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A Streetcar Named Desire Overview:

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was a Drama - Romance Film directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Charles K. Feldman.

The film was based on the play of the same name written by Tennessee Williams performed at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, NY from Dec 3, 1947 - Dec 17, 1949.

SYNOPSIS

Brando's performance as a sexually electrifying brute established him as the premier actor of his day, and gave us the timeless image of him holding his head in bewildered rage as he bellows, "Stella!" Director Kazan brought most of his Broadway cast to Hollywood for the screen version of Tennessee Williams's stage triumph (the only exception being Jessica Tandy, the stage Blanche). Brando had become a sensation in the stage role of Stanley, and he shows why in the film adaptation as he exposes pure, animal energy to the audience. When unstable Blanche DuBois (Leigh) moves in with her pregnant sister Stella (Hunter) and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (Brando), Stanley and Blanche circle each other like wary animals. The sexual tension and mistrust build to a violent crescendo after Brando learns Leigh has squandered their family’s estate. The film was rereleased in 1993, with an additional four minutes of footage that did not make it past censors in 1951.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

A Streetcar Named Desire was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1999.

Academy Awards 1951 --- Ceremony Number 24 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorMarlon BrandoNominated
Best Supporting ActorKarl MaldenWon
Best ActressVivien LeighWon
Best Supporting ActressKim HunterWon
Best Art DirectionArt Direction: Richard Day; Set Decoration: George James HopkinsWon
Best CinematographyHarry StradlingNominated
Best Costume DesignLucinda BallardNominated
Best DirectorElia KazanNominated
Best PictureCharles K. Feldman, ProducerNominated
Best WritingTennessee WilliamsNominated
See More Oscar Winners

A Streetcar Named Desire BlogHub Articles:

Review: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 14, 2017 From 4 Star Films

Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. They’re both so iconic not simply in the lore of cinema history but literature and American culture in general. It’s difficult to know exactly what to do with them. Stanley Kowalski the archetypical chauvinistic beast. Driven by anger, prone to abuse... Read full article

Review: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 14, 2017 From 4 Star Films

Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. They’re both so iconic not simply in the lore of cinema history but literature and American culture in general. It’s difficult to know exactly what to do with them. Stanley Kowalksi the archetypical chauvinistic beast. Driven by anger, prone to abus... Read full article

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

on Aug 11, 2014 From Journeys in Classic Film

Elia Kazan’s adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire is an important film in my life.  I first saw it in community college when we wrote compared and contrasted the play and the film (there’s a lot of watering down in the movie).  I wrote so much on Blanche DuBoise that by the end I wa... Read full article

A Streetcar Named Desire (1)

By The Cinemaniac on Mar 31, 2013 From Cinemaniac Reviews

Review No. 446 Directed by: Elia Kazan Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul Based on: “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams Blanche DuBois: Vivien Leigh Stanley Kowalski: Marlon Brando Stella Kowalski: Kim Hunter Harold “Mitch” Mitchell: Karl Malden Al... Read full article

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Sep 10, 2012 From 4 Star Films

The film adaption of the Tennessee Williams’ play, A Street Car Named Desire was directed by Elia Kazan and stars Marlon Brando as the rough Polish husband of Stella Kowalski. Vivien Leigh plays the role of Stella’s airy and superficial sister Blanche. The film opens in the French Quarte... Read full article

See More A Streetcar Named Desire Articles

A Streetcar Named Desire Quotes:

Stanley Kowalski: Some canary bird...
Stanley Kowalski: Now that's how I'm gonna clear the table. Don't you ever talk that way to me. 'Pig,' 'Pollack,' 'disgusting,' 'vulgar,' 'greasy.' Those kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's tongue just too much around here. What do you think you are? A pair of queens? Now just remember what Huey Long said - that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it.
Blanche DuBois: Why, those were a tribute from an admirer of mine.
Stanley Kowalski: He must have had a lot of admiration.
Blanche DuBois: Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration. But look at me now! Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be attractive?
Stanley Kowalski: Your looks are okay.
Blanche DuBois: I was fishing for a compliment Stanley.
Stanley Kowalski: I don't go in for that stuff.
Blanche DuBois: What stuff?
Stanley Kowalski: Compliments to women about their looks. I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they've got. I once went out with a dame who told me, " I'm the glamorous type," she says, "I am the glamorous type!" I say, "So What?"
Blanche DuBois: And what did she say then?
Stanley Kowalski: She didn't say nothing. That shut her up like a clam.
Blanche DuBois: Did it end the romance?
Stanley Kowalski: It ended the conversation that was all. You know that some men are taken in by all this Hollywood glamour and some just aren't.
Blanche DuBois: I'm sure you belong in the second category.
Stanley Kowalski: That's right.
Blanche DuBois: I cannot imagine any witch of a woman casting a spell over you.
Stanley Kowalski: That's right.
Blanche DuBois: You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to...
Stanley Kowalski: To lay her cards out on the table.
Stanley Kowalski: Well I never did care for wishy-washy people. That was why when you walked in last night, I said to myself, "my sister has married a man". Of course that was all I could hope to...
Stanley Kowalski: [He yells at her] How about cutting the rebop!
Stella: [Entering the room] Stanley! Stanley
Stanley Kowalski: [sarcastically: picking up Blanche's tiara] Well what is that? A crown for an empress?
Stella: A rhinestone tiara she wore to a costume ball!
Stanley Kowalski: [serious] What is rhinestone?
Stella: Next door to glass.
Blanche DuBois: But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.
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A Streetcar Named Desire Facts
Jessica Tandy was originally slated to play Blanche, after creating the role on Broadway. The role was given to Vivien Leigh (after Olivia de Havilland refused it) because she had more box-office appeal.
Della Robbia blue is a colour derived from the colours used in the Italian Majolica bas reliefs of Luca Della Robbia (1400-1482) whose famous gates of the Sacristy of the Catherdral were said by Michaelangelo to be worthy of being the Gates of Heaven.
The script follows the Tennessee Williams play closely with several small changes. However, there are three notably large alterations of the original plot. The first is the exclusion of Blanche's late young husband's homosexuality, which is referred to explicitly in the play, but only obliquely referred to in the movie. In the play, Blanche caught him in bed with another man and she screamed at him, calling him weak, and he killed himself; she blames herself for not understanding his feelings and for his resulting suicide. In the movie, the fact that her husband committed suicide is masked with a line from Blanche that says that "she killed him herself" by leading him to suicide. The second large difference is the rape scene. It is not explicitly shown/described in the play, but it is more obviously alluded to than in the movie. Two of Stanley's key lines in the scene were omitted from the theatrical release: "Tiger, tiger, drop that bottle top," which has since been added back to the movie, and "We've had this date with each other since the beginning!", after which Stanley grabs Blanche and hauls her off to the bed. Both of these changes were made for censorship reasons, but they've changed the story in some basic ways and led to some confusion, especially about the rape scene, which is key to understanding Stanley's final breaking of Bla
The poetry quote, " ... and if God choose, I shall love thee better after death", is from "Sonnets from the Portuguese, No. 43" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).
The Production Code censors demanded 68 script changes from the Broadway staging, while the interference of the Catholic Legion of Decency led to even further cuts, most of them having to do with references to homosexuality and rape. In his memoirs, Tennessee Williams wrote that he liked the film but felt it was "slightly marred by the Hollywood ending".
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