Number 242 on IMDb's Top 250
Blanche BuBois (Vivian Leigh) is in real need of a protector at this stage in her life when circumstances lead her into paying a visit to her younger sister Stella (Kim Hunter) in New Orleans. She doesn't understand how Stella, who is expecting her first child, could have picked a husband so lacking in refinement. Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando)'s buddies come over to the house to play cards and one of them, Mitch (Karl Malden), finds Blanche attractive until Stanley tells him about what kind of a woman Blanche really is. What will happen when Stella goes to the hospital to have her baby and just Blanche and her brother-in-law are in the house? Hilarity surely ensues.
Trivia: Vivien Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life, later had difficulties in distinguishing her real life from that of Blanche DuBois. To date, it is one of only two films in history to win three Academy awards for acting. The other is Network (1976). Marlon Brando, with his powerful portrayal of Stanley Kowalski, wasn't one of the winners, He lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen (1951). Leigh, Hunter, and Malden won Oscars.
As the film progresses, the set of the Kowalski apartment actually gets smaller to heighten the suggestion of Blanche's increasing claustrophobia. By the time the film was made, New Orleans no longer had streetcars but buses. The tracks still existed, however, and so the authorities were able to lend the production the original streetcar named Desire for the opening sequences of Blanche's arrival in the city. Despite giving the definitive portrayal of Stanley Kowalski, privately Marlon Brando detested the character.
Nothing against Vivian Leigh, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, but Brando really out shined all of them. I think the reason he lost the Oscar was because compared to the other three, he made it look easy, like he wasn't acting at all. As for Vivian Leigh, half way through this movie I didn't like Blanche, I thought she was stuck up and manipulative, but as the movie goes on, you start seeing the reasons that Blanche does what she does and by the end you really feel a sadness for this lost soul and when she says "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" it hurts a little. The movie was also shot like a play, mainly in one apartment, and that gives it a certain feel. I liked it.
Next Up: Umberto D, the story of a man and his dog.
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2 comments:
I lived in New Orleans in 1965-66 and I rode a streetcar to work every day. I lived on Canal Street, which is main street in New Orleans and I worked out on St. Charles, almost out to Tulane University. Streetcars still ran on Canal and out St. Charles at that time, but nowhere else as I recall. I don't remember riding one named Desire.
Boots Tex
After thinking about it, I think I took a bus down Canal to St. Charles and that St. Charles was the only street car line left at that time. Is it still there? Not that any of that matters, just thinking about old times.
BT
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