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A Streetcar Named Desire: The Original Director's Version

A Streetcar Named Desire: The Original Director's Version

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $14.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible transfer
Review: This is among the worst transfers to DVD I have seen. Do not bother. A VHS tape is at least as good.

Why didn't they find a decent print to master this from>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Simply the Grittiest, Most Brilliant Movie Ever Made
Review: This film is pure GENIUS from beginning to end: script, art, and especially CASTING! TENNESSEE WILLIAMS is the greatest playwright of all time, capturing in a few well-chosen words the whole plight of the human condition...Vivien Leigh is almost TOO REAL as the fragile, traumatized, fading beauty caught in a trap of merciless reality and unfulfilled dreams...Marlon Brando is SUPERB as the brute Stanley who drives Blanche to her demise, yet somehow you sense a chemistry between them that is fascinating and the hidden sensitivity of the actor behind the vicious character he plays to perfection...Kim Hunter is PERFECT as the sensual, sensitive wife who loves her sister but cannot resist her husband's electrifying sexuality...Karl Malden is EXCELLENT as the somewhat bumbling puritan captivated by Blanche's exquisiteness but too ignorant to understand her neediness...The plot is powerful and moving to tears, but it's worth it for the experience. Cannot recommend enough...Buy this film!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ultimate casting
Review: Elia Kazan,s perfect casting of Vivien Leigh makes this a milestone for sure. Brando repeats his great performance from the stage.

What better casting is it than to cast a psychotic actress playing ...same.

Powerful T. Williams..all other remakes are way off the mark..

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Letterboxed version on Turner Classic Movies
Review: I'm a little late, but I read the response from "A Viewer From Los Angeles" to Rolf Seluchins re: a letterboxed version of Streetcar. "Viewer" states that the aspect ratio of 1.37:1 was standard for this film. However, on Turner Classic Movies last night (3/4/00), they showed a letterboxed version. What gives? I, like Rolf, would like this version, not the fullscreen. Can anyone offer any insight?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Streetcar for All Ages!
Review: This is the movie that redefined acting. Marlon Brando gives one of the best performances ever given by any actor in the last century. Vivien Leigh also shines in a particularly difficult and un-likable role. Karl Malden and Kim Hunter are also great. The story and screenplay are memorable, but what leaves the impact are the perfectly-staged scenes between Brando and Leigh, every time Brando is on, the screen explodes. Deffenitely one of the all time greats and a great example of what great ensemble acting can do. See this movie. From a scale of 1-10 I give this movie a 10!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I don't understand the hype
Review: I am a classic movie lover who is not highly demanding when it comes to the silver screen. I mostly agree with the American Film Institutes top 100 list of greatest movies. However, how this movie rated 45 I will never know. To me, this movie is an endurance test of how long I can listen to an ignorant loud mouth.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BRILLIANTLY ACTED MELODRAMA.
Review: Vivien Leigh gives one of those rare performances that can truly be said to evoke pity and terror. As Blanche DuBois, she looks and acts like a destroyed Dresden shepherdess. Not since the days of Lillian Gish silents has an actress shown this quality of hopeless, feminine frailty; Leigh would have been great as Shakespeare's Ophelia! Blanche's plea "I don't want realism, I want magic" is central to streetcar. When Brando's Stanley cuts through her pretentions and responds to her flirting with a direct sexual assault, the system of illusions that holds her together breaks down, and he's revealed as a man without compassion.... Elia Kazan's direction is often stagey, but who really cares? Here we are watching two of the greatest performances ever put on film (some of the best dialogue, too). When Blanche says "It's Della Robia blue", we know just how good Tennessee Williams could be. He adapted this play himself, with additional adaptation work by Oscar Saul; the music is by Alex North and the cinematography is by Harry Stradling. When I first saw this movie, I was much too young to fully understand or appreciate it; after just seeing it again I have to agree that the acting is capital. Leigh does an astonishing job in the acting department in a role which is EXTREMELY difficult to pull off and make believable. Brando does a great job as Stanley the slob and both Kim Hunter and Karl Malden are excellent. While this film will definitely not appeal to everyone, it's realistically earthy in many respects and reminds the viewer just how talented the beguiling Vivien Leigh really was!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This is one of the greatest films of one of the greatest plays ever. The direction, acting, writing are superb, and deep and affecting. And, I have to say, although the ending of this is Hollywooded up, and upbeat (relatively speaking), compared to the stage play--that ends with no justice at all-- I prefer the movie ending. And Brando and Malden preferred the movie, too (Brando because he thought Vivien Leigh was a better Blanche than Jessica Tandy, Malden because when Brando wasn't talking in the film, the camera would cut away from him to the other actors. Malden said, on stage, Brando was so magnetic, when other actors spoke, the audience would still be looking at Brando!) One flaw in the play, and in Tennessee Williams' whole outlook on romance that marred his other work, is that he can't comprehend romance as being anything more than purely sex. He really couldn't comprehend pure affection between two lovers. Stanley tells Stella that when her sister moves out they can get "them colored lights" going again, meaning sex. The same attitude mars Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." But aside from Williams' inability to view romantic love with any depth, his strengths are so toweringly monumental, that they more than make up for that one flaw. As Brando said in his autobiography about being in the stage version "We had under us one of the best written plays ever produced, and we just couldn't miss." Don't YOU miss this one if you haven't seen it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: There was no widescreen
Review: The film (like virtually all pre-1952 films) was shot in the Academy format of 1.37 to 1. Because your non-widescreen TV is 1.33 to 1, there is no reason to letterbox the DVD image. So the aspect ratio has only been altered to the extent that you're losing a few millimeters on each side. (The same is true of virtually all other pre-1952 films, despite numerous posts at Amazon.com complaining about no widescreen and pan-and-scan cutting, etc. It's great that people now look for widescreen videos and DVDs, but it's not so great that people don't understand that you're not going to find them before the fifties.) "Streetcar" is a masterpiece, certainly one of the top 50 American movies every made. The only reason I've given it 4 stars instead of 5 is because the film print used for this DVD is somewhat warn and there is much graininess in the image. There's also a hiss on the mono audio. Hopefully, this film will be remastered for DVD someday. In the meantime, this is still the best the film has ever looked for the home market. Also, at this price it's a real bargain.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hacked for television
Review: Great film but why only the hacked version for television. The dvd has a lot of special features except the WIDESCREEN version?


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