Before They Were Stars: Marlon Brando Does a Screen Test in 1947

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2lRdkNGDcY

This rare piece of history is included as an extra on the DVD for A Streetcar Named Desire and features an unknown 23-year old Marlon Brando doing a screen test for Warner Bros. by reading excepts from the script for Rebel Without a Cause. At the time, Brando was starting to make his name as a stage actor, but had yet to act in a feature film. You might be wondering about the timeline here since Rebel Without a Cause wasn’t released until 1955. Well, Warner Bros. actually acquired the rights to Robert M. Linder’s original novel during the mid-1940s, but the screen adaptation was in limbo for awhile and didn’t get off the ground for a decade. The studio just decided to let Brando read fragments of the unfinished screenplay for Rebel for his screen test.

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