said. The movie is somewhat dated but worth a watch.

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A classic worty of the title.

Elia Kazan's 1951 classic captures the liquor drenched ambience of post-war New Orleans and inserts the beauty of Williams's characters as they live out their lives of "quiet desperation." Vivien Leigh's Academy Award winning performance as Blanch Dubois strained the limits of her emotional stability; according to her husband Laurence Olivier. Her commitment is evident in this complex portrayal of a southern belle who looses the battle for sanity. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden all turn in deeply personal performances making this film ahead of its time. Their work in Streetcar is a rare window into the development of American film acting at a time when this unique, highly naturalistic style, popularized by the Actors Studio, revolutionized cinema.

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