As usual, the critics and the public did not quite see eye to eye on the year's best in films. Fifteen critics for New York City's newspapers voted for Warner's version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Other New York critics' choices:
Best Actress: Vivien Leigh, for her portrayal of Streetcar's faded, tippling, Southern heroine.
Best Actor: Arthur Kennedy, for his characterization of a blinded war veteran in Bright Victory.
Best Director: Streetcar's Elia Kazan.
The National Board of Review placed A Streetcar Named Desire sixth. Its first choice: A Place in the Sun, Paramount's cinematic version of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.
In the...