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A Streetcar Named Desire Official Trailer - Marlon Brando Movie (1951)

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Gillian Anderson (All About Eve, The X-Files, The Fall, Sex Education) plays Blanche DuBois with Ben Foster (Lone Survivor, Kill Your Darlings) as Stanley and Vanessa Kirby (Julie, The Crown, Mission Impossible) as Stella.

As Blanche's fragile world crumbles, she turns to her sister Stella for solace - but her downward spiral brings her face to face with the brutal, unforgiving Stanley Kowalski.

The premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire took place on National Theatre's YouTube channel on 21 May 2020.

By Tennessee Williams
Direction Benedict Andrews

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Gillian Anderson (All About Eve, The X-Files, The Fall, Sex Education) plays Blanche DuBois with Ben Foster (Lone Survivor, Kill Your Darlings) as Stanley and Vanessa Kirby (Julie, The Crown, Mission Impossible) as Stella. As Blanche's fragile world crumbles, she turns to her sister Stella for solace - but her downward spiral brings her face...

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A Streetcar Named Desire clip- Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran

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A Streetcar Named Desire Summary - Schooling Online

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A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Explained | Summary | Themes | Symbolism | Main Ideas

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Highlights From "A Streetcar Named Desire"

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Streetcar Named Desire Blanche Monologue He Was a Boy 1

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A Streetcar Named Desire : Director's Cut (1951) Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter

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Free National Theatre play to watch No:22 A Streetcar Named Desire #TheatreAtHome starting 21st May

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Review: Paul Mescal Electrifies in a Revelatory ‘Streetcar’ (Published 2023)

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In London, the Irish actor stars as Stanley Kowalski in a deeply empathic version of Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

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Blanche's monologue, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) a movie review and performance in 1!

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. The story revolves around Blanche DuBois, a fragile and troubled woman who moves in with her sister, Stella, and her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. As the dynamics between the characters develop, the play explores themes of sex and gender roles, mental instability, and mortality in the face of the gritty realities of the post-World War II era.

Set against the backdrop of a gritty New Orleans neighborhood, the play captures the heat, sensuality, and social tensions of the time and place. The sultry atmosphere intensifies the conflict between Blanche's illusions of grandeur and Stanley's raw, primal force. Tennessee Williams masterfully delves into the complexities of human relationships, exposing the fragility of the human psyche and the destructive power of desire.

A Streetcar Named Desire has had a significant impact on American theater and culture. The play has been adapted into multiple film and television productions, with the 1951 film directed by Elia Kazan starring Vivien Leigh as Blanche and Marlon Brando as Stanley earning critical acclaim. The enduring relevance of the play lies in its exploration of universal themes and its iconic characters that continue to resonate with audiences today.

Explore the full plot summary, an in-depth character analysis of Stanley Kowalski, and explanations of important quotes from A Streetcar Named Desire.

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a streetcar named desire free online study guide

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A Streetcar Named Desire: Study Guide | SparkNotes

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From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes A Streetcar Named Desire Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays.

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"Stanley:
Delicate piece she is.
Stella:
She is. She was. You didn't know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change."
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

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73 quotes from A Streetcar Named Desire: 'What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road thr...

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Blanche DuBois reminds me of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950). Both characters succumb to their alter egos, and descend into their own worlds of fantasy and half-truths.

In "A Streetcar Named Desire", Blanche travels from her antebellum roots in Mississippi to New Orleans, to see her sister Stella. But, upon arriving in the Big Easy, Blanche must confront Stella's husband Stanley, a greasy, poker-playing neanderthal lout who knows a thing or two about reality. It's the clash between Blanche's stately delusions and Stanley's gritty realism that soups up the drama in this Tennessee Williams play, converted to film classic by director Elia Kazan.

The drama is absorbing. But the performances of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, as Stanley and Blanche, are what make the film the cinematic powerhouse that it is. Excellent B&W lighting and jazzy background music amplify the seedy, sleazy atmosphere, which adds depth and texture to the story and the acting. And, of course, the claustrophobic, steamy French Quarter makes a perfect setting.

As one would expect for a film derived from a play, "A Streetcar Named Desire" is very talky. Generally, I don't care for films burdened with a ten thousand page script. But this talk-fest is an exception. Overwhelming what I would otherwise consider a weakness, the acting of Brando and Leigh alone are enough to justify a two hour investment, and render an enjoyable and memorable cinematic experience.

