A Streetcar Named Desire (The Original Restored Version) (2012)

As a playwright, Tennessee Williams was to the South what William Faulkner was as a fiction writer: a creative genius who revolutionized not only the region's arts scene and literature but that of 20th century America as a whole, bringing a Southern voice to the forefront while addressing universally important themes, and influencing and inspiring generations of later writers.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning "A Streetcar Named Desire" dates from the peak of Williams's creativity, the period between 1944 ("A Glass Menagerie") and 1955 ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," his second Pulitzer-winner). After its successful 1947 run on Broadway, "Streetcar" was adapted into a screenplay by Williams himself for this movie produced and directed by Elia Kazan, starring the entire Broadway cast except Jessica Tandy, who was replaced by the star of the play's London production, Vivien Leigh. The piece takes its title from one of the New Orleans streetcar lines that protagonist Blanche DuBois (Leigh) rides on her way to the apartment of her sister Stella (Kim Hunter), foreshadowing her later path, from (ever-unfulfilled) Desire to Cemetery (death, or the loss of reality) and a street called Elysian Fields, like the ancient mythological land of the dead.

Although Blanche is the person most visibly engaging in deception (of herself and others), almost everyone of the characters suffers loss after a brutal reality check: Stella, who hasn't been back home for years, first learns from Blanche that their genteel home Belle Reve (literally: "beautiful dream") is "lost" although in what manner precisely Blanche doesn't specify, which immediately raises the suspicion of Stella's husband Stanley (Marlon Brando) only to later hear from Stanley that under the veneer of Blanche's appearance as a delicate Southern lady lies a promiscuous past, and the true circumstances of her ouster from her job and ultimately from their home town were not as Blanche would have Stella believe. Stanley's friend Mitch (Karl Malden), who despite their disparate social backgrounds intends to marry Blanche after they are drawn to each other by their mutual need for "somebody" in their life, is similarly disillusioned by Stanley, and subsequently by Blanche herself when he insists on seeing her in bright light instead of the dim light of dancehalls and of the paper lamp she has insisted on hanging over Stella and Stanley's living room lamp, neither able to face the effects of age and a profligate lifestyle herself nor willing to reveal them to others. And Blanche's own loss of innocence, finally, set in years earlier, when she found her young husband in bed with another man and he committed suicide after she publicly reproached him. "Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see each other in life," Tennessee Williams says about "A Streetcar Named Desire" in Kazan's 1988 autobiography "A Life;" and in a letter opposing the movie's censoring before its release he described the story as being about "ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society."

The brute, of course, is Stanley, who not only becomes the catalyst of Blanche's fate and the destroyer of Stella's, Mitch's and Blanche's own illusions, but is her antagonist in everything from background to personality: Where she is a fading belle dreaming of days gone by he is all youthful virility, a working-class man living in the here and now; where she is refined he is crude, and where she engages in pretense, he tears down the facade behind which she is hiding. The conversation during which Stanley tells Stella about Blanche's past is pointedly set against Blanche's humming the Arlen/Harburg tune "It's Only a Paper Moon," which sees love transforming life into a fantasy world, which in turn however "wouldn't be make-believe if you believed in me." Yet, as portrayed by Marlon Brando, who with this movie stormed into public awareness with his unique and volcanic approach to acting, Stanley is no mere vulgar beast but a complex, often controversial character, despite his brutal streak almost childishly dependant on his wife and frequently hiding his own insecurities under his raw appearance (thus putting up a certain front as well, but unlike Blanche's, a socially acceptable, even common one). Ever the method actor, Brando reportedly stayed in character even during filming breaks; much to the disgust of Vivien Leigh, for whom lines like "[h]e's like an animal. ... 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" must consequently have come from the bottom of her heart.

