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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Satchmo The Great
Satchmo the Great was a documentary dedicated to New Orleans legend Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. This film was an expansion of half of a one-hour segment of Edward R. Murrow's See It Now, which aired on 13 Dec 1955. Murrow not only narrates the film, but also appears onscreen.
Film cameras follow Armstrong and His All Stars during the final stages of a triumphant European tour in the autumn of 1955. After appearances in many major cities, the group flies into Zurich, where they receive a great welcome at the airport from a local "oompah" band, then perform on the runway. In Paris, during three capacity weeks at the Olympia Theatre in front of wildly enthusiastic audiences, Louis visits a Left Bank nightclub and plays with clarinetist Claude Luter’s group.
After the club closes for the night, Louis talks with reporter Edward R. Murrow about the tour, the origins and terminology of jazz and his beginnings in New Orleans. After a spring 1956 appearance at London's Empress Hall, Louis and his group accept an invitation to visit the Gold Coast, the probable home of his ancestors, on the eve of that country’s transformation into Ghana. They receive a tumultuous welcome at Accra airport and, once again, perform informally with a local band on the runway. Later, at an outdoor gathering attended by many tribal chieftains, the musicians, singer Velma Middleton and Louis’ wife Lucille are officially welcomed and entertained by native musicians and dancers.
Louis visits a school, talks with the pupils about the early help he received in New Orleans from Joe Oliver and arranges to have a trumpet presented to the school’s most promising musician. President Nkrumah attends one of the All Stars’ performances and, at a final outdoor concert in Accra, the band plays in front of an audience of one hundred thousand people. Enormous crowds also bid the band farewell at the airport. In July 1956, after the triumphs in Europe and Africa, Louis and the All Stars are invited to perform in New York’s Lewisohn Stadium with Leonard Bernstein conducting an orchestra comprised of eighty-eight members of the New York Philharmonic. They perform a special arrangement of “St. Louis Blues” before an audience of twenty-five thousand, which includes the song’s composer, W. C. Handy.
Poster: U.S. One Sheet