Old New Orleans

This film short was shown on the TCM network as a filler, right after the 1947 movie "New Orleans" featuring Satchmo Armstrong and his band.

Even though it was made in 1940, it was filmed in glorious color. It takes a quick look at a number of famous New Orleans features, the ones I first saw in the 1950s as a young boy. It first looks at Jackson Square, the Cabildo, and Pitate's Alley, discussing the history of each. Pirate's Alley is especially memorable for me, because in the early 1980s a 5-mile weekend fun run ended in Pirate's Alley.

The film also looks at the French Market, at that time mostly unchanged over the years. When I was a young boy in the 1950s, my dad and I would go to the French Market and buy fresh produce to sell in our store almost 200 miles away. Today the French Market has been converted to cheap curio booths, and has lost most of its old charm.

Cafe Du Monde, at the end south of French Market, is still there today, not too different. We always go there for coffee and Beignets.

Quite a bit of the film's short running time is spent on famous New Orleans restaurants like Antoine's and Broussard's, which were still quite popular into the 1990s. Also the Court Of Two Sisters.

Fine scenes of City Park and the Dueling Oaks are shown, as well as St Louis cemetery and the history of the above ground burial customs. The film ends with the steamboats on the Mississippi River, still a symbol of New Orleans. One can still, in the 21st century, book boat trips up river.