In early 1950s' society, "Streetcar" was considered way too risque even downright sordid to be presented to moviegoing audiences without severe censorship, which Williams and Kazan were only partly able to fight. One of the most substantial changes made in the adaptation was that at the end of the movie Stanley is punished for his brutality towards Blanche, whereas in the play's cynical original ending he is the only character experiencing no loss at all; indeed seeing his world restored after Blanche's exit. Since Kazan's suggestion to produce two alternate versions (one to please the censors, one in conformity with Williams's play) was rejected, even the 1993 "Original Director's Version" retains its altered, censorship-induced ending. Therefore, the play will forever constitute the last word on Williams's intentions. But even in its censored version this movie was a deserved quadruple Oscarand multiple other award-winner (albeit undeservedly not for Brando). It has long-since become a true classic: a cinematic gem of first-rate direction and superlative performances throughout.

And so it was I entered the broken world

To trace the visionary company of love, its voice

An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)

But not for long to hold each desperate choice.

Hart Crane, "The Broken Tower": Preface to the published version of Tennessee Williams's play.

Also recommended:

Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America)

Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America)

Tennessee Williams Film Collection (A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 Two-Disc Special Edition / Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 Deluxe Edition / Sweet Bird of Youth / The Night of the Iguana / Baby Doll / The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)

Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (Broadway Theatre Archive)

The Rose Tattoo

Suddenly, Last Summer

Baby Doll

This Property Is Condemned

Tennessee Williams' Dragon Country (Broadway Theatre Archive)

I won't go into how amazing this movie is. We all know that. What gets me is how little respect Warner Bros. pays to the classic films that built their studios. Here you have one of the best films of all time and they release it on a DVD with virtually no extras and a VERY sub-par transfer. From the moment the Warner Bros. logo pops up you can see how unstable the image is...not to mention a large amount of dirt and debris running through every scene. The sound quality isn't much better (I actually had to turn the subtitles on for some of the pivotal scenes).Isn't this film worthy of a restoration? I've run across this same problem a lot with this company's releases. I guess they know that people will buy these wonderful movies based on the reviews of the movies themselves and don't feel any need to fork out cash to ensure the quality of their products.

Buy A Streetcar Named Desire (The Original Restored Version) (2012) Now

This is a very good, touching and terrifying at times film about how people use, intimidate and ill-treat each other even among families. A poor, long-suffering lady is close to a mental breakdown and comes to seek out her sister for help but in the end this only leads to a totally opposite outcome. Both Leigh and Brando put in excellent performances here and so does Karl Malden who together with Brando would go on to even better things with "On the Waterfront."

The problem is with the DVD which hasn't been restored at all making for very, very poor picture and sound quality. With the advent of Blu-Ray, here's hoping they would take this opportunity to totally remaster this film and to add good bonus features which are totally missing here. Dolby Digital 5.1 surround or DTS THX sound options would be a real treat.

This is a good film but I recommend you wait for a much better restored version to surface and not to waste your hard earned money on this very, very poor DVD version.

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"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers," is a very difficult line to read convincingly. Recent years have brought us a plethora of *Blanches DuBois*. Just ask Jessica Lange or Ann-Margaret how hard that line is to read neither of them came close to convincing us of it. But Vivien Leigh the ethereally lovely and vastly skilled actress who brought us the immortal Scarlett O'Hara utters the line in such a way that makes the heart ache. Leigh, who won Best Actress for her performance, plays the seminal Blanche. She is flighty, unstable and riddled with neuroses, and the very apex of Tennessee Williams' dysfunctional but immense creativity. Her character is strongly contrasted by that of Marlon Brando's crude, Neanderthal-like Stanley Kowalski, and both of them, perhaps because of their personal parallels to their characters, excel at these playing parts. This re-release restored several minutes of sexual tension to the film that had been hacked out by the censors, notably filling out Kim Hunter's Oscar-winning role as Blanche's beloved sister, Stella. Despite the stifling mores of the Fifties, the film also garnered awards for Karl Malden, and Best Art Direction.

Want A Streetcar Named Desire (The Original Restored Version) (2012) Discount?

If you're looking to upgrade to the Warner 2 disc special edition you might be in for a shock . It looks to me as if they've applied some noise-reduction filters to the 98 transfer.

So now you get a little less grain but its less sharper.

IMHO the original DVD transfer was better.

I give the movie a 5 however.

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