A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) ft. Sara Shea
Guest:
Sara Shea
Host and Creator of Shea Cinema; @sheacinema on X, IG
Co-Host of First Watch/Rewatch
CLP 2025 Contributor
Previously on 12 Angry Men (1957) Revisit, Barry Lyndon (1975), Shampoo (1975), 2025 Post Oscars Reaction Show, Patton (1970), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Dracula (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), T2: Judgment Day (1991)
Cast:
Elia Kazan, Director
Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul, Writers
Harry Stradling, Cinematography
Alex North, Music
David Weisbart, Editing
Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski
Karl Malden as Mitch
Rudy Bond as Steve Hubbell
Peg Hillias as Eunice Hubbell
Nick Dennis as Pablo
Background:
A Streetcar Named Desire was released on September 19, 1951.
On a rough budget of $1.8 million, Streetcar grossed roughly $4.25 million to finish #5 at the worldwide box office for 1951.
The film was highly critically praised and was nominated for 12 Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Kazan), Actor (Brando), Adapted Screenplay (Williams), Cinematography (Stradling), Costume Design, Original Score (North), and Sound Mixing while winning Best Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hunter), Supporting Actor (Malden), and Production Design.
It has since been recognized by the AFI on the following lists:
1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies No. 45
2002 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions No. 67
2005 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
"Stella! Hey, Stella!" No. 45
"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." No. 75
2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores No. 19
2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) No. 47
In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
A Streetcar Named Desire currently holds a 97% among critics on RT, a 97 score on Metacritic, and a 4/5 on Letterboxd.
Plot Summary: Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) arrives in New Orleans; fragile and haunted by her past. She moves in with her sister, Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter), whose husband—the raw, brooding Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando)—immediately clashes with her. Stanley sees through Blanche's genteel act, while his friend, Mitch (Karl Malden), is drawn to her fading charm. As Stanley digs up Blanche's secrets, tension boils over into cruelty. With Blanche's grip on reality shattered, she is dependent forever "on the kindness of strangers."
Did You Know:
As the film progresses, the set of the Kowalski apartment actually gets smaller to heighten the suggestion of Blanche's increasing claustrophobia.
There were clashes on the set between Vivien Leigh and her fellow cast members. Besides being the only major cast member not to have come from the Broadway production, Leigh was a classically trained actress, whereas most of the other actors studied under the "Stanislavski Method". Even so, Leigh was determined to make a good picture and create a great performance. She reportedly could not wait to get to the set every day, and was often the last lead actor to leave at day's end.
Vivien Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life, later had difficulties in distinguishing her real life from that of Blanche DuBois.
Fitted t-shirts could not be bought at the time, so Marlon Brando's apparel had to be washed several times and then the back stitched up, to appear tightly over the actor's chest.
Composer Alex North wrote and recorded the first ever jazz-orientated film score for a dramatic picture. The score served to colour the sound of the film's steamy New Orleans setting. It has become a well-deserved landmark in the history of film music and paved the way for numerous movie jazz scores.
During her birthday dinner, Blanche begins telling a joke which Stanley interrupts. In the play, she finishes the joke, which told of an old maid who had a parrot with a lot of profanity in its vocabulary. The joke goes, "The only way to silence the parrot was to cover its cage with a cloth so it would think it was night time and go to sleep. One morning, the pastor comes to visit the woman right after she uncovered his cage, so she had to immediately cover it again. The pastor came inside and heard the parrot say, 'Goddamn, that was a short day!'"
Best Performance: Marlon Brando (Stanley)/Elia Kazan (Director)
Best Secondary Performance: Vivien Leigh (Blanche)/Karl Malden (Mitch)
Most Charismatic Award: Karl Malden (Mitch)/Tennessee Williams (Writer)/Marlon Brando (Stanley)
Best Scene:
Napoleonic Code
Hey Stella
Blanche and Mitch on the Wharf
Young Sailor
Mitch Breaks it Off
Stanley Attacks Blanche
Kindness of Strangers
Favorite Scene: Opening/Kindness of Strangers/Hey, Stella
Most Indelible Moment: Stanley Attacks Blanche/Hey, Stella
In Memorium:
Richard O'Sullivan, 82, English actor (Man About the House, Robin's Nest, Dick Turpin)
Carla Jeffery, 33, American actress (Zombies, Curb Your Enthusiasm, American Vandal)
Gloria Steinem, 92, American journalist, activist, and writer (That Was the Week That Was, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories), Emmy nominee 1965
Best Lines/Funniest Lines:
Blanche: I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.
Blanche: Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable, and the one thing of which I have never,ever been guilty of.
Blanche: Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being?
Blanche: I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
Blanche: I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is 50% illusion.
Stella: He smashed all the lightbulbs with the heel of my slipper.
Blanche: And you let him? Didn't run, didn't scream?
Stella: Actually, I was sorta thrilled by it.
Stanley: Hey, STELLA!
Mitch: Oh I don't mind you being older than what I thought. But all the rest of it. That pitch about your ideals being so old-fashioned and all the malarkey that you've been dishin' out all summer. Oh, I knew you weren't sixteen anymore. But I was fool enough to believe you was straight."
Stanley: What do you think you are? A pair of queens? Now just remember what Huey Long said - that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it.
Stella: Would you like some pop?
Blanche: Honey, pop? Not with my nerves tonight. Scotch for me.
Stanley: I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and there's some of them that give themselves credit for more than they've got.
Blanche: My, but you have an impressive, judicial air.
Stanley: You know, if I didn't know that you was my wife's sister, I would get ideas about you... Don't play so dumb. You know what.
The Stanley Rubric:
Legacy: 8.17
Impact/Significance: 9.33
Novelty: 8
Classic-ness: 9
Rewatchability: 7.5
Audience Score: 8.4 (7.9 IMDB, 89% RT)
Total: 50.4
Remaining Questions:
Why is the end when Stella is finally resolved to leave Stanley?
Did Mitch actually love Blanche or is he a dufus?
If Mitch had married Blanche, would it have lasted?
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