O Carnaval da Vida

Although Lady from Louisiana isn't the greatest movie in the world, and it isn't even the greatest movie set in New Orleans, it's worth watching for Helen Westley. A veteran character actress, she got to enjoy a vast range throughout her career, but I'm willing to bet she never had more fun than in this period piece. Can you imagine her going undercover, bringing her knife to infiltrate the enemy, pretending to be a young Southern belle and flirting with a nightwatchman in order to steal a set of keys from his trouser pocket? I couldn't either, unless I'd seen this movie. I'm so happy for her that she got to enjoy such a fun role.

This mediocre flick is also worth watching if you want to see John Wayne without his horse. It's a period drama in which he plays a young, idealistic lawyer, determined to weed out the corruption in New Orleans. Good luck, Duke. Politics is a very tough racket to clean up, and when the citizens and powerful men are on the same side, he has an uphill battle. The problem is the lottery: the powerful men set up a "charitable" lottery for the common men, but whoever wins ends up being whisked away to the French Quarter and robbed - and sometimes killed. Can Duke get anyone to testify against the bad guys, or are they all too scared? Add in the terrible complication that Duke is in love with the head bad guy's daughter, Ona Munson, and you wonder how they will ever patch up their differences.

Or... if they even should. For me, I wasn't rooting for them to get back together. Oona was a pretty rotten person, and even though Duke had the cutest opening line to a movie I think I've ever seen (after breaking a lengthy kiss, he asks, "What's your name?"), I thought he could do better.

Lady from Louisiana took a surprising turn towards relevancy when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. Too bad the levees couldn't have been repaired in the way they were, at least temporarily as was done in Lady from Louisiana.

There was actually a lottery in Louisiana that was started by the carpetbagger Republican government, post Civil War and continued on into the Gay Nineties when this film is set. And there was a great deal of corruption associated with it. But it was more white collar crime than the extortion racket we see operating here.

In this film John Wayne through the good lobbying of Helen Westley and her good government people gets himself appointed a city attorney to prosecute the Lottery and those connected with it. Not so easy in a city like New Orleans known for its tradition of genteel corruption.

But even more because the Lottery in fact did do some good, financing all kinds of charitable institutions. Plus the fact it was the leading source of revenue for the Louisiana state government in those days before income tax. It was supposed to finance the upkeep of the levees, but that's the part of the story that makes Lady from Louisiana oh so relevant now.

In that tradition of genteel corruption when the stealing gets too out of hand one deals with the problem in house. Which was what Henry Stephenson tried to do with Ray Middleton. Unfortunately Middleton dealt with Stephenson first.

Henry Stephenson has always been one of my favorite character actors. On screen he always played the perfect English gentleman. Though he tries to affect a French creole accent for his part as General Mirabeau and not always successfully, he's a pleasure to watch and even more of one to listen to. His part is based on real life former Confederate General Pierre Beauregard who was associated with the Louisiana Lottery in real life.

Stephenson's daughter is played by Ona Munson. This part and that of Belle Watling in Gone With the Wind are her two best remembered roles. She pairs off with John Wayne nicely, too bad she didn't do more films with him in particular or just in general.

Dorothy Dandridge has a small role here as Munson's maid. Ironically both she and Munson died young and by their own hand. Not a hint here of what Ms. Dandridge would prove capable of.

That climax involving a flash flood and the breakdown of the levees is quite melodramatic, but effective. New Orleans has had a board in place to oversee updating and repair of the levees. Too often it became a sinecure for political hacks as the results of Katrina showed in 2005. That part of the Katrina story has never been reported enough.

The Duke and Munson make a great pair of lovers/rivals and Lady from Louisiana though melodramatic in spots is still entertaining and quite relevant today.

When this story begins, Julie (One Munson) and John Reynolds (John Wayne) meet and fall for each other when he arrives in New Orleans. Little do either realize that they are both destined to be on the opposite side. It seems that Julie's father, the General (Henry Stephenson), is head of the lottery and the new Anti-Lottery League has brought in John to clean up this racket.

While John thinks the General is his big problem, the General isn't that bad a guy. But neither realize just how low and dangerous the General's assistant, Blackie (Ray Middleton) is. When the General starts to suspect, the General is murdered...and Blackie encourages his lottery ticket salesmen to use ANY tactic to get tickets sold. It essentially becomes a shakedown racket...and folks pay protection by buying tickets...or else.

Can the nice guy John manage to clean up this den of thieves? And what about Julie? After all, she is foolish enough to blame John for the death of her father!

The style of this film is very similar to Wayne's other films in this time period. Since he's becoming more of a star, the budgets and look of the films have gotten much better than his cheap B- westerns of the 1930s. But despite looking much better and having a spectacular finale in this film, the Republic films are essentially B-movies with longer running times and bigger budgets. There were exceptions at this time (such as the films he did with John Ford, such as "Stagecoach") but this film fits in style-wise with Wayne's "Seven Sinners", "Dark Command" and "In Old California"...rather formulaic but enjoyable. My only quibble is that the baddie is named 'Blackie'...and yet no one seems to suspect him of villainy through most of the film!!

Bound for New Orleans, young attorney John Reynolds falls in love with Julie, a high-spirited southern belle. But their Mardi Gras romance is ill-fated, for his mission is to end the town lottery, run by General Mirbeau, Julie's beloved father, and when he decides to see Reynold's way and when he learns of his employee's (Blackie) duplicitous dealing, he gets killed, shot by Blackie's right hand man.

The Lady from Louisiana sounds like a western, but it isn't - it's set in circa 1890's New Orleans, and the location, costumes and extravagant period detail is sharp as is the dialogue and the plot. Don't expect too much action, just a solid story with some melodrama. The subject matter about lottery is interesting and fairly relevant. John Wayne and Ona Munson have a good chemistry.

It's the 1890s, and Northern lawyer John Reynolds (John Wayne) is traveling south to New Orleans via riverboat to meet with his elderly aunt Blanche (Helen Westley). On the boat, John meets Julie Mirbeau (Ona Munson), and the two fall in love. When they reach New Orleans, John learns that his aunt wants him to help head up legal efforts to stop the corrupt State Lottery, which just so happens to be run by Julie's father General Anatole (Henry Stephenson). However, the real force behind the corruption is the General's right-hand man Black-ie (Ray Middleton).

Republic attempts to make a MGM-caliber costumer with less than thrilling results. The sets and costumes are well done, but the story is dull, barely coherent, and predicated on just a few too many coincidences and failures of communication. There's some disaster-movie action near the end with the failure of levees and flooding. I don't know if Wayne enjoyed making a movie where he wasn't on a horse for a change, but he seems ill-suited for this one. Some sources label this movie a Western, but it in no way is, unless one thinks any movie set in the 19th century is a Western.