DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
BOTTOM LINE: 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” is the best play-to-film adaptation of all time, with two outstanding performances: Vivien Leigh as Blanch DuBois and Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski. In one of her terrific monologues, Blanche reveals that “the boy” she married was gay and killed himself.
But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something about the boy. A nervousness, a tenderness……an uncertainty. And I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why this boy, who wrote poetry…..didn’t seem able to do anything else. He lost every job. He came to me for help. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything…..except that I loved him…..unendurably. At night I pretended to sleep. I heard him crying. Crying the way a lost child cries.
Blanche DuBois: “A Streetcar Named Desire”.I killed him. One night…..we drove out to a place called Moon Lake Casino. We danced the Varsouviana. Suddenly, in the middle of the dance, the boy I married broke away from me…..and ran out of the casino. A few minutes later…..a shot. I ran. All did. All ran and gathered about the terrible thing at the edge of the lake. He’d stuck a revolver into his mouth…..and fired. It was because…..on the dance floor…..unable to stop myself, I’d said: “You’re weak. I’ve lost respect for you. I despise you.” And then…..the searchlight which had been turned on the world….was turned off again. And never…..for one moment since, has there been any light stronger than…Than this…..yellow lantern.
Blanche DuBois: “A Streetcar Named Desire”.
NOW SHOWING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+ AND YOUTUBE
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967-table-summary
https://thebrownees.net/fifty-two-post-hays-code-queer-films-released-in-the-decade-1967-1976
https://thebrownees.net/my-70-all-time-favorite-original-movie-scores/
https://thebrownees.net/the-best-films-directed-by-elia-kazan/
