| A Streetcar Named Desire | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster byBill Gold | |
| Directed by | Elia Kazan |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on | A Streetcar Named Desire 1947 play by Tennessee Williams |
| Produced by | Charles K. Feldman |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
| Edited by | David Weisbart |
| Music by | Alex North |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 125 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.8 million[3] |
| Box office | $8 million(North America)[3] |
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 AmericanSouthern Gothicdrama film adapted fromTennessee Williams'sPulitzer Prize-winningplay of the same name. Directed byElia Kazan, it starsVivien Leigh,Marlon Brando,Kim Hunter, andKarl Malden. The film tells the story of aMississippiSouthern belle,Blanche DuBois (Leigh), who, after encountering a series of personal losses, seeks refuge with her sister (Hunter) and brother-in-law (Brando) in a dilapidatedNew Orleans apartment building. The original Broadway production and cast was converted to film, albeit with several changes and sanitizations related to censorship.
Tennessee Williams collaborated withOscar Saul andElia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black-and-white film. Brando, Hunter, and Malden all reprised their original Broadway roles. AlthoughJessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her star power.[4] The film brought Brando, previously virtually unknown, to prominence as a major Hollywood film star, and earned him the first of four consecutiveAcademy Award nominations for Best Actor; Leigh won her secondAcademy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Blanche. It received Oscar nominations in ten other categories (includingBest Picture,Best Director, andBest Adapted Screenplay), and wonBest Supporting Actor (Malden),Best Supporting Actress (Hunter), andBest Art Direction (Richard Day,George James Hopkins), making it the first film to win inthree of the acting categories.
The film earned an estimated $4,250,000 at the US and Canadian box office in 1951, making it the fifth biggest hit of the year.[5] In 1999,A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Blanche DuBois, a middle-aged high school English teacher from Auriol, Mississippi, arrives inNew Orleans. She takes a streetcar designated "Desire"[6] to theFrench Quarter, where her sisterStella and Stella's husbandStanley Kowalski live in a small, dilapidatedtenement apartment. Blanche claims to be on leave from her job due to anxiety. Blanche's demure manner is a stark contrast to Stanley's crude behavior, making them mutually wary and antagonistic. Stella welcomes having her sister as a guest, but Stanley patronizes and criticizes her.
Blanche reveals that the DuBois family estate, Belle Reve, was lost to creditors. She was widowed at a young age after her husband's suicide. When Stanley suspects Blanche may be hiding an inheritance, she shows him proof of the foreclosure. Looking for further proof, he knocks some of Blanche's private papers to the floor. Weeping, she gathers them, saying they are poems from her dead husband; Stanley explains he was only looking out for his family, and then announces that Stella is pregnant.
Blanche meets Stanley's friend Mitch, whose courteous manner and sensitivity is in sharp contrast to Stanley and his other friends, and the two fall in love. During a poker night with his friends, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella; Blanche and Stella flee upstairs to neighbor Eunice Hubbell's apartment. After his anger subsides, Stanley remorsefully bellows for Stella from the courtyard below. Stella is drawn downstairs by her attraction to Stanley, and they go to bed together. The next morning, Blanche urges Stella to leave Stanley, calling him a sub-human animal.
As weeks pass into months, tension mounts between Blanche and Stanley. Blanche is hopeful about Mitch, but anxiety and alcoholism have her teetering on mental collapse while anticipating a marriage proposal. Meanwhile, Stanley discovers that Blanche had been fired forsleeping with an underage student. He passes this news on to Mitch. Stella angrily blames Stanley for this catastrophic revelation, but their fight is interrupted when she goes into labor.
Later, Mitch arrives and confronts Blanche about Stanley's claims. She pleads for forgiveness, but Mitch, hurt and humiliated, ends their relationship. Later that night, while Stella's labor continues, Stanley returns from the hospital to sleep. Dressed in a tattered gown, Blanche pretends she is departing on a cruise with an old admirer. Stanley admonishes her for lying about her past and mistreating him; the two fight and it is implied that he rapes her.
Weeks later, during another poker game at the apartment, doctors arrive to take the nearlycatatonic Blanche to a mental hospital. Blanche has told Stella what happened, but Stella cannot bring herself to believe it. On seeing the doctor and nurse, Blanche resists at first, but the doctor talks to her gently and she goes with them willingly, saying that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers". As Blanche is led away, Mitch tries to attack Stanley but is pulled away by the other poker players. Realizing that Blanche had told her the truth, Stella takes her baby upstairs to the Hubbells' apartment, determined to leave Stanley.
