Very much ahead of its time, Streetcar retains most of its power. While it never quite transcends being a "filmed play," Williams' barbed writing (adapted by Oscar Saul) and the excellent cast drive the drama.
Blanche Du Bois (Vivien Leigh) arrives in New Orleans, fleeing a shady past. She takes with sister Stella (Kim Newton), happily married (or so she thinks) to Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), a salesman given to towering rages. Blanche's presence stirs up tension between Stella and Stanley, even when Stella discovers she's pregnant. Blanche fends off the advances of Stanley's army buddy Mitch (Karl Malden) while deliberately antagonizing Stanley. Stanley gets his own back by investigating Blanche's past, and deciding to ruin her one way or another.
The oeuvre of Tennessee Williams serves as a brutal deconstruction of Southern gentility. Beneath the veneer of charm, mannered etiquette and courtly accents lie a nasty collection of neuroses: sexual dysfunction, frustrated dreams, even outright insanity. Casting Vivien Leigh as Blanche proves a subversive masterstroke: Scarlett O'Hara becomes a fallen woman whose gentility mask a dark past. Set in muggy, claustrophobic New Orleans, this hothouse drama becomes unbearable.
Most obviously, Streetcar exudes sexuality in a way unique for its area, matched by few even today. Stanley constantly sweats through T-shirts and even getting a beefcake scene. It's implied Stella puts up with his towering rages out of pure physical attraction. While Mitch initially seems a subdued gentleman, his dates with Blanche end in crude passes. Blanche seems to encourage and mock these reactions, baffling Mitch and driving Stanley to a horrible denouement.
Blanche provides the movie's rotten center. Her cultivated snobbishness extends only so far as her accent. She relishes putting down the "Pollack" Stanley and teasing Mitch's affections, their confusion and anger encouraging her sense of superiority. It's easy enough to see through Blanche (if her life really were so great, why's she living with a poor relation?) but she's more than a mere poser. Why does she invite a kiss from a teenaged messenger? Why does she brazenly insult Stanley even when it jeopardizes Stella? It's one of cinema's more disturbing trips to madness, the finale achieving a Sunset Blvd. level of Gothic pantomime.
Elia Kazan struggles to keep Streetcar from being that most dreaded thing, a filmed play. True, Harry Stradling provides brooding deep focus photography, and there's a memorably grimy, suffocating atmosphere throughout. While no doubt intentional, the lack of opening up (few outdoor scenes, no comic relief) feels uncinematic. Like Look Back in Anger, the movie's so closed in on its angst that it barely breaths. Kazan showed more finesse on Viva Zapata! and On the Waterfront, which are undeniably movies.
Marlon Brando made an impression in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950), but became a screen icon here. Besides his raw masculine energy, Brando mixes towering anger with inner pain and groveling pathos. Brando's performance is broad and expressive, yet in a way that feels natural. Stanley is an overwrought character, given to crude, boorish gestures rather than articulation. Brando embodies that perfectly, making this human credibly flawed and real.
Vivien Leigh allows her neuroses to gradually shine through Blanche's genteel pose, with a tragic payoff. It's a performance no less impressive than Brando. Kim Hunter (A Matter of Life and Death) makes a likeable foil. Karl Malden won an Oscar (and a career) for his subdued supporting turn; he'd re-team with Brando and Kazan for On the Waterfront before becoming an A-list character actor.
While flawed, A Streetcar Named Desire is undeniably powerful. Elia Kazan does justice to Tennessee Williams, presenting a potentially overwrought story with considerable force.
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