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A Streetcar Named Desire: Directed by Elia Kazan. With Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden. Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.

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A Streetcar Named Desire | play by Williams

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A Streetcar Named Desire: A Streetcar Named Desire, play in three acts by Tennessee Williams, first produced and published in 1947 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama for that year.

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Do you prefer the movie version of 'Streetcar Named Desire' (A or B), and if so, why?

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Answer: Answer:- A particular version of the movie 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. However, I can provide information and insights about both versions of the movie. There are two movie versions of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. The first one, released in 1951, was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Mar...

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Brief Biography of Tennessee Williams

Born in Columbus, MS, Williams moved to St. Louis, MO as a child. Williams's literary career began early: at age sixteen, Williams won five dollars for an essay entitled "Can a Good Wife be a Good Sport?" Williams attended the University of Missouri, where he frequently entered writing contests as a source of extra income. But after Williams failed military training during junior year, his father pulled him out of college and put him to work in a factory. At age twenty-four, Williams suffered a nervous breakdown, left his job, and returned to college, studying at Washington University in St. Louis but finally graduating from the University of Iowa in 1938. Williams lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1939, writing for the Works Progress Administration. He later traveled to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter.

Historical Context of A Streetcar Named Desire

During and immediately after World War II, most of the mainstream American art was patriotic and optimistic, rallying the country around the idea of a robust, victorious nation. Many critics see Brando's dangerous yet seductive portrayal of Stanley as leading the way for the youth movement and the rock-and-roll culture of the 1950s and 1960s.

Other Books Related to A Streetcar Named Desire

Williams's 1945 play The Glass Menagerie also revolves around tense familial relationships, memories, and dreams. Blanche du Bois shares many similarities with both Amanda Wingfield, an aging Southern belle who clings to memories of her past as an ingénue, and Laura Wingfield, the fragile, somewhat unstable sister. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman also portrays a family through generations and explores the interaction between dreams and reality.

Key Facts about A Streetcar Named Desire

Full Title: A Streetcar Named Desire

When Written: 1946-7

Where Written: New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans

When Published: Broadway premiere December 3, 1947

Literary Period: Dramatic naturalism

Genre: Psychological drama

Setting: New Orleans, LA

Climax: Stanley's rape of Blanche at the end of Scene Ten

Antagonist: Stanley Kowalski

Extra Credit for A Streetcar Named Desire

That Rattle-trap Streetcar Named Desire. The Desire streetcar line operated in New Orleans from 1920 to 1948, going through the French Quarter to its final stop on Desire Street.

Streetcar on the silver screen. The original 1947 Broadway production of Streetcar shot Marlon Brando, who played Stanley Kowalski, to stardom. Brando's legendary performance cemented the actor's status as a sex symbol of the stage and screen. Elia Kazan, who directed both the original Broadway production and the 1951 film adaptation, used the Stanislavski method-acting system, which focuses on realism and natural characters instead of melodrama. The Stanislavski system asks actors to use their memories to help give the characters real emotions. Brando based his depiction of Stanley on the boxer Rocky Graziano, going to his gym to study his movements and mannerisms. Largely due to Brando's Stanley and Vivian Leigh's iconic Blanche, Kazan's film has become a cultural touchstone, particularly Brando's famous bellowing of "STELL-LAHHHHH!"

Oh, Streetcar! In an episode of The Simpsons, the characters stage a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire called Oh, Streetcar! Mild-mannered Ned Flanders as Stanley gives the famous "STELLA" yell, singing, "Can't you hear me yell-a? You're putting me through hell-a!"

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides. Born in Columbus, MS, Williams moved to St. Louis, MO as a child.

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Read an Excerpt

a streetcar named desire
By Tennessee Williams
a new directions book

Chapter One

SCENE ONE

The exterior of a two-story corner building on a street in New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs between the L & N tracks and the river. The section is poor but, unlike corresponding sections in other American cities, it has a raffish charm. The houses are mostly white frame, weathered grey, with rickety outside stairs and galleries and quaintly ornamented gables. This building contains two flats, upstairs and down. Faded white stairs ascend to the entrances of both.

It is first dark of an evening early in May. The sky that shows around the dim white building is a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully attenuates the atmosphere of decay. You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown river beyond the river warehouses with their faint redolences of bananas and coffee. A corresponding air is evoked by the music of Negro entertainers at a barroom around the corner. In this part of New Orleans you are practically always just around the corner, or a few doors down the street, from a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This "blue piano" expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.

