A Streetcar Named Desire

I often asked myself this question with mixed responses. Did Brando make Streetcar great? Or was he just great in it?

Vivien Leigh is simply haunting and never not shocking. There is more going on there than just a performance. She appears out of herself and hovering ever so softly above. As for the rumored mental illnesses, I can only speculate. I do know for sure that her visualization of Blanche DuBois is the single best performance by an actress I've seen. Well that might not mean much, but I've seen a lot of movies.

Brando made On the Waterfront a classic, but Leigh made Streetcar unforgettable. I always felt like it was a continuation from her most timeless role as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Like what would have happened to Scarlett, if she was allowed to grow old. Maybe I'm just crazy. But I think the billing says it all; Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden. I don't think you could dream up a finer cast. Brando might have been the sexiest thing alive, but it's obvious that Leigh made this film great with some memorable help from some movie icons.

Brando may have sent an Indian to receive his second Oscar, but Leigh used her second as a doorstop to her bathroom.

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.

Blanche DuBois reminds me of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950). Both characters succumb to their alter egos, and descend into their own worlds of fantasy and half-truths.

In "A Streetcar Named Desire", Blanche travels from her antebellum roots in Mississippi to New Orleans, to see her sister Stella. But, upon arriving in the Big Easy, Blanche must confront Stella's husband Stanley, a greasy, poker-playing neanderthal lout who knows a thing or two about reality. It's the clash between Blanche's stately delusions and Stanley's gritty realism that soups up the drama in this Tennessee Williams play, converted to film classic by director Elia Kazan.

The drama is absorbing. But the performances of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, as Stanley and Blanche, are what make the film the cinematic powerhouse that it is. Excellent B&W lighting and jazzy background music amplify the seedy, sleazy atmosphere, which adds depth and texture to the story and the acting. And, of course, the claustrophobic, steamy French Quarter makes a perfect setting.

As one would expect for a film derived from a play, "A Streetcar Named Desire" is very talky. Generally, I don't care for films burdened with a ten thousand page script. But this talk-fest is an exception. Overwhelming what I would otherwise consider a weakness, the acting of Brando and Leigh alone are enough to justify a two hour investment, and render an enjoyable and memorable cinematic experience.

The performances in this movie are so awesome they make you forget how reprehensible most of the characters are. And the fact that Brando didn't win the best actor award is mind blowing (he lost to Borgart in The African Queen)

This is a Tennessee Williams script so you know there will be plenty of drinking and drama and destitution. And awesome lines like "you can't describe someone you're in love with" and "funerals are pretty compared to deaths" and of course "I don't want realism. I want magic!"

Brando's Stanley Kowlaski is the alpha of this story. He is the loud, abusive, good-looking über-male whose wife is seemingly turned on by his apathy and even abuse. And the fact that Vivien Leigh's Blanche is also aroused by Stanley's persona only emboldens his behavior. I'm torn by situations like this because I've always believed men who physically abuse women are horrible. But women who forgive those men also enable them. And that's the challenge I have with these situations whether they are in real life or in the arts. Who am I to condemn a guy for smacking his woman around when she is so quick to forgive?

This is the original film version of this story and I think it's better than any of the remakes. I don't like Stanley Kowlaski but I love how Marlon Brando plays him. And again, he was robbed not getting the Oscar (and I LOVE Humphrey Bogart).

Tennessee Williams himself wrote of Vivien Leigh"s performance in "Streetcar Named Desire": "She brought everything I intended to the role and even much more than I had dared dream of".

Brando is wonderful as Stanley Kowalski, but the new viewers to the film seem to come away with the haunting greatness of Vivien Leigh in what is one of the most harrowing and shattering pieces of acting ever committed to film.

Although some have expressed regret that Jessica Tandy did not repeat her stage performance, it is probably good to note that her husband Hume Cronyn and Elia Kazan (the director of the film and play) both never felt that Tandy quite got the character right. If you listen to the radio performance of extracted scenes that Tandy gave on the occasion of the Pulitzer Prize award, it will reenforce the perfection of Leigh's inflections and innate understanding of the role. This inner and complete understanding is what Brando praises Leigh for in his autobiography. He agrees that she plays this Hamlet of female roles better than anyone because he felt she was quite like the character...sadly.

If anyone is interested in great acting check out "Streetcar" for Vivien Leigh's Academy Award winning performance. The supporting cast is outstanding from Kim Hunter and Karl Malden (both Oscar winners for the film)to, of course, the iconographic T-shirt-torn Brando.