A Streetcar Named Desire / Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, 1951, Warner Bros., 122 min. Director Elia Kazan’s overpowering adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ classic play made Marlon Brando a household name practically overnight for his incendiary portrayal of working-class Stanley Kowalski, who collides headlong with fragile Southern belle Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) when she moves in with her sister, Stanley’s wife, Stella (Kim Hunter).

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1966, Warner Bros., 131 min. Elizabeth Taylor and real-life spouse Richard Burton play two people chained to their own mediocrity in the halls of academia. When they invite unwitting new professor George Segal and his naïve wife (Dennis) over for cocktails, the sordid game of verbal invective and elaborate emotional contortions begins, not abating until similar buried resentments are unleashed in the seemingly normal Segal and Dennis.