A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951, as Stanley Kowalski
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
Director: Elia Kazan
Rating
Factoid
– Jessica Tandy was originally slated to play Blanche, after creating the role on Broadway. The role was given to Vivien Leigh (after Olivia De Havilland refused it) because she had more box-office appeal.
– John Garfield turned down the role of Stanley Kowalski because he didn’t want to be overshadowed by the female lead.
– Vivien Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life, later had difficulties in distinguishing her real life from that of Blanche DuBois.
– Elia Kazan insisted that Brando recreate his onstage Stanley Kowalski in its movie version.
– Vivien Leigh (the heroine) recognized genius when she saw it and she confided to Kazan that working opposite Marlon brought out facets of her du Bois characterization she hadn’t touched on before. Likewise, Brando admitted to having been always “terrifically impressed” with Leigh’s talent.
– For all the seriousness of the screenplay he was filming, Brando couldn’t resist in indulging in adolescent stunts occasionally. One time after Kim Hunter (co-star) retired to her dressing room for a nap, Brando waited for her to fall asleep, then shook her trailer violently and shouted, “Earthquake!”. He was also fond of terrorizing the Streetcar company with a huge fake black spider he had acquired during a weekend trip to Tijuana.
– A Streetcar Named Desire opened to tremendous critical acclaim in the fall of 1951.
– The film was credited with almost single-handedly ushering in a new era of frankness in American films.
– Streetcar won a slew of Oscar nominations. It lost “Best Picture” to An American In Paris.
– Brando won the “Best Actor” New-York Film Critics Circle Award for this movie.
– While Leigh, Hunter and Karl Malden won Academy Awards, Brando was passed over in favor of Humphrey Bogart for his role in The African Queen.
– Losing the Oscar hardly mattered to Brando’s career. His riveting, completely original performance in Streetcar catapulted him into immediate superstardom.
– Brando was annoyed by the public’s perception of him as a hunk, especially since the image was derived from Kowalski – “…he had the kind of brutal aggressiveness I hate. I detest the character.“
– For years after its debut, A Streetcar Named Desire wielded a strong influence over the filmmaking community; everything about it was emulated for years with varying success.
Quotes from the movie
Stella (Kim Hunter): I never listen to you when you’re being morbid.
Blanche (Vivien Leigh): Is there something wrong with me?
Blanche: Please don’t get up.
Stanley (Marlon Brando): Nobody’s going to get up, so don’t be worried.
Blanche: Deliberate cruelty is unforgiveable, and the one thing I’ve never been guilty of.
Blanche: Oh look, we have created enchantment!
Blanche: I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
Mitch (Karl Malden): I guess we strike you as being a pretty rough bunch.
Blanche: I’m very adaptable to circumstances.
Blanche: Tarantula was the name of it! I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms!
Mitch: Tarantula Arms?
Blanche: Yes, a big spider! That’s where I brought my victims. Yes, I’ve had many meetings with strangers.
Blanche DuBois: I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is 50% illusion.
Stanley (to Blanche): Be comfortable. That’s my motto up where I come from. You gonna shack up here? Well, I guess I’m gonna strike you as being the unrefined type, huh?
Stanley (to Stella): How about a few more details on that subject…Let’s cop a gander at the bill of sale…What do you mean? She didn’t show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothin’ like that?…Well then, what was it then? Given away to charity?…Oh I don’t care if she hears me. Now let’s see the papers…Now listen. Did you ever hear of the Napoleonic code, Stella?…Now just let me enlighten you on a point or two…Now we got here in the state of Louisiana what’s known as the Napoleonic code. You see, now according to that, what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband also, and vice versa…It looks to me like you’ve been swindled baby. And when you get swindled under Napoleonic code, I get swindled too and I don’t like to get swindled…Where’s the money if the place was sold?
Stanley (to Stella pointing to Blanche’s garments and jewelry): Now will you just open your eyes to this stuff here. Now I mean, what – has she got this stuff out of teacher’s pay?…Will you look at these fine feathers and furs that she comes to bring herself in here. What is this article? That’s a solid gold dress, I believe…Now what is that? There’s a treasure chest of a pirate…That’s pearls, Stella, ropes of ’em. What is your sister – a deep sea diver? Bracelets, solid gold. (To Stella) Where are your pearls and gold bracelets?…And here you are. Diamonds. A crown for an empress…Here’s your plantation Stella, right here…Well, the Kowalskis and the DuBois – there’s just a different notion on this.
Blanche: My, but you have an impressive, judicial air.
Stanley: You know, if I didn’t know that you was my wife’s sister, I would get ideas about you…Don’t play so dumb. You know what.
[As Stanley’s friends gather to play poker]
Stella (to Blanche): The blind are leading the blind!
Stanley (at the top of voice): Hey Stell – Lahhhhh!
Blanche: You’re married to a madman
Stella: I wish you’d stop taking it for granted that I’m in something I want to get out of.
Blanche: What you are talking about is desire – just brutal Desire! The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.
Stella: Haven’t you ever ridden on that streetcar?
