"We've had this date with each other from the beginning!"

A Streetcar Named Desire opened Dec. 3 1947 and sent shockwaves through the theater community. The play opened to a half-hour's standing ovation. One reviewer wrote, "'Williams is certainly the Eugene O'Neill of teh present period.'" The play ran for 855 performances. "Williams dramatizes what results when a southern woman's dream of beauty and refinement is challenged by the vulgarity and brutality of the mechanistic world, a brutality with which she, at one point at least and however unintentionally, cooperates." (Thomas P. Adler, American Drama, 1940-1960: A Critical History (Twayne Publishers:New York) 1994: 140.) In this original production picture, Stanley (Marlon Brando) takes Blanche (Jessica Tandy) into the bedroom.