Always for Pleasure -- March 5, 2019

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Happy Mardi Gras, everyone.  I have always enjoyed Les Blank's documentaries.  Always for Pleasure is about New Orleans.  Released in 1978, it includes Mardi Gras Indians and Mardi Gras festivities.

This is not from the movie, but I have always liked the Wild Tchoupitoulas.

Diamond Theater, New Orleans, La. -- August 25, 2017

Motion Picture World, 25-August-1917

The Diamond went bankrupt in 1919.  

Diamond Theater, New Orleans, La. 

Old Vaudeville Structure Converted Into High Class Picture House -- Manager Chisholm Sees All Subjects Forming Program Before Presenting Them to Public. 

THE Diamond theater has been making history in New Orleans since its opening in the latter part of April as a motion picture house. During the winter the house was known as the Lyric. It was a vaudeville house.  Manager R. M. Chisholm looked at his neighbors who were running motion picture theaters, put his two lingers to his forehead in the attitude of deep thought and asked himself the question, "Why not convert the Lyric into a picture house?" A number of expert painters and decorators were put on the job, and in a remarkably short time the old Lyric was a thing of the past. So successful were the workmen that not a trace of its former personality was distinguishable in the new and beautified building. Structurally, the Diamond is ideal for a motion picture theater. It has the space, the fittings, the seating capacity and the convenient location. It is an attractive house from the street and more attractive in the interior. It is fitted with every appliance for the showing of pictures to the best advantage, and the management allows not the slightest defect to mar the presentation of the screen subjects.

But the most notable thing about the Diamond is the policy which was adopted at the start that no picture whatever should be shown to the patrons unless it had been screened for the management and secured his approval. This policy has been made the keynote of all oi the advertising matter of the theater and the people like it. Good pictures is the slogan of the house, and it matters not whether they are program releases or states rights subjects. Manager Chisholm is a showman. His long experience with dramatic companies and productions, his years of experience in theater management before the picture had gained the ascendancy. makes him a student of the psychology of the game.  He studies human nature.

The Diamond has a  seating capacity of 2,100; it is fitted with every appliance for the comfort and convenience of its patrons,. and it has already enlisted the support of a class of educational and professional people who have never heretofore been made to feel that the personal equation is as effective in the motion picture business as in any other one.

King of the Mardi Gras -- February 28, 2017

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone."King of the Mardi Gras" is a Fleischer Brothers-produced Popeye cartoon that has very little to do with Mardi Gras.  When Channel 44, KBHK used to play Popeye cartoons, we waited for the black and white cartoons from the Fleischer Brothers.  We didn't like the color cartoons from Paramount. 

Dorothy Dell 100 -- January 30, 2015

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Actress Dorothy Dell was born in New Orleans 100 years ago today, on 30-January-1915.  She appeared in a handful of movies before she died in an automobile crash on 08-June-1934 at the age of 19.  She is best remembered today for  appearing in an adaption of Damon Runyon's Little Miss Marker with Shirley Temple. 

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News of the Week for 30-January-1915 will appear in this blog tomorrow. 

New Southern Film Company -- January 4, 2015

Moving Picture World, 30-January-1915

New Southern Film Company

 

Rene Plaisetty, a Young French-American, Will Produce for the Pathés With Studios in New Orleans.

Rene Plaisetty, the young French-American who had left war-ridden Franch to engage in the production of films in the country, has just concluded a contract with Pathé Freres to make pictures for that company on American soil.  To be specific the pictures are to be produced in New Orleans.  Mr. Malitz, the vice-president of the Pathé firm, with who Mr. Plaisetty made his arrangements, believes that New Orleans, with its quaint old-world backgrounds, with its romantic history and its marvelous light facilities, is especially adapted for the production of good subjects either taken from the great past or the picturesque present. 

Mr. Plaisetty is a French-American in the sense that he is French in his quick perception of dramatic values and in his good taste, and he is American in his spirit of initiative and his ability to gauge and please the taste of the American public.  He had been quite successful  as a director in Paris, but had always longed for the wider fields of the new world, which he knew really better than the old.  The war disgusted him with conditions in Europe and he came to this country establishing himself quickly in New Orleans.  He started to build a studio which is now near completion.  This studio with its technical departments will be large and modern in every respect.  The studio is located in the very heart of a big natural park, peculiarly suited for use in film plays.  Every variety of Southern scenery can be found there, a succession of charming landscapes greet the eye in every direction -- it is in short a director's paradise. 

When Mr. Plaisetty was in New York, in the course of the past week, he called at the offices of The Moving Picture World and told of plans and prospects. 

"I will devote myself especially to American subjects," he said in the course of an interesting chat with a World man.  "The facilities for making good pictures in Louisiana are exceptional and it will be my earnest endeavor to make the best possible use of them.  I have secured a very charming and capable young lady for my leading woman.  She is Miss Leatrice Zeidler, a native of New Orleans, a woman of the genuine Southern type of beauty and I think highly gifted as an actress.  With the little experience she has had she has shown remarkable aptitude for the screen.  She has long been a social favorite in New Orleans and has frequently distinguished herself in private theatricals.  I believe that the demand for pictures made in America is growing all the time and I want to make chiefly American subjects.  Louisiana is surely not the least interesting and picturesque part of our country.  I believe that the field is full of splendid opportunities and all my ambitions are centered on making some valuable contributions to the supply of American quality pictures." 
Mr. Plaisetty returned to New Orleans after making his arrangement with the firm of Pathé and will soon be ready to announce his first release.  He calls his company the Nola Film Company. 

Saenger Theater -- September 6, 2014

We visited New Orleans in July, 2014.  I took this photo of the 1927 Saenger Theater on Canal Street.  It was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Financing difficulties delayed its restoration and reopening until 2013. 

It Ain't No Sin -- July 18, 2014

Film Daily, 06-June-1934.

We just got back from a wonderful vacation in New Orleans.  Mae West wrote a movie called It Ain't No Sin, which was set in New Orleans.  The newly enforced Production Code forced a change of title, to Belle of the Nineties and a reduction, but not elimination, of double entrendres. 

Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra played the house band at the Sensation House in New Orleans. 

Film Daily, 21-September-1934.