Louisiana Movie Poster Museum
Welcome to the the Louisiana Movie Poster Virtual Museum. Since 1895 more than 3,000 movies have been made in or about Louisiana. These posters advertised a few of them. We have hundreds to add, so check back with us as we grow.
Ed and Susan Poole, renowned movie poster experts and authorities on Louisiana film history, curated this initial exhibit. It is based on the Backdrop Louisiana! exhibit that premiered in Slidell, Louisiana in January, 2020 and we’re looking forward to a post-pandemic tour. A smidgen of their knowledge can be found at Learn About Movie Posters, known worldwide as LAMP. Visit Hollywood on the Bayou for a deeper dive into Louisiana film history.
This museum is funded in part by grants from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation and the New Orleans Entertainment Coalition.
Take a Tour – We love your stories!
Click on a poster to view larger image. Then click “i”. Post your story in Comments. We love to hear about films you remember and your experiences. It’s a highlight of our live exhibits that we hope to recreate in the virtual museum.
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Inside Of The White Slave Traffic
In the early 1900s, a number of film companies came to New Orleans to film “actuals” - short documentary style productions featuring live events such as Mardi Gras. These included two of the largest studios at the time: Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago and Kalem Company of New York. Within a few years, audiences grew tired of the “actuals” and filmmakers began producing films that told stories. One such narrative film was shot partially on location in New Orleans and addressed a very serious “moral panic” of the times.
In the early 1910’s, there was widespread yet unproven fear of “white slavery,” with at least fifteen white slavery plays and six white slavery movies produced in the early twentieth century. Although extremely controversial, they proved to be financial successes. Among the first of the pictures of this kind, and probably the most authoritative as it shows actual scenes in the underworld of New York, New Orleans and Denver, is the 1913 film, Inside of the White Slave Traffic.
The film, a dramatization of the methods in which young women are abducted or otherwise procured for prostitution, was written by Samuel H. London who was at one time head of the branch of the Government Secret Service which had to do with “white slavery.” For seven years he had made a study of the subject all over this country and in several foreign countries. The picture was produced by the Moral Feature Film Company. It starred Virginia Mann, Edwin Carewe and Jean Thomas, and was directed by Frank Beal.
Although many theaters refused to exhibit the film, those that did experienced large crowds. For example, according to newspaper accounts: the Park Theater on Broadway in New York had a special detachment of police to handle the crowds each night; the film played to crowded houses in two downtown theaters at the same time for sixty days in Philadelphia; a crowd stood in the rain awaiting the next performance nearly every day during the rainy season last winter at the Portola Theater, San Francisco, 11,700 people passing through the door on the record day; and the Empire Theater in New Orleans had to secure a return engagement to accommodate the crowds.
Poster: U.S. One Sheet