Two women, one white and one colored, are taking the air on the steps of the building. The white woman is Eunice, who occupies the upstairs flat; the colored woman a neighbor, for New Orleans is a cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races in the old part of town.

A bore the music of the "blue piano" the voices of people on the street can be heard overlapping.

[ Two men come around the corner, Stanley Kowalski and Mitch. They ate about twenty-eight or thirty years old, roughly dressed in blue denim work, clothes. Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red-stained package from a butcher's. They stop at the foot of the steps.]

STANLEY [ bellowing]: Hey, there! Stella, Baby!

[ Stella comes out on the first floor landing, a gentle young woman, about twenty-five, and of a background obviously quite different from her husband's.]

STELLA [ mildly]: Don't holler at me like that. Hi, Mitch.

STANLEY: Catch!

STELLA: What?

STANLEY: Meat!

[ He heaves the package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it: then she laughs breathlessly. Her husband and his companion have already started back around the corner.]

STELLA [ calling after him]: Stanley! Where are you going?

STANLEY: Bowling!

STELLA: Can I come watch?

STANLEY: Come on. [ He goes out.]

STELLA: Be over soon. [ To the white woman] Hello, Eunice. How are you?

EUNICE: I'm all right. Tell Steve to get him a poor boy's sandwich 'cause nothing's left here.

[ They all laugh; the colored woman does not stop. Stella goes out.]

COLORED WOMAN: What was that package he th'ew at 'er? [ She rises from steps, laughing louder.]

EUNICE: You hush, how!

NEGRO WOMAN: Catch what!

[ She continues to laugh. Blanche comes around the corner, carrying a valise. She looks at a slip of paper, then at the building, then again at the slip and again at the building. Her expression is one of shocked disbelief. Her appearace is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. She is about five years older than Stella. Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.]

EUNICE [ finally]: What's the matter, honey ? Are you lost?

BLANCHE [ with faintly hysterical humor]: They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at-Elysian Fields!

EUNICE: That's where you are now.

BLANCHE: At Elysian Fields?

EUNICE: This here is Elysian Fields.

BLANCHE: They mustn't have-understood-what number I wanted ...

EUNICE: What number you lookin' for?

[ Blanche wearily refers to the slip of paper.]

BLANCHE: Six thirty-two.

EUNICE: You don't have to look no further.

BLANCHE [ uncomprehendingly]: I'm looking for my sister, Stella DuBois. I mean-Mrs. Stanley Kowalski.

EUNICE: That's the party.-You just did miss her, though.

BLANCHE: This-can this be-her home?

EUNICE: She's got the downstairs here and I got the up.

BLANCHE: Oh. She's-out?

EUNICE: You noticed that bowling alley around the corner?

BLANCHE: I'm-not sure I did.

EUNICE: Well, that's where she's at, watchin' her husband bowl. [ There is a pause] You want to leave your suitcase here an' go find her?

BLANCHE: No.

NEGRO WOMAN: I'll go tell her you come.

BLANCHE: Thanks.

NEGRO WOMAN: You welcome. [ She goes out.]

EUNICE: She wasn't expecting you?

BLANCHE: No. No, not tonight.

EUNICE: Well, why don't you just go in and make yourself at home till they get back.

BLANCHE: How could I-do that?

EUNICE: We own this place so I can let you in.

[ She gets up and opens the downstairs door. A light goes on behind the blind, turning it light blue. Blanche slowly follows her into the downstairs flat. The surrounding areas dim out as the interior is lighted.] [ Two rooms can be seen, not too clearly defined. The one first entered is primarily a kitchen but contains a folding bed to be used by Blanche. The room beyond this is a bedroom. Off this room is a narrow door to a bathroom.]

EUNICE [ defensively, noticing Blanche's look]: It's sort of messed up right now but when it's clean it's real sweet.

BLANCHE: Is it?

EUNICE: Uh-huh, I think so. So you're Stella's sister?

BLANCHE: Yes. [ Wanting to get rid of her] Thanks for letting me in.

EUNICE: Por nada, as the Mexicans say, por nada! Stella spoke of you.

BLANCHE: Yes?

EUNICE: I think she said you taught school.

BLANCHE: Yes.

EUNICE: And you're from Mississippi, huh?

BLANCHE: Yes.

EUNICE: She showed me a picture of your home-place, the plantation.

BLANCHE: Belle Reve?

EUNICE: A great big place with white columns.

BLANCHE: Yes ...

