NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Posters, lobby cards, photographs, press books and other items linked to classic and lesser-known movies filmed in or about Louisiana are on display at the Historic New Orleans Collection.
“From Cameo to Close-up,” a free exhibit on view through Nov. 26 shows items from the silent era to the 1990s.
The earliest item is a poster for “Revelation,” filmed partly in New Orleans in 1918, said curator Mark Caze. It shows the Russian actress Alla Nazimova in City Park.
She has another New Orleans tie, to playwright Tennessee Williams, Caze said.
“She’s important because Tennessee Williams, when he was a really young man, saw her on the stage in ’Gibson’s Ghost.’ He always stated that’s why he wanted to become a playwright,” Caze said.
A six-sheet poster for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” made from Williams’ Pulitzer-winning play, also is displayed. A few scenes were filmed in New Orleans, but the city’s importance as setting played a bigger part in choosing it for the exhibit, Caze said.
There’s nothing, Caze said regretfully, for the first Tarzan movie ever made, a 1918 silent film made in Morgan City and starring Elmo Lincoln, Enid Markey, George B. French and Gordon Griffith.
“As beautiful and as rich as the exhibit is, it’s just a reflection of what we’ve found so far. We’ve got some really big gaps - most notably the 1918 ’Tarzan’ filmed here,” he said. “Also, D.W. Griffith shot a film here in 1927 called ’The White Rose.’ We definitely want to get something to document that.”
His favorite items include a poster for “Cat People,” a 1982 feature starring Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell and a photograph from “The Cincinnati Kid” with Steve McQueen and Ann-Margaret.
Then there’s a draft manuscript of “Louisiana Lou” and some 1933 correspondence from another Pulitzer Prize-winner, William Faulkner. “He was fired from the job because he was just drinking and carousing too much and didn’t get the job done in time,” Caze said.
Faulkner’s account was different, according to Turner Classic Movies. Its website quotes him as telling an interviewer that director Tod Browning sent him to ask the continuity writer about the story, and the continuity writer told him, “When you have written the dialogue I’ll let you see the story.”
With other writers and producer, it was released in 1934 as “Lazy River.”
About 10 movie trailers were made into an interactive exhibit that lets viewers choose which to see by clicking on a captured image.
“We did one for ’King Creole,’ the Elvis film; ’Panic in the Streets;’ ’Band of Angels.’ One that really seems to be a hit is ’Alligator People,’ an old sci-fi film where people turn into alligators.”
“King Creole,” filmed in 1958, and “The Cincinnati Kid,” a 1965 movie, are among seven movies to be shown on the last or next-to-last Saturday of each month. It starts May 31 with the 1938 movie “Jezebel,” starring Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and George Brent, and ends Nov. 22 with “These Amazing Shadows” made in 2011 and starring Jeff Adachi, James H. Billington and Robin Blaetz.
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Online: www.hnoc.org
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