A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
95%RT Audience Score: 90%
Awards & Nominations: Won 4 Oscars
17 wins & 15 nominations total
A feverish rendition of a heart-rending story, A Streetcar Named Desire gives Tennessee Williams’ stage play explosive power on the screen thanks to Elia Kazan’s searing direction and a sterling ensemble at the peak of their craft.
If you’re looking for a movie that will make you feel like you’re suffocating in the sweltering heat of New Orleans, then A Streetcar Named Desire is the one for you. With Elia Kazan’s intense close-ups and Marlon Brando’s titanic performance, you’ll be on the edge of your seat (or couch) the whole time. And let’s not forget Vivien Leigh’s virtuoso portrayal and rare ability to evoke both pity and terror. Sure, some might find the subject matter unlovely and the dialogue overwhelming, but for those who appreciate a good excursion into art, this movie is simply fabulous. Just be prepared for the depressing revelations and disastrous churned ending.
Production Company(ies)
Charles K. Feldman Group Warner Bros.,
Distributor
Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
MPAA / Certificate
M/PG
Year of Release
1951
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:1.37 : 1
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Runtime:2h 2m
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Language(s):English, Spanish
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Jan 1, 1951 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 4, 2007
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis, directed by Elia Kazan, written by Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul, produced by Charles K Feldman, drama, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Ed Potton, Bob Thomas, Pauline Kael, Kim Newman, James Christopher, Peter Bradshaw, André Bazin, Matt Neal, Manny Farber, Alasdair Bayman, Clyde Gilmour, PG, small-town Mississippi, New Orleans, Southern-belle, volatile relationship, abusive, troubled, former schoolteacher, flirtatious, heart-rending, searing direction, sterling ensemble, intense, intimate, dialogue-driven, feminist themes, sex symbol, abusive nature, flawed men, vulnerability, power, passion
Worldwide gross: $49,523
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $644,008
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,689
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 70,230
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Vivien Leigh – Blanche DuBois
Kim Hunter – Stella Kowalski
Karl Malden – Mitch
Rudy Bond – Steve
Nick Dennis – Pablo Gonzales
Director(s)
Elia Kazan
Writer(s)
Oscar Saul, Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Williams
Producer(s)
Charles K. Feldman
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
Won 4 Oscars
17 wins & 15 nominations total
Academy Awards
Oscar Nominees
All Critics (62) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (60) | Rotten (2)
Elia Kazan’s claustrophobic close-ups do a fine job of recreating the intensity of the stage.
February 10, 2020 | Rating: 4/5
Ed Potton
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Some movie goers will be bored by its unlovely subject and wealth of talk, but others will admire it as an excursion into art.
August 7, 2019
Bob Thomas
Associated Press
TOP CRITIC
Vivien Leigh gives one of those rare performances that can truly be said to evoke pity and terror.
January 3, 2018
Pauline Kael
New Yorker
TOP CRITIC
Epic performances in a movie that seethes with atmosphere.
February 10, 2012 | Rating: 5/5
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
TOP CRITIC
The blistering sexual repression is the entire point of the 1950s. Quite simply, fabulous.
November 14, 2008
James Christopher
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
The film is perhaps best regarded as an intelligent and engaged recreation of the original Broadway experience, in which Jessica Tandy first played the role. There’s no denying the awful horror and pity of the final scene.
November 14, 2008 | Rating: 3/5
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
TOP CRITIC
Its international success doubtless arises mostly from its relative boldness as well as its eroticism. But this work is not without theatrical qualities: authentically dramatic, it also develops a certain poetic atmosphere.
January 5, 2022
André Bazin
Cahiers du Cinéma
The emotions are dialled up to 11 by the sweltering New Orleans heat and Marlon Brando’s physique, which is matched by his titanic performance.
October 26, 2021 | Rating: 5/5
Matt Neal
ABC Radio (Australia)
The story proceeds as Tennessee Williams first wrote it, except that all the frankest — and most crucial — dialogue has been excised and the last scene has been churned disastrously to satisfy the Johnson office but confound the spectator.
September 15, 2021
Manny Farber
The Nation
By the end of this Elia Kazan production, the revelations aren’t shocking or memorable or morbidly palatable; in many ways, they’re just depressing.
August 23, 2020 | Rating: 6/10
Mike Massie
Gone With The Twins
Even taking this performance alone, Brando’s work deserves to be known as an abiding cinematic performance. Amongst cowardly and callous acts, there still rests a level of pathos to the character.
February 6, 2020 | Rating: 4/5
Alasdair Bayman
CineVue
Vivien Leigh’s virtuoso portrayal was the year’s finest acting…in the same picture Marlon Brando gives a brilliant and appalling performance as a primeval brute.
November 26, 2019
Clyde Gilmour
Maclean’s Magazine…
Plot
Blanche DuBois, a high school English teacher with an aristocratic background from Auriol, Mississippi, decides to move to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, in New Orleans after creditors take over the family property, Belle Reve. Blanche has also decided to take a break from teaching as she states the situation has frayed her nerves. Knowing nothing about Stanley or the Kowalskis’ lives, Blanche is shocked to find that they live in a cramped and run down ground floor apartment – which she proceeds to beautify by putting shades over the open light bulbs to soften the lighting – and that Stanley is not the gentleman that she is used to in men. As such, Blanche and Stanley have an antagonistic relationship from the start. Blanche finds that Stanley’s hyper-masculinity, which often displays itself in physical outbursts, is common, coarse and vulgar, being common which in turn is what attracted Stella to him. Beyond finding Blanche’s delicate hoidy-toidy act as putting on airs, Stanley, a plant worker, believes she may really have sold Belle Reve and is withholding Stella’s fair share of the proceeds from them. What further affects the relationship between the three is that Stella is in the early stage of pregnancy with her and Stanley’s first child. Soon after her arrival at the Kowalskis, Blanche starts to date Mitch, one of Stanley’s friends and coworkers who is a little softer around the edges than most of Stanley’s friends. Mitch does not hide the fact that he is looking in general to get married because of a personal issue, he wanting Blanche ultimately to be his wife. Mitch is somewhat unaware that Blanche has somewhat controlled their courtship to put herself in the best possible light, both figuratively and literally. But in Stanley’s quest to find out the truth about Belle Reve and Blanche’s life in Auriol, the interrelationships between Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Mitch may be irrevocably affected, with any revelation about that life which may further destroy what’s left of Blanche’s already damaged mental state.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Marlon Brando’s performance as Stanley Kowalski is considered one of the greatest in film history.
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