Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

Who has not, at some point, seen some aspiring actor covering his face with his hands, his voice full of passion and obsessive need, crying "Stella! Stella!' to an upstairs window? You haven't? Well, I must have strange acquaintances, and let's just leave it at that.
Still this scene (and two others) are among the three most imitated scenes from movies that I can remember. So it begs the question..Was it Brando or Tennessee Williams that made the scene memorable? Or was it Kazan that made it happen, or some force greater than all of them? Well I can't answer that question. I have seen other versions of the play performed, and none has the visual, emotional and visceral impact of the original 1951 film version.


The play itself of course is one that most students of drama, will someday study in class. It earned a Pulitzer prize for Tennessee Williams. Why, I have often wondered, was it such a good play, so moving and dynamic, when the subject matter is itself so tawdry, and even mean? It is perhaps because it touches the essence being human. We recognize the central nature of our beings in this story, even if we would rather not.

And there are implications greater than the characters here, who are reduced to their primal elements by this dramatic presentation.

THE TIMES

Filmed in 1950, and released in 1951, this movie is one of several that Kazan would pioneer in his quest for authenticity, and realism in cinema. The trend would be hard to recognize at the time, though, since the play had been successful on Broadway, and was already immensely popular. At the time, Kazan was either naming names of Hollywood communists or about to. And perhaps this film and many others, is a good enough justification for what Hollywood would come to regard as his selling out. He STILL made the films to jar the senses, and point to the social problems, and injustices in society at the time. And he did it exceedingly well.

THE ORIGINAL PLAY OR THE FILM ADAPTATION?

Perhaps going back to the play itself will give us some clues or hints of greater meaning. The setting of the French quarter in New Orleans is unusual, but entirely appropriate to the author. There is no question that he could see the old South fading and proud, but also slightly soiled and dissembling in the character of Blanche Dubois. Because Blanche is not just a woman, she is most definitely a southern belle, a particular type of woman. Did Williams mourn the passing of the elegant manners, and southern aristocracy, and see it plundered by the Kowalskis of the north, who were clearly "not from here"? You may notice in the film that Blanche maintains that forced Southern drawl nearly throughout the movie. Her sister, who moved away from their childhood home ten years previously, no longer spoke in that way, although there is a southern twang. She represents a new Southern attitude, fertility and the hope of change for the better. In fact, to me, the movie was NOT about Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois. It was about Stella.

Did Tennessee Williams have a character like Brando, (clearly an outsider to the manners of the South) in mind from the start? The movie would have been watered down with anything less.
For Stanley Kowalski, you needed Brando-in all his annoying, abrasive, nasally-twanging-method-acting neurosis. John Garfield would not have done, although he was the original studio choice. The contrasts create the dynamic tensions, and make the story a magnificent dramatic event. In this version of the story, delivered with brutal impact, you also needed the raw passion, and physical beauty that Brando exuded in those days. He was not at all hard to look at then. He moved with natural grace, his physical movements as important as the words he spoke. There are few scenes more compelling than Stanley Kowalski, (Brando), kneeling in front of Stella, (Kim Hunter) not speaking, but begging for forgiveness with every fiber of his being.

Conspicuously missing from the film version, is the allusion to Blanche's first husband's homosexuality, or explicit references to her sordid affairs, although these are discussed, at different points in the film version. The play implies a greater fall into depravity by the unfortunate Ms. DuBois.


THEMES and Subplots-the Characters

Seething tensions and conflicts come from a battered woman, Stella, and the loneliness of her sister Blanche , and the needs of both to make a life to sustain them. Stella shows that there is more than one thing going on with a battered woman, although unlike most battered women, she seems to have a pretty good self image. Her evolution to a point where she is able to accept what happened with her sister and her husband is a key theme. If there is a lesson to us, it is perhaps in that. If a battered woman finds herself overwhelmed with passion for the brute she married, perhaps a look at Brando in his present state will be enough to convince her that a life with a Stanley Kowalski will leave her in the end with few rewards for her suffering.

