That Beautiful Brute

IT WAS THE SMOLDERING AND SAVAGE STANLEY KOWALSKI that got his wife's prudish sister Blanche so hot and bothered through her unwelcome stay at their home, leading the aging glamor girl to wage a campaign against him, his brutish ways and the total lack of cultivation he embodied.

"Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! ...In this dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching... Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!"

But really now. Just look at him. How can you not hang back with that brute?

Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951. Directed by Elia Kazan, based on the play by Tenessee Williams.