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By far the best filmed Tennessee Williams adaptation, A Streetcar Named Desire won three of the four acting Oscars (for Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden), though not, bizarrely, for Marlon Brando, in the role that shot him to stardom, and had a massive influence on modern film acting. He and Leigh made Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois two of the all-time immortal film characters in Williams' torrid drama of a fading Southern belle in constant battle with her brutish brother-in-law. Leigh wrings every ounce of pathos from her tragic anti-heroine, rendering the famous line, "whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" with such poignancy that actresses have struggled not to copy her delivery in subsequent performances. Brando's Stanley pounds with perspiring, bestial intensity; his behaviour may be repulsive, yet Stella's attraction to him is entirely believable. Both Hunter and Malden impress as the passive Stella and the innocent Mitch, with whom Blanche starts a relationship by pretending to be younger and more sexually innocent that she is.
Three minutes of the original movie were snipped by the censors. This footage, restored on this DVD, adds a new dimension to the raw emotions on show. In the original, Stella seems to comfort Stanley after the famous scene where Brando howls her name at the bottom of the stairs; here she is clearly far more submissive, reveling in his domination. The implied nymphomania of Blanche, and homosexuality of her dead husband, are also more explicit, as is the final assault sequence. Now over fifty years old, Streetcar remains a classic of intense drama.

 

Alex Davidson on 1st April 2006
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A streetcar named desire. Tennessee Williams most intense play, and, next to East Of Eden, Elia Kazaan's greatest film. Vivien Leigh perfects the lead role of the fade... more >

A streetcar named desire. Tennessee Williams most intense play, and, next to East Of Eden, Elia Kazaan's greatest film. Vivien Leigh perfects the lead role of the faded southern belle Blanch Du Bois, visiting her sister Stella in the city of New Orleans. Blanche's delusions toward grandeur and alcoholism begin to drive Stella's brutish husband Stanley mad. He investigates the circumstances in which Blanche lost the family home Belle Reve and becomes convinced she sold it and kept the money for herself. The repressed tension between Stanley and Blanche is unbearable, and mounts with the heat of New Orleans. As Stella is taken to hospital to give birth, Stanley sees that Blanche is losing her mind. He takes the opportunity to toy with her fragile sanity and advances towards her. Her weak attemps to fend him of with a broken bottle fail and he rapes her. When Stella returns from hospital, Blanche is admitted to a mental hospital. A heartbreaking conclusion as she utters the line, ' I have always depended on the kindness of strangers'.
A fantastic, tense and frustrating film. < less

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