A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 Film)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 Film)

A Streetcar Named Desire is the 1951 film adaptation of the 1947, Pulitzer Prize winning stage play by Tennessee Williams. Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul on the screenplay and Elia Kazan who directed the stage production went on to direct the film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, all members of the original Broadway cast, reprised their roles for the film. Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was brought in for the film version in lieu of Jessica Tandy, who had created the part of Blanche DuBois on Broadway.

A Streetcar Named Desire holds the distinction of garnering Academy Award wins for actors in three out of the four acting categories. Oscars were won by Vivien Leigh, Best Actress, Karl Malden, Best Supporting Actor, and Kim Hunter, Best Supporting Actress. Marlon Brando was nominated for his performance as Stanley Kowalski, and although lauded for his powerful portrayal, did not win the Oscar for Best Actor.

The film is also noteworthy for being the first film to honor actors in both the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress category.

Blanche DuBois is a faded Southern belle, who dismissed from her teaching job in Auriol, Mississippi, and disgraced in her hometown is broken and bereft. She seeks solace and refuge with her married sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski who are living in New Orleans.

She arrives in the steamy city and is disconcerted to discover Stella living in a raucous, French Quarter neighborhood in a rundown, dismal building. Blanche’s resolve to impress withers against the overpowering presence and animal swagger of Stanley Kowalski, a blue-collar worker, a man of no inhibitions and boisterous manner. Blanche is grieved to realize that Stella has repudiated their shared lineage, the values of the old Southern aristocracy, and chosen a life of base existence with a crude man.

The initial reunion with her sister Stella is fraught with recriminations, Blanche bitter over what she perceives as her sister’s desertion of family duty resulting in the ultimate loss of the ancestral home, Belle Reve. The tension between all three mounts and becomes more dramatic as Blanche strives to maintain her pretenses of old Southern gentility and coquettishness, engage Stanley’s sympathies, and accommodate herself to the palpable sexual current, which is the keynote of her sister’s marriage. Hope arrives for Blanche with the attentions of Stanley’s co-worker and old army buddy, Mitch. Both respond to the loneliness they sense in each other and are drawn together.

As the months pass, Stanley’s limited tolerance of Blanche’s intrusion into their home is worn thin. He sees his sister-in-law as an influence threatening to undermine his marriage. He perceives Blanche working on his wife with a mission to rekindle in her sister the memories of their heritage, the superiority of the cultural refinement and social graces of the old South.

All the while, Stanley becomes more determined to bring to light Blanche’s discredited past, expose her delicate sensibilities as a pose, and her modesty a façade.

Tennessee Williams plotted out a narrative of powerful allegory. The story line unfolds as the drama of life primed by two divergent forces on an unavoidable collision course. It is the dreamscape world of culture and refinement represented by Blanche DuBois in conflict with harsh, unadorned reality epitomized by the character of Stanley Kowlaski.