EUNICE: A place like that must be awful hard to keep up.

BLANCHE: If you will excuse me, I'm just about to drop.

EUNICE: Sure, honey. Why don't you set down?

BLANCHE: What I meant was I'd like to be left alone.

EUNICE [ offended]: Aw. I'll make myself scarce, in that ease.

BLANCHE: I didn't mean to be rude, but-

EUNICE: I'll drop by the bowling alley an' hustle her up. [ She goes out the door.]

[ Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly with her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed close together and her hands tightly clutching her purse as if she were quite cold. After a while the blind look goes out of her eyes and she begins to look slowly around. A cat screeches. She catches her breath with a startled gesture. Suddenly she notices something in a half opened closet. She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down. She carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink. Then she resumes her seat in front of the table.]

BLANCHE [faintly to herself]: I've got to keep hold of myself!

[ Stella comes quickly around the corner of the building and runs to the door of the downstairs flat.]

STELLA [ calling out joyfully]: Blanche!

[ For a moment they stare at each other. Then Blanche springs up and runs to her with a wild cry.]

BLANCHE: Stella, oh, Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!

[ She begins to speak with feverish vivacity as if she feared for either of them to stop and think. They catch each other in a spasmodic embrace.]

BLANCHE: Now, then, let me look at you. But don't you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not till later, not till I've bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won't be looked at in this merciless glare! [ Stella laughs and complies] Come back here now! Oh, my baby! Stella! Stella for Star! [ She embraces her again] I thought you would never come back to this horrible place! What am I saying? I didn't mean to say that. I meant to be nice about it and say-Oh, what a convenient location and such-Ha-a-ha! Precious lamb! You haven't said a word to me.

STELLA: You haven't given me a chance to, honey! [ She laughs, but her glance at Blanche is a little anxious.]

BLANCHE: Well, now you talk. Open your pretty mouth and talk while I look around for some liquor! I know you must have some liquor on the place! Where could it be, I wonder? Oh, I spy, I spy!

[ She rushes to the closet and removes the bottle; she is shaking all over and panting for breath as she tries to laugh. The bottle nearly slips from her grasp.]

STELLA [ noticing]: Blanche, you sit down and let me pour the drinks. I don't know what we've got to mix with. Maybe a coke's in the icebox. Look'n see, honey, while I'm-

BLANCHE: No coke, honey, not with my nerves tonight! Where-where-where is-?

STELLA: Stanley? Bowling! He loves it. They're having a-found some soda!-tournament ...

BLANCHE: Just water, baby, to chase it! Now don't get worried, your sister hasn't turned into a drunkard, she's just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty! You sit down, now, and explain this place to me! What are you doing in a place like this?

STELLA: Now, Blanche-

BLANCHE: Oh, I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly critical about it! Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I picture-Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!-could do it justice! Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir! [ She laughs.]

STELLA: No, honey, those are the L & N tracks.

BLANCHE: No, now seriously, putting joking aside. Why didn't you tell me, why didn't you write me, honey, why didn't you let me know?

STELLA [ carefully, pouring herself a drink]: Tell you what, Blanche?

BLANCHE: Why, that you had to live in these conditions!

STELLA: Aren't you being a little intense about it? It's not that bad at all! New Orleans isn't like other cities.

BLANCHE: This has got nothing to do with New Orleans. You might as well say-forgive me, blessed baby! [ She suddenly stops short] The subject is closed!

STELLA [ a little drily]: Thanks.

[ During the pause, Blanche stares at her. She smiles at Blanche.]

BLANCHE [ looking down at her glass, which shakes in her hand]: You're all I've got in the world, and you're not glad to See me!

STELLA [ sincerely]: Why, Blanche, you know that's not true.

BLANCHE: No?-I'd forgotten how quiet you were.

STELLA: You never did give me a chance to say much, Blanche. So I just got in the habit of being quiet around you.

BLANCHE [ vaguely]: A good habit to get into ... [ then, abruptly] You haven't asked me how I happened to get away from the school before the spring term ended.

STELLA: Well, I thought you'd volunteer that information-if you wanted to tell me.

BLANCHE: You thought I'd been fired?

STELLA: No, I-thought you might have-resigned ...

BLANCHE: I was so exhausted by all I'd been through my-nerves broke. [ Nervously tamping cigarette] I was on the verge of-lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves-Mr. Graves is the high school superintendent-he suggested I take a leave of absence. I couldn't put all of those details into the wire ... [ She drinks quickly] Oh, this buzzes right through me and feels so good!

