IT was arguably Brando's best screen moment. Brutish Stanley Kowalski throws back his head, clenches his eyes tightly shut and screams "Stellaaaaaa!" towards the apartment above him. Nearly 60 years later, its impact is simply unbeatable.
Watch film trailers now »Looking back at Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, currently on re-release, one can see the emergence of a new style of acting (Brando and the Method), the metamorphosis of English rose to brittle Southern belle (Vivien Leigh) and the naked excitement of sex, seduction and creeping insanity.
This is a movie that reeks of immorality, sleaze, grime and sweat. It is New Orleans at its most carnal – a character exemplified by the performances of Kim Hunter and Brando as the warring Kowalskis, by Karl Malden as a hapless would-be suitor, and the electric Leigh as feline nymphomaniac Blanche DuBois, who drove her (homosexual) husband to suicide with her taunts.
Streetcar has an affected style to it that suited the early 1950s. On its release, it was hugely controversial, which is probably precisely what Williams intended.
Looking back over the years one can see exactly why it had such a seismic effect, and not just on audiences. Leigh, herself a damaged flower, never got over playing Blanche, and for years afterwards could recite huge tracts of the script.
The sequence where Mitch (Malden) holds her face
close to a light bulb still retains the power to provoke a wince.
This is living cinema – the kind of movie they don't make 'em like anymore. It is built upon many layers of sexual tension and universally superb performances.
A Streetcar Named Desire is an emotionally shattering experience.
What do you mean, you've never seen it…?
On limited release
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