Trivia for
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) More at IMDbPro »

• Jessica Tandy was originally slated to play Blanche, after creating the role on Broadway. The role was given to Vivien Leigh (after Olivia de Havilland refused it) because she had more box-office appeal.
  
  
• John Garfield turned down the role of Stanley Kowalski because he didn't want to be overshadowed by the female lead.
  
  
• Vivien Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life, later had difficulties in distinguishing her real life from that of Blanche DuBois.
  
  
• Mickey Kuhn plays the young sailor who helps Vivien Leigh onto the streetcar at the beginning of this film. He had previously appeared with her in Gone with the Wind (1939) as Beau Wilkes (the child of Olivia de Havilland's character Melanie) toward the end of that film when the character was age 5. When Mickey Kuhn mentioned this to someone else on the set of "A Streetcar Named Desire", word got back to her, and Miss Leigh called him into her dressing room for a half-hour chat. In an interview in his seventies, Kuhn stated that Leigh was extremely kind to him and "one of the loveliest ladies he had ever met."
  
  
• As of 2003 it is one of only two films in history to win three Academy awards for acting. The other is Network (1976).
  
  
• Vivien Leigh had already played Blanche in the first London production of the play, under the direction of her then-husband, Laurence Olivier. She later said that Olivier's direction of that production influenced her performance in the film more than did Elia Kazan's direction of the film.
  
  
• Nine members of the original Broadway cast (Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis, Peg Hillias, Richard Garrick, Ann Dere and Edna Thomas) repeated their roles in the film, a highly unusual decision at the time and even today, when original casts of plays are often completely replaced for the film versions. However, Vivien Leigh, who had played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), was selected to play Blanche du Bois over Jessica Tandy to add "star power" to the picture (Marlon Brando had not yet achieved full stardom in films; he would be billed under Leigh in the film's credits).
  
  
• Vivien Leigh initially felt completely at sea when she joined the tight New York cast in rehearsals. Director Elia Kazan was able to exploit her feelings of alienation and disorientation to enrich her performance.
  
  
• The movie's line "Stella! Hey, Stella!" was voted as the #45 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #47 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• The movie's line "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." was voted as the #75 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• As the film progresses, the set of the Kowalski apartment actually gets smaller to heighten the suggestion of Blanche's increasing claustrophobia.
  
  
• By the time the film was made, the Desire streetcar line had been converted to buses, but streetcars were still used in other parts of the city. The authorities were able to lend the production a car with the Desire destination sign for the opening sequences of Blanche's arrival in the city.
  
  
• Shot on a 36-day schedule.
  
  
• Early in development, William Wyler had expressed an interest in adapting the play with Bette Davis in the part of Blanche.
  
  
• Due to the highly contentious subject matter, no major studio would dare touch the property. 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck expressed an interest but had to relinquish the idea when his boss point blank refused to allow it to happen.
  
  
• Elia Kazan originally resisted the idea of directing the film adaptation as he felt that he had achieved everything he wanted with the stage version. It was only after Tennessee Williams implored him to take on the assignment that Kazan signed on.
  
  
• The Production Code censors demanded 68 script changes from the Broadway staging, while the interference of the Catholic Legion of Decency led to even further cuts, most of them having to do with references to homosexuality and rape. Ironically, Tennessee Williams professed to liking this expurgated version of his play.
  
  
• Although Vivien Leigh initially thought Marlon Brando to be affected, and he thought her to be impossibly stuffy and prim, both soon became friends and the cast worked together smoothly.
  
  
• Despite giving the definitive portrayal of Stanley Kowalski, Marlon Brando said he privately detested the character. However, it should be added that Brando was an eccentric character who loved misleading people and playing pranks.
  
  
• Elia Kazan's first collaboration with Tennessee Williams.
  
  
• The role of Blanche was first offered to Olivia de Havilland, whose wage demands proved to be too excessive.
  
  
• Vivien Leigh, who was only 36 at the time of filming, had to be made up to look older.
  
  
• While Vivien Leigh was playing Blanche, her real-life husband Laurence Olivier was also in Hollywood, filming Carrie (1952), costarring Jennifer Jones and directed by William Wyler. On one occasion, the celebrated couple dined with Marlon Brando.
  
  
• The Broadway stage production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Irene Mayer Selznick, opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on December 3, 1947 and ran for 855 performances.
  
  
• In the French post-synchronized version, the actors are dubbed by: Jacqueline Porel (Vivien Leigh), Yves Vincent (Marlon Brando), Mony Dalmès (Kim Hunter), Robert Dalban (Karl Malden), Jean Clarieux (Rudy Bond) and Marie Francey (Peg Hillias).
  
  
• In the Italian post-synchronized version, the actors are dubbed by: Lidia Simoneschi (Vivien Leigh), Stefano Sibaldi (Marlon Brando), Dhia Cristiani (Kim Hunter) and Nino Pavese (Karl Malden).
  
  

• SPOILER: The script follows the Tennessee Williams play closely with several small changes. However, there are three notably large alterations of the original plot. The first is the exclusion of Blanche's late young husband's homosexuality, which is referred to explicitly in the play, but only obliquely referred to in the movie. In the play, Blanche caught him in bed with another man and she screamed at him, calling him weak, and he killed himself; she blames herself for not understanding his feelings and for his resulting suicide. In the movie, the fact that her husband committed suicide is masked with a line from Blanche that says that "she killed him herself" by leading him to suicide. The second large difference is the rape scene. It is not explicitly shown/described in the play, but it is more obviously alluded to than in the movie. Two of Stanley's key lines in the scene were omitted from the theatrical release: "Tiger, tiger, drop that bottle top," which has since been added back to the movie, and "We've had this date with each other since the beginning!", after which Stanley grabs Blanche and hauls her off to the bed. Both of these changes were made for censorship reasons, but they've changed the story in some basic ways and led to some confusion, especially about the rape scene, which is key to understanding Stanley's final breaking of Blanche. The last change from the play is the ending. In the play, Stella stays with Stanley at the end: "He kneels beside her and his fingers find the opening of her blouse." The reason she left him in the film was that the punishment of the rapist was demanded by the Hollywood moral code.
  
  

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