What's All This About Streetcars and Desire?

The year was 1951, and Tennessee Williams' hit Broadway play had won the Pulitzer Prize and gone Hollywood with the signing of the day's biggest female star, Vivien Leigh (Blanche DuBois), signed to play opposite Broadway's rising star, the temperamental and unpredictable Marlon Brando (Stanley Kowalski).

That would be like Hilary Swank playing opposite Leonardo DeCaprio.

The Eisenhower years weren't supposed to be about great drama, but yet it exploded right in the faces of an America half in shock by the idea of going to war in Korea. Streetcar Named Desire would become the film that defined New Orleans as gritty and working class and tragic and sexy, and it is on many people's lists of Hollywood's all-time greatest films and plays.

Streetcar won four Academy Awards; Brando did not win the Best Actor in spite of his unforgettable performance as one of film history's most unlikable icons. Blanche and Stella did win for their performances.

But more than 50 years later, besides Brando, it is two names that we remember most from this film: the name of the streetcar from the title, and the name of Stanley's wife, Stella, played by Kim Hunter. We remember her name when the tortured actor screams it repeatedly with such intensity from the bottom of a balcony. They put a whole steamy New Orleans spin on the classic Romeo and Juliet balcony cliche.

Did she love the guy or not? Tennessee Williams never really lets us know, and neither did the actress, which is presumably why she won the Oscar.

New Orleans has a contest each year for actors, comedians, and all comers to shout "STELLA!" to a French Quarter balcony in honor of the play and the film. Because that's what people remember. And everybody wants to be Brando, even for a minute, even if no one wants to be Stanley.

And, who could forget the moment when Marlon Brando takes his shirt off? That was a huge risk for a director and an actor to take in 1951, but if anyone was going to get away with it, Marlon Brando would, and he did. In fact, this movie's script broke all the morality rules of its day. Taboo after taboo fell, and people still study this film today to understand how and why it works.

If you haven't seen this film, it's worth a quick rental, or you can watch the whole thing in segments right on YouTube. It's not a comedy, but it is as much a part of New Orleans history now as the legends of Andrew Jackson making pacts with the pirates.

I think when you land in New Orleans they give a little quiz to make sure you have seen this film, so be sure to watch it--then go for a ride on the streetcar! And don't be surprised if you're walking down some alley and you hear some tourist with a foreign accent yelling, "STELLA!" up at a balcony. Everyone does it. It's a New Orleans tradition.