Blanche: It brought me here. Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be.
Stella: Don’t you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?
Blanche: May I speak plainly?…If you’ll forgive me, he’s common!…He’s like an animal. He has an animal’s habits. There’s even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is! Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you – you here waiting for him. Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that’s if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes!
Stanley: You’re gonna kill who, you dumb jerk? You don’t even know when you get wised up. Come on.
Mitch: You don’t have to wise me up!
Stanley: She is as famous in Laurel as if she was the President of the United States, only she is not respected by any party!
Stanley: She moved to the hotel called Flamingo which is a second class hotel that has the advantages of not interfering with the private and social life of the personalities there. Now the Flamingo is used to all kinds of goings-on. But even the management of the Flamingo was impressed by Dame Blanche. And in fact, they were so impressed that they requested her to turn in her room-key for permanently. And this, this happened a couple of weeks before she showed here…The trouble with Dame Blanche was that she couldn’t put on her act any more in Laurel because they got wised up. And after two or three dates, they quit and then she goes on to another one, the same old line, the same old act, and the same old hooey! And as time went by, she became the town character, regarded not just as different but downright loco and nuts. She didn’t resign temporarily because of her nerves. She was kicked out before the spring term ended. And I hate to tell you the reason that step was taken. A seventeen-year-old kid she got mixed up with – and the boy’s dad learned about it and he got in touch with the high-school superintendent. And there was practically a town ordinance passed against her.
Stella: Mr. Kowalski is too busy making a pig of himself…Your face and your fingers are disgustingly greasy.
Stanley: Now that’s how I’m gonna clear the table. Don’t you ever talk that way to me! ‘Pig,’ ‘Pollack,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘vulgar,’ ‘greasy.’ Those kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s tongue just too much around here! What do you think you are? A pair of queens? Now just remember what Huey Long said – that every man’s a king – and I’m the King around here, and don’t you forget it!
Stanley (to Stella): I am not a Pollack. People from Poland are Poles. They are not Pollacks. But what I am is one hundred percent American. I’m born and raised in the greatest country on this earth and I’m proud of it. And don’t you ever call me a Pollack!
Stanley: Listen, baby, when we first met – you and me – you thought I was common. Well, how right you was! I was common as dirt. You showed me a snapshot of the place with them columns, and I pulled you down off them columns, and you loved it, having them colored lights goin’! And wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all okay till she showed here? And wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all OK? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describin’ me like an ape.
Blanche (to Mitch): I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth.
Mitch (to Blanche): Oh I don’t mind you being older than what I thought. But all the rest of it. That pitch about your ideals being so old-fashioned and all the malarkey that you’ve been dishin’ out all summer. Oh, I knew you weren’t sixteen anymore. But I was fool enough to believe you was straight.”
Blanche (to Mitch): I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms…Yes, a big spider. That’s where I brought my victims. Yes, I have had many meetings with strangers. After the death of Allan, meetings with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with. I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another searching for some protection. Here, there, and then in the most unlikely places.
Blanche (to Mitch): Straight? What’s ‘straight’? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being?
Blanche: Marry me, Mitch.
Mitch: No, I don’t think I want to marry you anymore…No, you’re not clean enough to bring into the house with my mother.
Stanley: Did you know I used to have a cousin who could open a bottle of beer with his teeth? And that was all he could do. He was just a human bottle-opener. And then one time at a wedding party, he broke his front teeth right off…And then, after that, he was so ashamed of himself that he used to sneak outta the house when company came. Rain from heaven.
Stanley: …Hey whaddya say Blanche, you wanna bury the hatchet and make a loving-cup?
Stanley: I guess we’re both entitled to put on the dog. You’re having an oil millionaire and I’m having a baby.
Blanche: A cultivated woman – a woman of breeding and intelligence – can enrich a man’s life immeasurably. I have those things to offer, and time doesn’t take them away. Physical beauty is passing – transitory possession – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart – I have all those things – aren’t taken away but grow! Increase with the years!
Blanche: Strange that I should be called a destitute woman when I have all these treasures locked in my heart. I think of myself as a very, very rich woman. But I have been foolish – casting my pearls before…
Stanley: …Swine, huh?
Stanley: Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker. And with a crazy crown on. Now what kind of a queen do you think you are? Do you know that I’ve been on to you from the start, and not once did you pull the wool over this boy’s eyes? You come in here and you sprinkle the place with powder and you spray perfume and you stick a paper lantern over the light bulb – and, lo and behold, the place has turned to Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile, sitting on your throne, swilling down my liquor. And do you know what I say? Ha ha! Do you hear me? Ha ha ha!
Stanley: You think I’m gonna interfere with you?…Maybe you wouldn’t be bad to interfere with.
[When Blanche breaks a beer bottle and threatens Stanley with the broken bottle top, Stanley grabs Blanche’s wrists and says]
Tiger, tiger. Drop that bottletop. Drop it.
Stanley: You know what luck is? Luck is believing you’re lucky, that’s all…To hold a front position in this rat-race, you’ve got to believe you are lucky
Blanche: Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
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