STELLA: Won't you have another?

BLANCHE: No, one's my limit.

STELLA: Sure?

BLANCHE: You haven't said a word about my appearance.

STELLA: You look just fine.

BLANCHE: God love you for a liar! Daylight never exposed so total a ruin! But you-you've put on some weight, yes, you're just as plump as a little partridge! And it's so becoming to you!

STELLA: Now, Blanche-

BLANCHE: Yes, it is, it is or I wouldn't say it! You just have to watch around the hips a little. Stand up.

STELLA: Not now.

BLANCHE: You hear me? I said stand up! [ Stella complies reluctantly] You messy child, you, you've spilt something on that pretty white lace collar! About your hair-you ought to have it cut in a feather bob with your dainty features. Stella, you have a maid, don't you?

STELLA: No. With only two rooms it's-

BLANCHE: What? Two rooms, did you say?

STELLA: This one and-[ She is embarrassed.]

BLANCHE: The other one? [ She laughs sharply. There is an embarrassed silence.]

I am going to take just one little tiny nip more, sort of to put the stopper on, so to speak.... Then put the bottle away so I won't be tempted. [ She rises] I want you to look at my figure! [ She turns around] You know I haven't put on one ounce in ten years, Stella? I weigh what I weighed the summer you left Belle Reve. The summer Dad died and you left us ...

STELLA [ a little wearily]: It's just incredible, Blanche, how well you're looking.

BLANCHE: [ They both laugh uncomfortably] But, Stella, there's only two rooms, I don't see where you're going to put me!

STELLA: We're going to put you in here.

BLANCHE: What kind of bed's this-one of those collapsible things? [ She sits on it.]

STELLA: Does it feel all right?

BLANCHE [ dubiously]: Wonderful, honey. I don't like a bed that gives much. But there's no door between the two rooms, and Stanley -will it be decent?

STELLA: Stanley is Polish, you know.

BLANCHE: Oh, yes. They're something like Irish, aren't they?

STELLA: Well-

BLANCHE: Only not so-highbrow? [ They both laugh again in the same way] I brought some nice clothes to meet all your lovely friends in.

STELLA: I'm afraid you won't think they are lovely.

BLANCHE: What are they like?

STELLA: They're Stanley's friends.

BLANCHE: Polacks?

STELLA: They're a mixed lot, Blanche.

BLANCHE: Heterogeneous-types?

STELLA: Oh, yes. Yes, types is right!

BLANCHE: Well-anyhow-I brought nice clothes and I'll wear them.

Continues...

Excerpted from a streetcar named desire by Tennessee Williams Copyright © 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play-reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams' essay "The World I Live In." It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that...

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Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.[1]

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La ex Single - Mental coach & Cine Addicted

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Un tram llamado deseo ha marcado mi vida - Todo sobre mi madre

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A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.avi

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This version of Tennessee Williams play A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is from 1951, a year not long after the year that the play is set in (1947). It is considered a classic and all subsequent performances are measured and compared with Brando and Leigh's portrayal of the central characters. Is it a tragedy, a comedy-drama, or more?

This is Arthur Miller's play that he rewrote for the movie screen. It was originally written in the 1950's in answer to a metaphorical "witch hunt." This was the search for communist agents, but it went too far with the McCarthy hearings.

THE_GREAT_GATSBY movie of 2013 is a highly stylized version of Fitzgerald's book, but it makes use of one of the character's, Nick, being a patient at a rest home and narrating the story to help heal his troubled mind. I find this to be a worthy addition to an almost flawless novel.

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This version of Tennessee Williams play A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is from 1951, a year not long after the year that the play is set in (1947). It is considered a classic and all subsequent performances are measured and compared with Brando and Leigh's portrayal of the central characters.

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A Streetcar Named Desire, the winner of 12 Academy awards including Best Picture in 1952, is also a Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway Play, written by Tennessee Williams. He wrote the play while he was living in New Orleans French Quarter. The title comes from a real New Orleans streetcar line that no longer exists.

Streetcar No. 922, featured in the opening scenes of the movie A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams was living in an apartment on Toulouse Street in New Orleans' French Quarter when he wrote "A Streetcar Named Desire". Williams would have heard the continuous rumble and clanging of the electric rail cars moving up and down the old Desire Streetcar Line, only a half-block away. But in the few short years between the time Williams wrote the play and the release of the motion picture, the Desire Streetcar Line shut down. Buses replaced the streetcars in 1948.

