And Transfer to Cemetery: The Streetcars Named Desire

Abstract

The 1993 rerelease of A Streetcar Named Desire restores four scattered minutes of footage that Catholic censors in the Legion of Decency ordered cut from the picture before its original 1951 release. Praising 1993 over 1951 (or vice versa) misses an important point: the 1993 rerelease is less the "Original Director's Version"(as it has been advertised) than the one the industry's own censors negotiated and endorsed. Moreover, these two texts, when paired, raise important questions about authorial intention as well about as the workings of style, censorship practices,and the tensile strength and curious tensions of an enduring American drama.