Elia Kazan (1909-2003) directed films as early as 1937 and eventually would take home an Oscar for his groundbreaking Gentleman's Agreement in 1947, though the on location filming and naturalistic acting of his social thrillers Boomerang (1946) and Panic in the Streets (1950) were infinitely more promising. His finest hours of the decade were indubitably his contributions to theater, founding the Actor's Studio and directing the earlier works of noted playwrights Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller (whom he introduced to future missus Marilyn Monroe in 1950). With A Streetcar Named Desire he transferred to the screen both William's masterwork and the earth-shattering performance of Marlon Brando. Vivien Leigh was the aberrant Blanche Dubois, a role originally written and intended for Lillian Gish but never portrayed by her.
Following Kazan's cooperation with the HUAC in 1952, (the director's compliance with the HUAC was decried by his industry peers ) On The Waterfront came to be seen as a defense of informers as well as a blatant attack on dockland corruption and union gangsterism. It was certainly a vindication of the Actors' Studio (and indeed the Group Theatre) in the acting of Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Budd Schulberg Lee J Cobb and Rod Steiger, The script was by Budd Schulberg who also penned the satirical A Face in the Crowd (1957) a denunciation of television demagoguery. The Williams thread continued with Baby Doll, apparently more cinematic though a far cry less poetic than A Streetcar Named Desire.
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| Andy Griffith's most memorable mug shot from A Face in the Crowd (1957) |
The Actors Studio supplied James Dean for his breakout role in East of Eden, based on John Steinbeck's novel - Steinbeck also wrote Viva Zapata! exclusively for Kazan and Brando. East of Eden was Kazan's first film in both color and wide screen, both of which he easily mastered, as was obvious in 1960's Wild River a decidedly more lyrical and romantic view of the South than in the works of his earlier canon. set at the time of TVA river control projects during the Great Depression, with Lee Remick as a wistfully vulnerable young widow and Montgomery Clift as an ineffectual federal agent. America,America (1963) and despite its pedigree cast - the surprisingly anticlimactic The Arrangement (1969) that came replete with an underwhelming performance via Kirk Douglas were based on his own novels.