Louisiana Purchase (film)

Louisiana Purchase is a 1941 film adaptation of Irving Berlin's Broadway musical of the same name. A Paramount Pictures production, the film was directed by Irving Cummings, with Robert Emmett Dolan serving as musical director as he had done for the play. The film satirises the US Democratic Party and political corruption. The film was Bob Hope's first feature film in Technicolor. The title refers when the State of Louisiana offered to drop the deceasedHuey Long leader’s controversial Share Our Wealth program and fully support President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. In return, FDR promised federal dollars for public works in Louisiana, a deal cynically referred to by many as the second Louisiana Purchase.[2]

Louisiana Purchase
Theatrical release poster
Directed byIrving Cummings
Produced byHarold Wilson
Written byBuddy G. DeSylva
Morrie Ryskind
Jerome Chodorov
Joseph Fields
StarringBob Hope
Vera Zorina
Victor Moore
Irène Bordoni
Dona Drake
CinematographyHarry Hallenberger
Ray Rennahan
Edited byLeRoy Stone
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
December 25, 1941 (1941-12-25)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2,750,000 (US rentals)[1]

Starring Paramount's house comedian Bob Hope in the role William Gaxton played on stage, the film featured Vera Zorina, Victor Moore and Irène Bordoni reprising their stage roles. Raoul Pene Du Bois did the production and costume design and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color along with Stephen Seymour. The cinematography was by Harry Hallenberger and Ray Rennahan who also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.[3]

Plot

The film begins with a Hollywood legal adviser giving dictation to his secretary that the stage show property Louisiana Purchase is unfilmable, unless strong disclaimers are made that it is a total work of fiction. The next scene features a musical number declaring that information.

Louisiana State Representative Jim Taylor is told by his fellow partners of the Louisiana Purchase Company who have engaged in misusing Federal government funds for their own avarice that a Republican Federal Senator Oliver P. Loganberry is arriving in the State during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The Senator will conduct hearings to establish evidence of their corrupt conduct with Taylor's cronies deciding Taylor he will be the fall guy. Taylor has one chance to avoid imprisonment; lure the Republican Senator into a honey trap. Searching for a woman, Taylor's friend Madame Yvonne Bordelaise recommends the visiting European woman Marina Von Minden who is desperately seeking money to obtain a visa for her mother to leave Europe.

Marina initially goes along with the scheme and poses for incriminating photo when the Senator is tricked into getting drunk. She has a change of heart and decides to explain the photographs by saying the Senator Loganberry has proposed to her. Taylor has fallen in love with Marina and avoids the Senator making his charges in the Legislature by doing a filibuster for three days, with Taylor explaining that he has the express permission of James Stewart.

Cast

References
  1. "101 Pix Gross in Millions" Variety 6 Jan 1943 p 58
  2. https://64parishes.org/entry/new-deal-in-louisiana
  3. "NY Times: Louisiana Purchase". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-12-14.
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