Toulouse Street residence of Tennessee Williams

Behind the scenes at the historic new orleans collection

The Historic New Orleans Collection owns the apartment building on Toulouse Street where Tennessee Williams lived during one of his stays in the French Quarter. The Collection has put together an exhibit which takes you through various stages as Williams wrote Streetcar for Broadway. The typewriter and desk used by Williams is also part of the exhibit. Photographs from both the motion picture and the Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire hang in the gallery. You can also view the 1952 Best Actress Oscar given to Vivien Leigh for her performance in the movie. One unique display features the handwritten notes of Elia Kazan, who directed both the Broadway and film productions. Exhibit curator Mark Cave explains, "You can kind of go in by character and you could see what Kazan envisioned in that character."

The real streetcar named desire

Desire Streetcar moved through narrow streets in New Orleans French Quarter (courtesy The Historic New Orleans Collection)

The Desire Line ran through New Orleans' French Quarter. The rail line started at Canal Street and headed down Bourbon Street to Desire Street in the city's 9th Ward. From there, the streetcars would loop back toward Canal Street, traveling up a parallel rail on Royal Street. "The big thing about Desire was that it ran the length of the French Quarter," explains historian and author Ed Branley. "It was the streetcar that people who lived in the quarter used to go places." Branley, a former history teacher, calls himself the Nola History Guy and publishes his New Orleans stories online.

The streetcar rails were removed from Royal Street decades ago

no desire line, but the movie streetcar still runs

The opening scene of the movie features an aerial few of wharves and the railroad along the New Orleans Riverfront. Within minutes, the leading lady, actress Vivien Leigh, boards the Desire streetcar. It's an actual New Orleans street car, Number 922, which still runs today on the Historic St. Charles Streetcar Line.

streetcar featured on TV

Watch this Heart of Louisiana TV story on the Streetcar and exhibit

getting there

The exhibit "Backstage at A Streetcar Named Desire" runs through July 3, 2022. It's one of many New Orleans themed exhibits at the Collection. THNOC has exhibits at its Louisiana History Galleries and the Williams Gallery in the 500 block of Royal Street. You can also visit the Williams Research Center at 410 Charters Street. Phone: (504) 523-4662

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The real Desire Streetcar - A New Orleans Story | The Heart of Louisiana

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A behind the scenes look at A Streetcar Named Desire written by famed playwright Tennessee Williams while he was living in New Orleans.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cover illustration of Harper's Weekly, September 7, 1861 showing a Southern belle

Sallie Ward, a Southern belle

The image of a Southern belle is often characterized by fashion elements such as a hoop skirt, a corset, pantalettes, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and gloves. As signs of tanning were considered working-class and unfashionable during this era, parasols and fans are also often represented.

Southern belles were expected to marry respectable young men, and become ladies of society dedicated to the family and community. The Southern belle archetype is characterized by Southern hospitality, a cultivation of beauty, and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanor.

For example, Sallie Ward, who was born into the planter class of Kentucky in the Antebellum South, was called a Southern belle.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The image of a Southern belle is often characterized by fashion elements such as a hoop skirt, a corset, pantalettes, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and gloves. As signs of tanning were considered working-class and unfashionable during this era, parasols and fans are also often represented.

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‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is a slow fall from grace to madness that burns with intensity - KDHX

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The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis turns up the heat and spectacular performances ensure an excellent production of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.

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Paul Mescal's chilling performance in A Streetcar Named Desire (coming to New York)

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National Theatre on Instagram: "When you're used to grander things 💁‍♀️ 

A Streetcar Named Desire makes its much-anticipated return to cinemas with National Theatre Live from 5 June. Head to the link in our bio to find your local screenings 🍿 

A production from @youngvictheatre

#AStreetcarNamedDesire #NationalTheatreLive #YoungVicTheatre #Cinema #GillianAnderson #BlancheDuBois #TennesseeWilliams"

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11K likes, 76 comments - nationaltheatre on April 28, 2025: "When you're used to grander things 💁‍♀️ 

A Streetcar Named Desire makes its much-anticipated return to cinemas with National Theatre Live from 5 June. Head to the link in our bio to find your local screenings 🍿 

A production from @youngvictheatre

#AStreetcarNamedDesire #NationalTheatreLive #YoungVicTheatre #Cinema #GillianAnderson #BlancheDuBois #TennesseeWilliams". 

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