Un tramway nommé désir

A dramatic and disturbing film based on Tennessee Williams's play . It deals with the tarnished Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh is unforgettable as a fading southern belle) who moves to live in New Orleans with her sister, Stella (Kim Hunter) , but there things go wrong when she meets her brutish , heavy-drinking brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (a sweaty , animalistic Marlon Brando , a role who shot him to superstardom) in his rattrap New Orleand apartment . As Blanche is a sexually disturbed woman who lives in a world of illusion . Her world starts to crumble when she moves in with her sister, as circumstances become unbearable when rumors of Blanche's dark past begin knowing among neighbors and then the happenings go awry ...When she got there she met the brute Stan, and the side of New Orleans she hardly knew existed. The Pulitzer Price Play of New Orleans' Latin Quarter...of a Lonely Girl...of Emotions Gone Savage!... Blanche, who wanted so much to stay a lady... Warner Bros. Bring the screen all the fire of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Well-deserved Academy Awards were garnered by Vivien Leigh as main actress , while Kim Hunter and Karl Malden won as secondary actors, providing all of them terrific and hypnotic qualities on their extraordinary interpretations . The excellent production design is first-rate , being competently set in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the restless years following World War Two . Main and support cast are frankly magnificent delivering excellent interpretation. Vivien Leigh is awesome as a fragile and neurotic woman who has suffered a series of calamities in her thunderous life . Marlon Brando gives a terrific acting as the abusive ,sinewy , brutish brother-in-law who believes to live under Louisiana's Napoleonic code what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband. They're very well accompanied by a great support cast , such as : Kim Hunter , Karl Malden , Rudy Bond and Nick Dennis. However , one reservation , all the roles are just fairly unbelieable and really exaggerated with the exception for Kim Hunter.

The motion picture was stunningly directed by Elia Kazan and considered to be one of the best films of the year , as he said it was one of his favorites of all the movies he made . Although gloomy and sordid throughout A Streetcar Named Desire fascinates rather than alienates the audience , thanks to the unpredictability of the play and riveting art decoration and set decoration that were both also rewarded with Academy Awards. During his long career, Kazan won two Oscars as Best Director and received an Honorary Oscar, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. Kazan directed four performers to Best Actress Oscars: Celeste Holm, Kim Hunter, Eva Marie Saint and Jo Van Fleet. Greek-Turkish director Elia Kazan who being a child emigrated along with his family to United States made magnificent films . Some of them describe memories , emotions and infancy images , narrating the persecution to Greeks and Armenians by Turkish that finished in genocide as in ¨America , America¨ . Kazan directed a string of successful films as ¨Gentleman's agreement¨, ¨Man on a tightrope¨, ¨panic in the streets¨, ¨Pinky¨ , ¨Splendor in the grass¨, ¨Baby doll¨, ¨the engagement¨, ¨a Street named desire¨, ¨East of Eden¨ and especially his greatest hit : ¨On the waterfront¨ , the latter includes biographic elements ; in fact, Kazan worked in this waterfront area in 1934 during the height of the Great Depression .

There are other versions , but roughly inferior , based on the classic play by Tennessee Williams titled ¨A Streetcar Named Desire¨ , such as : 1984 by John Erman Ann-Margret as Blanche DuBois , Treat Williams as Stanley Kowalski and Beverly D'Angelo as Stella DuBois Kowalski. And 1995 rendition by Glenn Jordan with Jessica Lange , Alec Baldwin , Diane Lane , Randy Quaid and John Goodman.

... of two powerhouse juggernauts. Absolutely dripping with tension, acrimony and bitterness as Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski lock horns in their own uniquely individual way with the backdrop a dark, drenched and run down part of New Orleans. Coupled with a pair of superb supporting performances that amplify and escalate the whole to a unique plateau, you'll feel as though you've been run down by an out of control steam train, flattened by a steamroller to be reformed in a furnace fuelled by fear, frustration and desire.

I often asked myself this question with mixed responses. Did Brando make Streetcar great? Or was he just great in it?

Vivien Leigh is simply haunting and never not shocking. There is more going on there than just a performance. She appears out of herself and hovering ever so softly above. As for the rumored mental illnesses, I can only speculate. I do know for sure that her visualization of Blanche DuBois is the single best performance by an actress I've seen. Well that might not mean much, but I've seen a lot of movies.

Brando made On the Waterfront a classic, but Leigh made Streetcar unforgettable. I always felt like it was a continuation from her most timeless role as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Like what would have happened to Scarlett, if she was allowed to grow old. Maybe I'm just crazy. But I think the billing says it all; Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden. I don't think you could dream up a finer cast. Brando might have been the sexiest thing alive, but it's obvious that Leigh made this film great with some memorable help from some movie icons.

Brando may have sent an Indian to receive his second Oscar, but Leigh used her second as a doorstop to her bathroom.

Blanche DuBois reminds me of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950). Both characters succumb to their alter egos, and descend into their own worlds of fantasy and half-truths.

In "A Streetcar Named Desire", Blanche travels from her antebellum roots in Mississippi to New Orleans, to see her sister Stella. But, upon arriving in the Big Easy, Blanche must confront Stella's husband Stanley, a greasy, poker-playing neanderthal lout who knows a thing or two about reality. It's the clash between Blanche's stately delusions and Stanley's gritty realism that soups up the drama in this Tennessee Williams play, converted to film classic by director Elia Kazan.

The drama is absorbing. But the performances of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, as Stanley and Blanche, are what make the film the cinematic powerhouse that it is. Excellent B&W lighting and jazzy background music amplify the seedy, sleazy atmosphere, which adds depth and texture to the story and the acting. And, of course, the claustrophobic, steamy French Quarter makes a perfect setting.

As one would expect for a film derived from a play, "A Streetcar Named Desire" is very talky. Generally, I don't care for films burdened with a ten thousand page script. But this talk-fest is an exception. Overwhelming what I would otherwise consider a weakness, the acting of Brando and Leigh alone are enough to justify a two hour investment, and render an enjoyable and memorable cinematic experience.

Tennessee Williams himself wrote of Vivien Leigh"s performance in "Streetcar Named Desire": "She brought everything I intended to the role and even much more than I had dared dream of".

Brando is wonderful as Stanley Kowalski, but the new viewers to the film seem to come away with the haunting greatness of Vivien Leigh in what is one of the most harrowing and shattering pieces of acting ever committed to film.

Although some have expressed regret that Jessica Tandy did not repeat her stage performance, it is probably good to note that her husband Hume Cronyn and Elia Kazan (the director of the film and play) both never felt that Tandy quite got the character right. If you listen to the radio performance of extracted scenes that Tandy gave on the occasion of the Pulitzer Prize award, it will reenforce the perfection of Leigh's inflections and innate understanding of the role. This inner and complete understanding is what Brando praises Leigh for in his autobiography. He agrees that she plays this Hamlet of female roles better than anyone because he felt she was quite like the character...sadly.

If anyone is interested in great acting check out "Streetcar" for Vivien Leigh's Academy Award winning performance. The supporting cast is outstanding from Kim Hunter and Karl Malden (both Oscar winners for the film)to, of course, the iconographic T-shirt-torn Brando.