Blanche is a complex character, in perpetual conflict until she finally unravels. Her behavior has been a classic looking for love in all the wrong places scenario, accompanied by guilt, and her increasing levels of denial, and repression. She takes on manners and an affected old south charm to cover her basic insecurity. And she drinks a bit. Her loneliness, though is the one remaining characteristic, creating an emptiness that no amount of pretending can hide. The romance with friend played by Karl Malden represents a last chance for Blanche. She wanted a relationship, and she wanted him to love her for what she pretended to be, not what she was. His character, another of God's loneliest creatures, is a young man, who is not particularly great looking, but is a nice guy. But he was taken in by Blanche, and even he is angry at her, although he never rapes her, rejecting her not for her past activities but for pretending, and not being straight with him.

Kowalski is a man on his way up, ambitious, proud, confident in his physicality, but able to feel unmanned by his lack of education and his poor social background. For him, the ultimate issue is power, and control. Yet, his character is tormented by obsessive need for his woman, and a need for her to love him. In the one scene that I remember time and again, it is Stella's face I see, coming down the stairs to Stanley. Her posture is proud, she is seductive, and regal as she descends the stairs with consummate dignity, and puts her arms around her man, first to comfort, then caress. She is confident of her ability to invoke passion and "the colored lights" Stanley so often mentions. Blanche coming into the lives of Stanley and Stella was seen as Stanley as a threat to his relationship, as well as perhaps his power to control by battering. You may notice, as time goes on, that Stella begins little by little to become more like Blanche. Even her Southern drawl and speech patterns change.



There is an undercurrent of sexual tension l between Blanche and Kowalski, that adds to the dynamics as the story builds. It is present from the first meeting. The close quarters make contact inevitable. But make no mistake about Kowalski's final scene with Blanche alone. It was not violence based on sex and uncontrollable sexual attraction, it was rape. It was about power, control and rage.



FILM ELEMENTS


Streetcar named Desire was scored by composer Alex North. It is a mixture of thematic elements and jazz, New Orleans style. It was perfect for this movie. The apartment is filmed as it could have appeared, emphasizing the closed tight space. It had a claustrophobic look that enhanced the tension, creating an arena for the conflict that would erupt into violence time and again. The characters sweat, as people would in steamy New Orleans. There was no romanticizing the beautiful elements of the interesting city of New Orleans. This story is about people, and Kazan keeps it completely in that venue. It is a credit to his focus, not to indulge in making pretty pictures. The lights are never bright in this movie, even in the daylight. The camera zooms in, zooms out, with soft focus, and contrasting hard edges when the scenes approach a boiling point. It was masterfully done.

PERFORMANCES

Brando was magnificent in this movie. His character was not a lovable one by any means, but he is not completely unsympathetic either. He is sarcastic and mean, prone to violence. He is raw power, yet is made small by two well educated Southern women who knew exactly how to pull his chains. He had tender moments, but these are forgotten when he feels threatened and if fighting for power, and control. He was nominated, but did not receive an Academy Award.

Kim Hunter won an Academy award for best supporting actress, as did Karl Malden. And Vivien Leigh won an Oscar for her performance. She earned it, although I have to say her character was more than a little annoying to me personally. I just wanted to slap her. Call me Kowalski, but I understood how Stanley would feel. I personally felt her performance was extravagant and somewhat overblown .But that is just me. I have been too long in the South.

The accents used here, are my only real complaint about individual and collective performances. There is a cadence in Southern speech, an almost musical stringing together of words that Malden for one is conspicuously missing, and Leigh over exaggerates. Only Kim Hunter does it well in an understated manner. Kowalski wasn’t supposed to have a Southern accent (I hope),

THE PLOT

****Spoiler Alert***Spolier Alert***Spoiler Alert***

After 51 years, the story is public domain. It isn’t in the long run any catchy plot twists that will get your attention in this film, it is the impact of the performances.

Blanche Dubois arrives in the French quarter, debarking from a streetcar, named 'Desire'. She is coming to visit her sister, married to a working class Joe in the city. She has lost the estate, and left the small town of her origin, her nerves in tatters.
The apartment is small, and not in the best part of town. Stella is happy to see her When she meets Stella’s husband Stanley, Blanche however, immediately begins an ostentatious show of her own gentility, the epitome of old South breeding. Stanley, his interest in his wife's affairs defined by what he calls the "Napoleonic Code" where a husband has a right to his wife's property, is suspicious of Blanche from the start. Her fancy clothes and aristocratic airs stick in his craw, and he is alternately rude and confrontational to sister Blanche.

