Movie Review - A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire - (1951) - Movie adaptation of the classic Tennessee Williams play of the same name.  Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) arrives at the home of her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her husband Stanley (Marlon Brando).  Blanche's disintegrating mental state and Stanley's personality clash leading both into dark places.

This is another movie that I had a mental idea of what it was all about going into viewing it only to discover something different.  Here's the classic description of the story (taken from IMDB):

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.

Stanley is the villain, a brutish, macho monster that destroys Blanche.  She is a fragile blossom of southern femininity that wilts before his passionate animal essence.

So why do I feel so much sympathy for Stanley for most of the movie?  Don't get me wrong, Kowalski is not some gentleman driven off his spot.  He is passionate, he is primal in many ways.  For me, Stanley Kowalski is a man with a simple world view confronted by something so far outside his ken and so perfectly tuned to attack him at his weakest that he, like Blanche, will crack under the burden.  To be honest I can't blame him.  Blanche (like many of Williams's greatest female characters) lives in a fantasy world.  She still wants to be the belle of the ball from her days when the family had money and stature.  Those days are far behind and she has lost everything.  Her inheritance, her beloved home, her stature in her hometown, her marriage and all but the last thread of her sanity.  Stanley Kowalski is just as perfectly tuned to destroy her as she is for him.

This movie is all about Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando's performance of this apocalyptic collision.  Hunter and the rest of the cast are little more than scenery as these two brilliant actors devour the screen.  Which is saying quite a bit since Karl Malden (who is one of Stanley's poker and bowling buddies and becomes a suitor for Blanche) and Kim Hunter won Oscars for their  performances. (The movie received 11 nominations and won 4, the two above plus Vivien Leigh as Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration.  Brando was nominated but lost out to Humphrey Bogart for "The African Queen")

This is a movie that should be on every movie lovers list of Must See Movies.  Just don't be surprised if it's not the movie you expect.

Rating - ***** Must See