New Orleans Carnival Week (1941)

★★★★★ · Love this film · mrmonstre · 2013-12-24

I've watched this piece many times. It's interesting to see how little things have changed. It appears to be shot primarily from grandstands at 607 St Charles(very near Gallier Hall) facing uptown(the park, Lafayette Hotel in background, and even the street lamp are still there). The crowd shots between parades appear to be taken a couple of blocks closer to canal street facing canal, probably in front of what is now the St Charles Hilton(formerly the Masonic Temple built in 1926) you can clearly see the Whitney National Bank headquarters in the background. The shots of what appears to be the…

★★★★★ · 1941 Mardi Gras in Technicolor · berberry · 2004-09-11

I suspect this is one of those experimental films the Technicolor Corporation made in '40 and '41 to test the then-new Monopac system. Monopac allowed 3-strip color cimematography using ordinary B&W cameras. I've seen footage of the '41 Rose Bowl parade and football game in Technicolor; maybe one day those films will make their way to this great archive. This is obviously Technicolor. No other film medium available in 1941 could have produced such rich, eye-melting colors as we see here, and nothing but a dye-transfer print (a hallmark of Technicolor films) could have held its color values as…

★★★★★ · Choctaw Club · aboklage · 2009-09-09

Visible in most of the film is the Choctaw Club, which means the vantage point of that part of the film was the corner of Poydra and St. Charles Ave. The Choctaw Club was home to New Orleans' "Old Regular" political organization, and was located at 518 St. Charles Ave. The building was in close proximity to City Hall (now Gallier Hall) underscored the power of the Democratic machine over the municipal government. The Choctaw Club building was demolished during the 1970s; the site is now occupied by the Best Western Parc St. Charles Hotel.