Blanche takes 5 hot baths a day, in this little two room apartment, and she hits the bottle. All the while, an air of genteel condescension permeates her interactions with Stanley, underscored by sexual tension, and obvious flirtation. Stanley is not swayed by her charms, though, and doesn't like the way she makes him feel. Is the bottom of his antipathy the fact that she makes him feel like an inferior human being, or that she will take Stella from him?

Stanley is a physical man, handsome but not all dashing. He has a quick temper, and his inability to communicate inevitably ends in physical violence. He hits his wife, and breaks and smashes things. This is something he has always done, and part of Stella's problem is that she admires this dangerous man. His behavior, we see by watching the upstairs neighbor, is not that unusual in his social circle. But is it acceptable, at any time?

Blanche meets a man, different from the others in Stanley's circle of friends. His name is Mitch, and he is a nice guy who cares for his ailing mother. She keeps him at a Platonic distance, wanting him to assume a chivalrous role, to love her for how she wants to be, not as she is. And he is nearly taken in completely.

Stella is pregnant, and Stanley inevitably does the unthinkable, erupting in violence at his pregnant wife. Never do we see him solicitous of her well being, or attempting to bring her comfort.

Meanwhile, Stanley has been snooping about and finds “the truth” about why Blanche Dubois left her estate. The tension becomes nearly unbearable, as Stanley tells Mitch that Stella was known as a slut in her home town, and was thrown out of her teaching job for sleeping with one of her students. He responds in a somewhat typical way, and now Blanche is trapped by her lies, at the mercy of her violent brother in law, as Stella is rushed to the hospital in labor.

Blanche, veneer now shredded, begins to unravel rapidly, and even begins to see people who aren't there, and her pathetic attempt to save herself is finally gone in one brutal scene of violence, where Stanley, empowered by his rage, rapes her.

Stella and the baby have returned home, and Blanche is about to be taken to the loony bin. Stella has not believed the story Blanche told her. She wouldn't be able to live with herself, or Stanley.

After Blanche is taken down by the attendants, she is helped up by the doctor, who treats her with gentility and courtesy, she takes his hand, and recovers a modicum of her former self, and delivers another famous line...

"Whoever you are...I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."


THE CAST

Vivien Leigh-as Blanche DuBois- This part won her an Osxcar, and she is the only one in the cast who didn't do the play on Broadway with Elia Kazan, although she had done it on stage with her husband directing. Vivien was certainly into the role, apparently so much so that at the end of her life, she thought she WAS Blanche. I still wonder in my heart how Jessica Tandy might have handled the role, or Olivia De Haviland. The one thing that drove ME nuts was the affected speech impediment, the sound "w" substitutes for the "r"”. ..if Vivien Leigh had always done this, I never noticed. But it drove me to distraction, and I hated it.

Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski. I have to say I was impressed. It was a magnificent no fault performance. Stanley Kowalski is a living character in my mind,( and I have known a few Stanleys in my life.) I wonder if he failed to win the Oscar because the character was so unsavory? Because in my mind, he deserved it.

Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski . Another wonderful performance, and done with style, as well as a certain amount of elegance. She deserved her Oscar.

Karl Malden-as Mitch- another excellent but far from perfect performance in the only role I remember Malden playing with romantic potential. Karl needed to spend some time in the South, because his southern drawl waxes and wanes.

Rudy Bond as Steve-the man upstairs. You don’t see him much and he is another rough cut working man, although his interaction with his wife Eunice adds the only real touch of humor to the drama.

Nick Dennis as Pablo-for some reason he cracked me up when he wanted to send out for Chinese food at the poker game.

Peg Hillias as Eunice, the woman upstairs, who is a strong woman her self, although grounded in the reality of her life. She provides sanctuary for Della, running to escape Stanley's violence.

Edna Thomas as Mexican woman selling 'flowers for the dead' a symbol of Stella's final break, probably a hallucination, but incredibly sinister . An odd note, not entirely explained by the plot development.

Mickey Kuhn as A sailor, that gives Blanche directions.


Final Recommendation

This movie is one of a kind, and everything else is a poor imitation. I must confess, I didn't LIKE the movie, but it is incredible despite my personal preferences. It is powerful dramatic, and brilliantly performed. If you haven't seen it, you need to.







Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age