Classic Movie Review:
A Streetcar Named Desire
By Josh Spiegel
May 10, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Her lips say no no, but her lady parts say beep beep.
Most people around my age probably think of Marlon Brando as the slightly hammy title character in The Godfather, as a strange and rambling old man from his late appearances on talk shows, or not at all. Brando, who’s been dead for a few years, is best known as one of the great Method performers, from his earlier work in films such as The Wild One and The Fugitive Kind (the latter recently released on DVD from The Criterion Collection). Among his most famous roles are The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now, On the Waterfront, and today’s classic movie, the 1951 adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. In this film, we have one of the most iconic lines and images in all of cinema: Brando, standing in the dark rain, wearing only an undershirt, hands on his head, shouting, “STELLA!”

As with the majority of Williams’ work, A Streetcar Named Desire is set in the South, seemingly at the time of year when the heat is at its most sweltering, and deals with frank discussions of sexuality, manhood, and marital relationships. Brando is Stanley Kowalski, the loutish brute married to Stella DuBois (Kim Hunter, previously of another classic movie highlighted here at BOP, A Matter of Life and Death). Stanley and Stella are welcoming, to their apartment, Stella’s sister, Blanche (Vivien Leigh, once the premier Southern belle from Gone With The Wind). Blanche is visiting her sister thanks to some time off from her work as an English teacher, living in the broken-down plantation that the DuBois family once ruled. Blanche, while being pretty and flirtatious, is also a fragile person who could very well fall apart with one comment.

And the person who’s going to throw in most of those comments is Stanley, whose brutish nature instantly repels Blanche, in the same way that it, fascinatingly, draws in Stella, who is nearly immune to whatever charms he may give off. Still, the back-and-forth between Stanley (who assumes, rightly, that something is very off about Blanche and is unwilling to afford her any charity) and Blanche (who can barely fool her sister, let alone herself) is compelling to watch, even at its most overheated. That said, any issues I have with the film, directed by Elia Kazan and adapted for the screen by Williams and Oscar Saul, stem with the source material, not the performances, all of which are as excellent as they were on the stage (Brando and Hunter reprised their roles, as did Leigh from her time on the West End).

What issues I have are the issues I pretty much have with anything written by Tennessee Williams. Though A Streetcar Named Desire, and most of his other work, has plenty of truth behind it (Blanche has been said to be inspired by Williams’ sister), it feels just a mite ridiculous. I’d say the same about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, and the like. Though the common threads that run throughout most of the playwright’s work, including brazen sexuality, homosexual longings, Southern ideals, and so on, are intriguing to discuss, Williams has a habit of presenting these issues in nearly cartoonish fashion. Every character is drawn very broadly, which is why we see so many and easy parodies of the stories (such as the infamous Simpsons musical parody, O Streetcar!).

The performers are all excellent, even as it’s hard not to watch Brando and see the seeds of the over-the-top performances to come later in his career. Even here, Brando’s voice is nothing if not a bit distracting; every time he speaks, it goes all the way from sounding fake to real to fake again. His Method style, while honored by those actors and critics who often throw praise at Brando (and it is deserved, in case you’re getting the opposite leaning from me), is just a bit distracting, especially since it’s so out of vogue these days. Brando’s work here is dominant and forceful, but even he makes things just a little stagey. Considering that the entire point of Method acting (to my understanding) is to make the performances truer and more vital, his Stanley is too outrageous, too much of a lout.

Brando aside, the story here is a bit questionable. Though Blanche DuBois is a tragic figure, her real past far more embarrassing and pitiable than even her fake story (which doesn’t exactly make her out to be a hero, but isn’t nearly as terrible as the truth), the relationship that she walks in on between Stanley and Stella is troubling to say the least. Though Stella ends up saying that she never wants to see Stanley again, this is the second such time that she’s made such bold declarations. Yes, I’m fully aware that she walks out on Stanley at the end because he, in a vicious and violent action, has raped Blanche and driven her into a permanent nervous breakdown, but what Stanley does before his horrendous violation is awful enough that, when Stella comes back to him, you have to wonder if the sex is really that good.

Because that’s all it can be. When Blanche confronts Stella after she returns to her husband, Stella’s already been lustily satisfied, if we can base it from the serene look on her face. Stella often admits that Stanley is nothing if not a lunkhead, but this was back when Marlon Brando didn’t look too bad to the ladies and whatever social airs he doesn’t possess, he makes up for, apparently, in the bedroom. Maybe it’s because I live in a different time and place than these characters or Tennessee Williams did, but the rank dismissal of any typical manners is baffling to me. Again, what Stanley does at the end of the play is terrible, and he deserves punishment, but because I’m also a bit cynical, I wonder how long it will be before Stella’s back in her hubby’s arms, and for what?

I think that one of the more major issues that comes up with any adaptation of a Williams play now (or, in this case, watching an older adaptation now) is that the material is dated. This is not to say that the material is bad, or that it’s poorly constructed. Being dated isn’t the same, but it’s, perhaps, more noticeable and more distracting. I watch A Streetcar Named Desire now, and I wonder not only why it was such a smashing success (though I appreciate that, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, such material was groundbreaking and shocking in its content), but I wonder why it has endured so much. The movie itself is best known for that shot of Brando shouting Stella’s name to the heavens. Brando’s performance comes second, but even the performances from Hunter, Leigh, and Karl Malden are relatively unnoticed.

Why is this? It’s not because the performances should be unnoticed; still, even within Elia Kazan’s filmography, movies such as On the Waterfront (which once again starred Brando and Malden) are more well-regarded and for good reason. On the Waterfront, for example, is an engrossing character study; that the movie manages to succeed in light of the character study really being about Kazan explaining away his naming names to the House Un-American Committee is truly exemplary. A Streetcar Named Desire doesn’t have such subtext, nor does it have the luck of feeling timely; it’s been 50-plus years since Waterfront, but that film’s not nearly as dated, and Brando’s mumbling Method style works far better there.

All of my nitpicking aside, A Streetcar Named Desire is a film worth watching, not just because of its iconic status. Featuring such titans of acting as Brando, Karl Malden, and Vivien Leigh, it’s worth checking out just to see the fireworks these people set off on screen. Going into the film, however, keep in mind that this is a plenty dated film, one that will almost seem like a dusty relic being cleaned up to be shown on Turner Classic Movies. Of course, for those of you out there who love anything Tennessee Williams wrote, this is not a movie you’ll be nitpicking. Like me when it comes to film noir, you won’t find the film dated; you’ll instead be welcomed back to the sticky-hot, sweaty, and sultry era Williams evoked in all of his writing, and with open arms.