Louisiana Movies

                                                                    Part 2

    Here’s another batch of good movies featuring the Pelican State, Louisiana.

    The Man In The Moon (1991) is a good story of families and love in rural Louisiana. It features the debut performance of Reese Witherspoon, appearing as 14-year-old Dani. She falls hopelessly in love with Court, a 17-year-old who has moved to the farm next door. The film features various pairings and splits among the members of the two families. The locations are sumptuous Louisiana country. 

    Steel Magnolias  is such a good story that it has been made into a movie twice (1989 and 2012) and is the beloved staple of theater groups everywhere. The earlier version is hard to beat with Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, Julia Roberts and Shirley Maclaine. In a small Louisiana town, the local women gather at Truvy’s beauty parlor and share their lives and their secrets with each other. The later movie features an all black cast, including Queen Latifah and Alfre Woodard. The story is slightly different, but still features women friends in a Louisiana setting.

    Band of Angels (1957) is an extremely complicated film that starts out in Kentucky but lands for the most part in Louisiana. Yvonne DeCarlo portrays Amantha, who discovers to her dismay that she has a black ancestor and is now considered a slave. Clark Gable plays Hamish Bond a “good guy” plantation and slave owner who rescues her from the slave auction. Sidney Poitier plays a slave of Hamish. He likes him because he’s well treated but hates him because he’s still a slave.

    Robert Duvall wrote, directed and starred in The Apostle (1957) about an itenrerant preacher, Sonny, who flees after killing his wife’s young lover and winds up in the bayous of Louisiana. There he starts a new church which steadily grows until somebody spots him and calls the cops. They allow him to finish his final sermon and he tells his flock he “has to go”. Indeed. Duvall won the Oscar for his role. 

    Finally, there is A Gathering Of Old Men (1987) which started life as a TV movie. A white racist is killed by a black man on a Louisiana plantation owned by Candy Marshall (Holly Hunter). To confuse the police, a group of old black men step forward one at a time to claim credit for the killing. Candy takes a stand in support of the group and the cops don’t quite know what to make of all this. The setting is classic steamy Louisiana.

    Other films with a Louisiana connection include The Pelican Brief (1993), 12 Years A Slave (2013) and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). 

    All of the movies in this article are for grown ups. Most of them are available for streaming somewhere.