Review of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) by Mike C — 17 Feb 2011

Stella! Admittedly, pretty much the only reason I watched this. That and it's supposed to be good so I can at least add it to my list of imdb top 250 movies I've watched. Beyond that, I guess I didn't get a lot or I just didn't like it all that much.

Brando stands out as per usual. Now I know why he was a sex symbol. But his character needed his ass whupped about as much as the real Brando evidently did. Admittedly, I feel asleep for a bit so missed some stuff. To make sure I didn't miss anything real important, I went to the message boards. What is all this talk of a rape scene? I actually saw that and would not have guessed a rape occurred. So now I'm just annoyed: 1950 America can handle women being smacked around, etc, etc, but a rape was just too much. That's, uh, really stupid. (And I think that's the way it really was but that doesn't make it any less stupid).

I guess I lost interest as the movie dragged on towards two hours so maybe I missed some other stuff as well. I can't tell if Blanche truly was crazy, etc. But I like to think if it were a truly great movie I 1. Wouldn't have fallen asleep and 2. wouldn't have lost interest towards the end. Plenty of classics deserve the title. This seems to ride the coattaiils of Brando more than anything.