A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, adapted from Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. It tells the story of a southern belle, Blanche DuBois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans apartment building. The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with several changes.
| A Streetcar Named Desire | |
|---|---|
.jpg.webp) Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold | |
| Directed by | Elia Kazan |
| Produced by | Charles K. Feldman |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Alex North |
| Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
| Edited by | David Weisbart |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
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Running time | 125 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.8 million[2] |
| Box office | $8 million (North America)[2] |
Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica 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.[3]
Upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play's casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood film star, and received the first of four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. 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.[4] In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Blanche DuBois, a middle-aged high school English teacher, arrives in New Orleans. She takes a streetcar named "Desire"[5] to the French Quarter, where her sister, Stella, and her husband, Stanley Kowalski, live in a dilapidated tenement apartment. Blanche claims to be on leave from her teaching job due to her nerves and wants to stay with Stella and Stanley. Blanche's demure, refined manner is a stark contrast to Stanley's crude, brutish behavior, making them mutually wary and antagonistic. Stella welcomes having her sister as a guest, but Blanche often patronizes and criticizes her.
It is revealed that Blanche and Stella's family estate, Belle Reve, was lost to creditors; Blanche, widowed at a young age after her husband's suicide, is broke and had nowhere to go except to her sister. When Stanley suspects Blanche may be hiding inheritance money, she shows him paperwork proving the estate was foreclosed on. Stanley, looking for further proof, 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, then announces Stella is pregnant.
Blanche meets Stanley's friend, Mitch, whose courteous manner is a contrast to Stanley's other pals. Mitch is attracted to Blanche's flirtatious charm, and a romance blossoms. During a poker night with his friends, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella and ending the game; Blanche and Stella flee upstairs to neighbor Eunice's apartment. After his anger subsides, Stanley remorsefully bellows for Stella from the courtyard below. Irresistibly drawn by her physical passion for him, she goes to Stanley, who carries her off to bed. The next morning, Blanche urges Stella to leave Stanley, calling him a sub-human animal. Stella disagrees and wants to stay.
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. Finally, Mitch says they should be together. Meanwhile, Stanley uncovers Blanche's hidden history of mental instability, promiscuity, and being fired for sleeping with an underage student. Stanley then passes this news on to Mitch, in full knowledge this will end Blanche’s marriage prospects and leave her with no future. Stella angrily blames Stanley for the catastrophic revelation, but their fight is interrupted when Stella goes into labor.
Later, Mitch arrives and confronts Blanche about Stanley's claims. She initially denies everything, then breaks down confessing. She pleads for forgiveness, but Mitch, hurt and humiliated, roughly ends the relationship. Later that night, while Stella's labor continues, Stanley returns from the hospital to get some sleep. Blanche, dressed in a tattered old gown, pretends she is departing on a trip with an old admirer. She spins tale after tale about her fictitious future plans, and he pitilessly destroys her illusions. They engage in a struggle, after which Blanche is shown in a regressed psychotic state, implying Stanley may have raped her.
Weeks later, during another poker game at the Kowalski apartment, Stella and Eunice are packing Blanche's belongings. Blanche, who believes she is going on a vacation, has suffered a complete mental breakdown and is being committed to a mental hospital. Blanche told Stella what happened with Stanley, but Stella disbelieves her. When a doctor and nurse arrive to remove Blanche, she resists and collapses, seized with total confusion. The doctor gently offers Blanche his arm, and she goes willingly, delivering the famous line, "Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." Mitch, present at the poker game, is visibly upset. As the car drives away with Blanche, Stella takes the baby upstairs to Eunice's, ignoring Stanley's calls and vowing not to return.
Cast
- Vivien Leigh as Blanche
- Marlon Brando as Stanley
- Kim Hunter as Stella
- Karl Malden as Mitch
- Rudy Bond as Steve
- Nick Dennis as Pablo
- Peg Hillias as Eunice
- Wright King as A Collector
- Ann Dere as The Matron
- Edna Thomas as The Mexican Woman
- Richard Garrick as A Doctor
- Mickey Kuhn as A sailor
As of August 2020, Mickey Kuhn is the last surviving cast member.
Differences from the play
- The play was set entirely at the Kowalski apartment, but the story's visual scope is expanded in the film, which depicts locations only briefly mentioned or non-existent in the stage production, such as the train station, streets in the French Quarter, the bowling alley, the pier of a dance casino, and the machine factory.
