Tennessee Williams is one of the best authors of all time, and I think that Elia Kazan did not give his 1947 classic much ado with his 1951 film version of this classic play. I thought that Williams' story A Streetcar Named Desire turned out to be a horrible movie. It read so much better on paper, but does not almost any book one reads before one sees the movie?

     It started off quite interesting, with the streetcar (named "Desire") pulling up and taking Blanche DuBois (played by Vivien Leigh) to her sister's shabby apartment in New Orleans, not knowing what to expect. She searches for her sister, Stella (played by Kim Hunter), and finally finds her at the bowling alley watching her husband Stanley (played by Marlon Brando). Stanley certainly comes off as a rough one, getting into a fight in his first scene.

     After this sequence of events, the movie kind of went downhill for me. Basically, the rest of the picture was Blanche proving herself as a depressive lunatic who suffers from a mental disease, while Stanley played the part of an ill-mannered, rowdy husband. Stella was basically caught right into the middle of all this. The movie seemed to move extremely slowly for me and really did not have a point besides showing Blanche as a very disturbed individual.

     Even though I disliked this film, I will give credit where it is due, and all of the actors played their parts well in this movie. Also, this picture tapped into a subject matter that was very touchy during its day: sex. This film may have broken some ground for future directors to walk on, and there is much praise in that sense. Overall, I think that the movie could have contained a little more story line, although its running time was long enough for even the most dedicated movie fan.