Works by Queer Writers

A Streetcar Named Desire

(1951)

"A Streetcar Named Desire" is a 1951 American drama, adapted from Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947  play of the same name. It tells the story of a southern belle, Blanche DuBois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement.

If you've never seen "Streetcar", be warned that much of it is so disturbing that it almost qualifies as a horror movie. You watch as the cruel, selfish and loutish Stanley Kowalski deliberately and vindictively destroys his fragile (and profoundly unlikeable) sister-in-law Blanche Dubois. Stanley is terrifying in his cruelty, but also magnetic in his animal vitality. Brando himself never equalled his performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden and Rudy Bond

Director: Elia Kazan

Running Time: 125 minutes (2hours 5 minutes)