- Dialogue presented in the play is abbreviated or cut entirely in various scenes in the film, including, for examples, when Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley and when Mitch confronts Blanche about her past.
- The name of the town where Blanche was from was changed from the real-life town of Laurel, Mississippi, to the fictional "Auriol, Mississippi".
- The play's themes were controversial, causing the screenplay to be modified to comply with the Hollywood Production Code. In the original play, Blanche's husband died by suicide after he was discovered having a homosexual affair. This reference was removed from the film; Blanche says instead that she showed scorn at her husband's sensitive nature, driving him to suicide. She does however make a vague reference to "his coming out", implying homosexuality without explicitly stating it.
- The scene involving Stanley raping Blanche is cut-short in the film, instead ending dramatically with Blanche smashing the mirror with the broken bottle in a failed attempt at self-defence. This is so as not to show Stanley picking her up and explicitly taking her to the bed to rape her.
- At the end of the play, Stella, distraught at Blanche's fate, mutely allows Stanley to console her. In the film, this is changed to Stella blaming Stanley for Blanche's fate, and resolving to leave him.[6]
- Other scenes were shot but cut after filming was complete to conform to the Production Code and later, to avoid condemnation by the National Legion of Decency.
- In 1993, after Warner Bros. discovered the censored footage during a routine inventory of archives,[7] several minutes of the censored scenes were restored in an 'original director's version' video re-release.[8]
- Close, tight photography altered the dramatic qualities of the play, for example in the lengthy scenes of escalating conflict between Stanley and Blanche, or when Mitch shines the light on Blanche to see how old she is, or when the camera hovers over Blanche, collapsed on the floor, with her head at the bottom of the screen, as though she were turned upside down.
- In the film, Blanche is shown riding in the streetcar which was only mentioned in the play. By the time the film was in production however, the Desire streetcar line had been converted into a bus service, and the production team had to gain permission from the authorities to hire out a streetcar with the "Desire" name on it.[9]
- The score by Alex North was written in short sets of music that reflected the psychological dynamics of the characters. For his work on the film, North was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music Score, one of two nominations in that category that year.
Reception
Box office
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.[10] A reissue of the film by 20th Century Fox in 1958 grossed an additional $700,000.[11]
Critical response
Upon release, the film drew very high praise. The New York Times critic Bosley 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 critic Roger Ebert has also expressed praise for the film, calling it a "great ensemble of the movies." The film currently has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 50 reviews.[12]
In his 2020 autobiography Apropos of Nothing, Woody Allen showered lavish praise: "The movie Streetcar is for me total artistic perfection... It’s the most perfect confluence of script, performance, and direction I’ve ever seen. I agree with Richard 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."
Awards and nominations
A Streetcar Named Desire won four Academy Awards, setting an Oscar record when it became the first film to win in three of the acting categories (the only other film to achieve that was Network in 1976).[13][14]
American Film Institute recognition
- 1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies No. 45
- 2002 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions No. 67
- 2005 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
- "Stella! Hey, Stella!" No. 45
- "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers," No. 75
- 2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores No. 19
- 2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) No. 47
References
- "A Streetcar Named Desire". American Film Institute. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
- "A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)—Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
- Manvell, Roger. Theatre and Film: A Comparative Study of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art, and of the Problems of Adaptation of Stage Plays into Films. Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses Inc, 1979. 133
- 'The Top Box Office Hits of 1951', Variety, January 2, 1952
- "Named 'Desire'" in the sense that the streetcar has a roll sign up front declaring its route's destination, namely Rue Desiré in the Bywater neighborhood. The street was named at about the time of the Louisiana Purchase by the plantation owner, Robert Gautier de Montreuil, as a tribute to his third daughter, Desirée. Oddly, the streetcar company ceased that route in 1948, a year after the play was written.
- Williams, Tennessee, Memoirs, 1977
- Warner Archive Podcast (June 3, 2014).
- Censored Films and Television at University of Virginia online
- "New Orleans Public Service, Inc. 832". Archived from the original on May 19, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- Annual Movie Chart | 1951–1952 | the numbers
- "'Streetcar' New Run Heads For $700,000". Variety. November 11, 1958. p. 5. Retrieved July 7, 2019 – via Archive.org.
- A Streetcar Named Desire at Rotten Tomatoes
- "The 24th Academy Awards (1952) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
- "NY Times: A Streetcar Named Desire". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 25, 2009. Retrieved December 19, 2008.
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