A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) (****)

This is an actor's story. It contains juicy parts and this cast embraces them with passion. Marlon Brando's raw and honest performance came from another planet in 1951. Vivien Leigh's performance is grand and just shy of over-the-top, but it works perfectly for her character. Each character has their own agenda and their all moving in opposite directions until they finally collide and explode.

Blanche DuBois (Leigh, GONE WITH THE WIND) is an aging Southern belle who has secrets. She's losing her grip on reality, but puts up an illusion of a prim and proper lady. She goes to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter, PLANET OF THE APES) in New Orleans taking the streetcar named Desire to Elysian Fields. The sexual electricity in the air shocks her. She's shocked even more so when she meets Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski (Brando, THE GODFATHER). He is a brutish unsophisticated bully who oozes male sexuality. Stanley doesn't like Blanche from the start, but his shy, momma's boy friend Mitch (Karl Malden, ON THE WATERFRONT) takes a liking to the genteel woman instantly.

Blanche and Stanley are like cats and dogs fighting over scraps. She comes to their small apartment with trunks of jewelry and furs and tells them the family plantation is gone due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors. She puts on airs, which drive Stanley mad. With single-minded determination, he wants to tear down all of Blanche's masks and veils and get his piece of the family inheritance he believes he's owed for being married to Stella. Between the two, Stella is like a chew toy. She loves her sister and wants to help her out. It's clear that Blanche is troubled and she doesn't want to think the worst of her. She feels the same about her husband. He's abusive, both mentally and physically, but his passion is what attracts her to him. Stanley is the classic abusive lover — a domineering rageoholic who finds his way to endear himself after being bad.

Mitch sees Blanche as she wants to be seen. Like Stanley's sexual control over Stella, Blanche wields the same power over Mitch. She's a tease and he can't stay away. She hints at past tragedies to make him want to protect her. Blanche has been a master of getting men for years. But watch how things change when Stanley starts uncovering the truth about Blanche. Mitch's reaction is a bold statement about how men view women.

All four of the leads were nominated for Oscars. Only Brando was left without a statue, losing out to the AFRICAN QUEEN's aging Humphrey Bogart who had never won before. While Bogey was great, Brando was revolutionary. His performance signaled in a new area of screen acting. The Method had come to Hollywood. Brando is Stanley Kowalski from his speech to his body language to his intensity. He is both irresistible and repulsive at the same time. Leigh's Blanche is the opposite. She's all artifice. The opposite of Stanley, she has lost herself in the delusion of a life she has never had. Each of life's heartbreaks has made her increasingly unstable and now that she is older, her powers of persuasion over men — and herself — are less successful and require much more work. She is mentally worn out from her own games.

Hunter is key to the audience. We are meant to see Blanche and Stanley through her eyes. With the least showy role in the film, she gets overshadowed easily. But the Academy rightfully rewarded her for her subtlety. She is a supporting actress is the most literal way. We see the other characters better because of her. And because her character is hiding most of what she fears about the others, her face is so important. Hunter is all subtext.

As for the film's other Oscar winning actor, Malden gives a two-fold performance. His demeanor is one way when he sees Blanche as the girl to take home to mother and then is much different when the view changes. It's a testament to his performance that the shift doesn't feel melodramatic. The change in attitude feels natural even if it comes as unexpected at first.

Director Elia Kazan knew how to direct actors on screen. He often brought powerful stageplays to the screen without blowing them out cinematically and yet he used the tools of the craft to make them movies and not filmed plays. Watching his use of shadow so powerfully struck in black & white. Watch how he uses long takes and edits. He cuts only when it makes a powerful point.

Working from Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul's adaptation of Williams' play, Kazan had to skirt around touchy issues because of the censors. In recent years, a director's cut has been released that adds a few minutes and makes some tawdry plot points clearer. The most shocking element however is the film's honesty. The tawdry elements are just part of these characters' psyche. We feel sorry for some of them, we understand the others and hope the good can find the freedom they desire.