A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Elia Kazan

Writers:

Tennessee Williams (original play "A Streetcar Named Desire")
Oscar Saul (adaptation)

Release Date:

1 December 1951 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

...When she got there she met the brute Stan, and the side of New Orleans she hardly knew existed.

Plot:

Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.

Plot Keywords:

Neurotic | Pregnant Sister | Pregnant | Streetcar | Giving Birth

Awards:

Won 4 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 14 nominations

Cast

Vivien Leigh	...	Blanche DuBois
Marlon Brando	...	Stanley Kowalski
Kim Hunter	...	Stella Kowalski
Karl Malden	...	Harold 'Mitch' Mitchell
Rudy Bond	...	Steve
Nick Dennis	...	Pablo Gonzales
Peg Hillias	...	Eunice
Wright King	...	A Collector
Richard Garrick	...	A Doctor
Ann Dere	...	The Matron
Edna Thomas	...	The Mexican Woman
Mickey Kuhn	...	A Sailor

Runtime:

122 min | USA:125 min (re-release)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:GP (1970 re-release) | USA:Approved (certificate #14871) (original rating) | Australia:PG (TV rating) | France:Unrated | South Korea:12 | UK:12A (re-rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:PG (1993 director's cut) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PG (Manitoba)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Charles K. Feldman Group

Trivia:

Elia Kazan's first collaboration with Tennessee Williams.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Stan comes back from taking Stella to the hospital, he is looking for a bottle opener. He finds it on the mantlepiece shakes up a bottle of beer and opens it. The beer foams up and spills on his trousers. But if you watch at the moment when he swings himself up to sit on the table -- before he opens the bottle -- you can see that the front of his trousers are already wet. Apparently they re-shot it without him changing into dry trousers.

Quotes:

Blanche DuBois: Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975)

Sexy, Brutal, and Endlessly Fascinating

There is little to be said about this movie that thousands of critics have not stated already. It is a magnificent piece of cinema, with an intricate script delivered by actors at the peak of their talents. Leigh is unbearably brittle and fragile and she dances precariously on the edge of sanity. Marlon Brando embodies a sense of brooding masculinity that other men can only dream of attaining, while creating an enduring cinema icon and delivering one of the all-time great movie lines. From the raucous jazz score to the sleazy production design bathed in smoldering grey, 'Streetcar' is a class-act from beginning to end; sexy, brutal, and endlessly fascinating.