Blanche DuBois, a fragile Southern belle, arrives in New Orleans to live with her sister Stella — and clashes with Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski.
In A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), based on Tennessee Williams’s play, Vivien Leigh plays Blanche DuBois, who, after losing her family home, Belle Reve, comes to stay with her sister Stella, played by Kim Hunter, and Stella’s husband Stanley, played by Marlon Brando, in a cramped New Orleans apartment. Blanche, who clings to gentility and illusion, and Stanley, who is blunt and brutal, are soon in conflict, and Blanche’s mental state deteriorates.
Leigh, who had played Blanche on the London stage, gives a performance of extraordinary intensity. She shows Blanche’s charm, her fear and her madness, and she makes Blanche’s final breakdown both terrifying and heartbreaking.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a landmark of American drama, and Leigh’s Blanche DuBois is one of the greatest performances in film history: a woman who cannot survive a world that has no place for her dreams.