Friday, September 30, 2011

#46 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)


Plot summary (with spoilers): Blanche DuBois arrives from the plantation in Mississippi to the seedy slums of the French Quarter in N'awlins. She arrives on a streetcar, improbably named "Desire", to her sister's doorstep. She's appalled by her sister's living conditions, in squalor and filth and penury, and feels the need to point this out to her dear dear sister Stella. She tells Stella that the plantation they owned in Mississippi is gone, disappeared to creditors and debt collectors and other men of ill repute. Stella commiserates with her sister's troubles and invites her to stay at her home until such time that she can get back on her feet and her affairs in order. Stella also reveals that she is with child.
Stanley Kowalski arrives home from bowling; finds the cheap dizzy broad in his living room sucking on his liquor and spitting out five dollar words and thinks her story is bull. He'll confront her; but first, time to take off his shirt. That's better. The Napoleonic Code says that whatever belongs to the wife also belongs to the husband and vicea versa, so if Stella was swindled by this babe, then so was he. He goes through Blanche's luggage and sees lots of fancy dresses and shiny jewelry and thinks he's been had. Stella says they're all fake, but what does she know?
Blanche comes out of the boudoir, having needed the hot steam to settle her nerves over the long and arduous journey and is confronted by the brute Pollack, accusing her of common thievery and deception. She has all the appropriate papers and is able to prove that her story is true, momentarily throwing Stanley off-guard.
Some time later, Stanley and the boys are playing poker while the crabby neighbor lady upstairs angrily bangs pots and pans around, pissed that they're still up this late. Blanche and Stella arrive home and go off into the separate room. One of Stanley's pals, Mitch, catches Blanche's eye and he goes into the other room to chat with her. Meanwhile, Stanley gets drunker and more brutish, and yells at Mitch to stay in the game. Mitch refuses and he and Blanche talk about fine china and the ballet and how virtuous she is. She turns on the radio, and Stanley loses it. He bursts into the room, grabs the radio, and throws it out the window. He rants and raves and Stella attacks him and rips his shirt and all the men leave and Blanche runs away. It's like Cops, but the trashy guy with no shirt is actually hot. Stella goes upstairs to the neighbor lady's house, and Stanley stands out in the cinematic moonlight, with a soaking wet and ripped shirt and screams her name over and over while holding aloft a giant boombox, and Stella comes back downstairs and they have really hot make-up sex while playing Rhianna songs.
Blanche returns the next morning while Stanley's out getting breakfast and tells Stella that she needs to run away, get away from this common Pollack before it's too late. Stella says she's not going anywhere. She loves his violent outbursts and his passion and he's always really nice later. Blanche insists loudly that he's scum, and Stanley comes home at this time and overhears their conversation. He plays it cool, though. Coming back in and making out with Stella while being polite to Blanche.
Blanche meanwhile gets closer to Mitch, and confesses to him that she was once married and that the boy she married was "soft" and "shy" and she told him one day she didn't like him and he ran off and killed himself. (Actually no, that makes no sense. In the play, he was gay, and she caught him with another man and called him a disgusting pervert and he killed himself. But of course, the Hays Code won't allow that to be stated outright, so it just sounds dumb instead). 
More time has passed, and now Stella's nine months along, ready to blow at any time. Blanche lays in the tub again, getting ready for another date with Mitch, but Stanley tells Stella that Mitch won't be coming. Why not? Because Stanley's done some digging, and it turns out that before Stella arrived from Mississippi, she lived in a town called Auriol and lived at a residential hotel where she earned quite the reputation. What sort of reputation? The whorish one. In fact, it got so bad she was asked to leave the hotel. Stella doesn't believe this story (but really totally believes this story) and is appalled that Stanley told Mitch about it.
But Mitch doesn't arrive and after Stanley and Stella go out, Mitch finally shows up and Blanche pretends to be cross with him for being late and pretends not to notice he disheveled appearance and anger and he confronts her about Stanley's stories and she denies it and he says he googled it and it was true and he calls her a no good whore and then he kisses her and she says "WTF, LOL!" and he says, "well, I don't want to marry you now, but..." and she screams to high hell and kicks him out.
Stanley comes back and sees Blanche in her silly costume gown, fluttering about and dancing to music. He tells her Stella went into labor and he's waiting for the call to return to the hospital. She tells him she received a telegram from an old suitor, Lord Sir Fakey Bullshit, who has a private yacht and has invited Blanche on a cruise. Stanley briefly pretends to believe this while subtly mocking her and then when that doesn't rattle her, he changes tacts to outright mocking her and telling her she's full of it, and no one is coming to get her and she's worthless but still doable and why not right now and he leers over her, all sweat, abs, and intimidation, and she tries to run and defend herself with a broken bottle that he bats away easily and smashes a symbolic mirror with it.
Stella and the neighbor lady pack up Blanche's things while Stanley, Mitch and the rest of the boys play cards. Blanche bathes in the tub and is cuckoo for cocca puffs, now. Stella and the neighbor discuss how sending Blanche "away" is the best thing for everyone, and how her story can't possibly be true, Stanley would never do that, and the men in the white coats come and Blanche thinks it's Lord Sir and his cruise but then realizes it's a stranger which works out because she's always depended on the kindness of strangers. Her exit is so pathetic, that immediately everyone turns on Stanley. Stanley says he didn't touch her, but Mitch takes a swing at him and Stella takes the baby upstairs with the neighbor and says this time she's not coming back no way. Stanley yells out her name again as we leave this white trash tableau as we found it.

Review: For some reason, our Drama teacher in high school had us all study this play and act out scenes from it, so if the internet had existed back then, their might have very well been youtube videos of my obese, pimply, gay self saying "Tiger, tiger, drop the bottle!" while pretending to rape one of my freckle-faced female classmates. Any way, suffice to say that the actors here did a better job. Vivian Leigh was really amazing, coming into the movie playing up the old actors stereotypes; very mannered and encased in glass. But of course, that's all artifice, that's Blanche acting, not Leigh. And when those walls finally come crumbling down and we see the real woman beneath, Leigh is absolutely amazing. Now of course, there's Marlon Brando. On the one hand, the phrase "raw animal magnetism" has never been more apt  (I mean damn), and contrasting his method acting with Leigh's stylish stuff is very interesting. But on the other hand...I know it's sacrilege, but Brando's mumblecore-style delivery does not match at all with Tennessee Williams' purple prose. Not only can you just not understand him half the time, but the words as spoken are rarely convincing, even cringe-worthy sometimes. Stanley is much more raw and convincing when he's not talking. The story is great, though, and the Hollywood ending where Stella leaves (in the play she stood by Stanley, while knowing he was probably guilty) doesn't hurt it too much. Besides, when I watched it now, my cynical grown up self decided she'd probably be back within a day or two anyway.

Stars: Four out of five.

Next, "Shane" and then another Katherine Hepburn movie (yay!), "The Philadelphia Story".

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