Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/02/2006 Run time: 122 minutes Rating: Nr
Looking for a benchmark in movie acting? Breakthrough performances don't come much more electrifying than Marlon Brando's animalistic turn as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Sweaty, brutish, mumbling, yet with the balanced grace of a prizefighter, Brando storms through the role--a role he had originated in the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's celebrated play. Stanley and his wife, Stella (as in Brando's oft-mimicked line, "Hey, Stellaaaaaa!"), are the earthy couple in New Orleans's French Quarter whose lives are upended by the arrival of Stella's sister, Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh). Blanche, a disturbed, lyrical, faded Southern belle, is immediately drawn into a battle of wills with Stanley, beautifully captured in the differing styles of the two actors. This extraordinarily fine adaptation won acting Oscars for Leigh, Kim Hunter (as Stella), and Karl Malden (as Blanche's clueless suitor), but not for Brando. Although it had already been considerably cleaned up from the daringly adult stage play, director Elia Kazan was forced to trim a few of the franker scenes he had shot. In 1993, Streetcar was rereleased in a "director's cut" that restored these moments, deepening a film that had already secured its place as an essential American work. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
An explosive masterpiece:
Elia Kazan's screen version of Tenessee William's firey work is a non stop emotional ride. Marlon Brando revises his stage role as Stanley Kowalski, a working class man who lives in New Orleans with his wife Stella. There life is a roughly passionate one which intensifies when Stella's southern belle sister Blanche DuBois arrives. Blanche, portrayed so beautifully and truly by Vivien Leigh, that her husband Sir Lawrence Olivier once commented on how it almost broke her to play this role. Blanche is mentally... more info
a sure classic.:
The film, A Streetcar Named Desire, is based ultimately on the extreme cultural differences between Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche, a vicarious and unlucky Southern Belle, shows up on her sister's (Stella) doorstep in New Orleans after arriving there on a streetcar route named "Desire." Blanche has a rough background and is hesitant to share the truth of her visit with her sister and brother-in-law Stanley. She tells Stella and Stanley she lost the family mansion, Belle Reve, because of... more info
street car:
"A Streetcar Named Desire" represents how many people were during the time after the war. Mental and issues and alcohol problems. It's a movie about a sister's, Stella, triumph to continue to live her life after her sibling comes to stay with her and her husband. The sibling, named Blanche Dubios comes with emotional baggage that brings a strain to Stella and her husband Stanly's marraige. Although Stella wants to cater to and care for her younger sister, she has to try to please her husband, who is not... more info
Streetcar Review:
Elia Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire is one to be reconed with. With the cast of superstars, such as Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, he was able to show the constraints of raw human emotion at both ends of the primitive and cultural ends. Stanley's stone age actions towards and "ownership" qualities towards Stella is a pure contradicting parallel to the cultural qualities of Blanch. These two main characters battle throughout the movie, and each think they know just what the other is, either... more info
