New Orleans

[Jeff Wilson]

Of marginal interest to Welles afficionados is the 1947 film NEW ORLEANS, directed by Arthur Lubin. The relation to Welles comes in Bret Wood's essay on the film's ancestry in Welles' "Story of Jazz" project, which was eventually dropped. The ties seems a little tenuous to me, but the essay includes a description of Welles' original script (though no definitive attribution can be assigned to the script), as well as a letter written to Welles by Louis Armstrong. Wood mentions that this letter was edited by Welles for some reason he was unaware of, but this purpose was to read the letter on the air on his Lear commentary show, for a November 1945 show on jazz. Wood also fails to mention the proposed jazz radio series for Armed Forces Radio, titled "Downbeat," that Welles was to host, but never ended up making.

The movie itself is pretty silly, showing us the hip white folks down with jazz while high society squares who don't get it try to rub it out. It's worth watching for the jazz, which includes several performers who appeared on Welles' radio shows, like Meade Lux Lewis, Kid Ory, and others. The disc is available from Kino. Thanks to mteal for tipping me off to this disc a while back...

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Jeff: Just caught up with your notice on NEW ORLEANS.

You and some of the others might like to look at a review of the film that I did back in February (under my aka Macresarf1), in which I go into additional connections with Welles.

http://www.epinions.com/content_91456573060

Thank you for this notice. The story of the film is quite a saga.

Glenn