Looking at Film from Every Angle
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Every week, we’ll pose a new “five favorites” question. You just list your five favorites that fit in that category (preferably in preference order) and you’re welcome to discuss and debate the selections and see just how much you do or do not have in common with others. If you want to take a look back at our past articles to comment or enjoy, here is a post set aside to track all of our articles.
Fiddle-dee-dee it’s time for Vivien Leigh.
What are your 5 Favorite Vivien Leigh Performances?
1. Gone With the Wind
2. A Streetcar Named Desire
3. The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone
4. Waterloo Bridge
5. Ship of Fools
1. Gone With the Wind
2. A Streetcar Named Desire (a more complex performance, but one which she had honed to perfection on stage as opposed to her Scarlett O’Hara which she created as she went)
3. Waterloo Bridge
4. Ship of Fools
5. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Sorry to nitpick but Jessica Tandy was the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway. But Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter were all in the original stage production and Elia Kazan directed both the stage and film versions, so a lot of people assume Vivien was in the Broadway version as well. I have read comments from a few people who saw Tandy on stage and Leigh on film and they all prefer Leigh. No knock on Tandy, its that her Blanche was a genteel Southern belle through and through. Leigh added a good amount of steel to her Blanche, giving Brando/Stanley some tough competition right up until the end.
Sorry to nitpick but Vivien Leigh then played Blanche in the London premiere of the play in 1949, a year before she filmed the movie version (and I believe also under Kazan’s direction)…so she honed it before putting it on film, just with a different cast!
Thanks for the info Tripp! I had no idea. I did a little Googling after reading your post. Laurence Olivier directed that production. Twenty-five year old circus performer and up and coming actor Bonar Colleano played Stanley (He died in 1958 after wrecking his sports car. Handsome guy who did a lot of film and stage work right up until his death. Quite a shame.). Stella was played by Mrs. Robert Donat, Renee Ashershon. Most interestingly, Mitch was played by Bernard Braden, who later became a very popular and controversial 1960’s TV personality in Britain. You Tube has interviews Bernard did with Vanessa Redgrave, Caroline Coon, Quentin Crisp, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting at the height of their Romeo And Juliet fame, etc. (I listened to a little of each one. Bernard was a character but smart.) Thanks again for your post Tripp. That was fun.
Oddly, though, it was GWTW’s Melanie, Olivia de Havilland, who was first offered the screen version of Streetcar but turned it down because her husband at the time didn’t think it was suitable for her.
And 44 years after miss Leigh’s tragic death, miss de Havilland is still going strong.
1.Gone With the Wind
2.A Streetcar Named Desire
3.Ship of Fools
4.Caesar and Cleopatra
5.Dark Journey
Wow. She died at fifty-three and gave less than twenty credited film performances (and I have not seen all of them). I believe our lists will look similar:
Streetcar Named Desire
Gone With The Wind
Waterloo Bridge
That Hamilton Woman
Sidewalks Of London (Fun to watch Vivien dance a little. Also, she is a manipulative bitch like Scarlett but living in the opposite end of the social spectrum.)
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