A Streetcar Named Desire was adapted directly from the successful 1947 Broadway production of the play, which won theNew York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play and thePulitzer Prize for Drama. Many of the cast and crew were ported over from the stage production, including directorElia Kazan and actorsMarlon Brando,Kim Hunter,Karl Malden,Rudy Bond,Nick Dennis,Peg Hillias, Ann Dere,Edna Thomas, andRichard Garrick. Kazan intended forJessica Tandy, who won aTony for her portrayal of Blanche, to also reprise her role on film, but producerCharles K. Feldman insisted on casting an actress with more box office appeal. The role was offered to bothBette Davis[7] andOlivia de Havilland, who both declined.Vivien Leigh, who had already played Blanche inStreetcar's London production (directed by then-husbandLaurence Olivier), was eventually cast. In Brando's autobiography, he praised Tandy but felt that Leigh "was Blanche."
Aside from the opening and closing scenes, which were shot on location inNew Orleans,A Streetcar Named Desire was filmed entirely on soundstages at theWarner Bros. Studios inBurbank, California. The Kowalski apartment was designed to gradually appear smaller over the course of the film, in order to reflect tension between the characters.
For the opening scene, #922 was chosen to be the streetcar that dropped off Blanche. As of 2022, this streetcar was still in service on theSt. Charles Streetcar Line.[8]
Marlon Brando is often displayed shirtless, in one of the first occurrences for a Hollywood movie.[9]
Several scenes were cut after filming was completed in order for the film to conform to theHays Code and avoid condemnation by theNational Legion of Decency. In 1993, after Warner Bros. rediscovered the censored footage during a routine inventory of archives,[10] several minutes were restored in an 'original director's version' video re-release.[11]
Thejazz-infused score byAlex North was written in short cues that reflected the psychological dynamics of the characters. It was one of the first jazz scores composed for a mainstream feature film, and earned North an Oscar nomination forBest Original Score.[12]
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In the months after its release in September 1951,A Streetcar Named Desire grossed $4.2 million in the United States and Canada, with 15 million tickets sold against a production budget of $1.8 million.[14] A reissue of the film by20th Century Fox in 1958 grossed an additional $700,000.[15]
Upon release, the film drew very high praise.The New York Times criticBosley Crowther stated that "inner torments are seldom projected with such sensitivity and clarity on the screen" and commending both Vivien Leigh's and Marlon Brando's performances. Film criticRoger Ebert has also expressed praise for the film, calling it a "great ensemble of the movies." The film has a 97% rating onRotten Tomatoes based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The consensus reads, "A feverish rendition of a heart-rending story,A Streetcar Named Desire gives Tennessee Williams's stage play explosive power on the screen thanks to Elia Kazan's searing direction and a sterling ensemble at the peak of their craft."[16]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 97 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[17]
In his 2020 autobiographyApropos of Nothing, directorWoody Allen praised the film:
The movieStreetcar is for me total artistic perfection... It's the most perfect confluence of script, performance, and direction I’ve ever seen. I agree withRichard Schickel, who calls the play perfect. The characters are so perfectly written, every nuance, every instinct, every line of dialogue is the best choice of all those available in the known universe. All the performances are sensational. Vivien Leigh is incomparable, more real and vivid than real people I know. And Marlon Brando was a living poem. He was an actor who came on the scene and changed the history of acting. The magic, the setting, New Orleans, the French Quarter, the rainy humid afternoons, the poker night. Artistic genius, no holds barred.
The Japanese filmmakerAkira Kurosawa cited this movie as one of his 100 favorite films.[18]
Filmink argued that the censor-driven changes did not fundamentally change the meaning of Williams' play, in contrast to other adaptations of his work.[19]
A Streetcar Named Desire won 4Academy Awards, setting an Oscar record when it became the first film to win inthree of the acting categories, a feat subsequently matched byNetwork in 1976 andEverything Everywhere All at Once in 2022.[20][21] It was also the first time since1936 (Anthony Adverse) that aWarner Bros. movie won four or more Oscars.
American Film Institute recognition
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