More Streetcars: The Screen and the Stage

Previously unpublished censorship documents show how Tennessee Williams was literally under surveillance in the early 1950s. Elia Kazan’s film version of A Streetcar Named Desire won two prizes at the Venice Film Festival but had to wait for almost three years before being allowed distribution. In the meanwhile, Warner Bros suggested a whitewashing of the character of Blanche in order not to alert censors. For moral (and political reasons) a magazine of the Catholic Church deemed the film good as a “lesson” on the dangers of sin. The chapter goes on to analyze all the major productions of Un tram che si chiama desiderio in Italy on the background of the changing aesthetic and dramatic canons.