Old Louisiana (1937)
The Louisiana Purchase is imminent and Gilmore is smuggling guns into St. Louis so his men can make him Governor of the new Louisiana Territory. But John Colfax fights to defeat Gilmore.
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Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
Masterful Movie
Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
B movie western actor Tom Keene stars in this poverty row costume drama of the American frontier as it was during the Thomas Jefferson administration. He's on a mission first to and then from our third president who has one big real estate deal cooking with Napoleon Bonaparte. Basically Allan Cavan as Jefferson doesn't want any boats rocked while he's negotiating.But some frontier elements are doing just that and some rather ambitious fur trappers are looking to maybe displace the current Spanish administration and maybe set their own country up. That won't sit well with either Washington, DC or the Spaniards that Napoleon left in charge. Getting kind of lost in the intrigue is the budding romance between Keene and the Spanish governor's daughter played by future movie queen legend Rita Hayworth.It's a poverty row product with inferior values and even worse acting. If it weren't for Rita Hayworth no one would remember this item.
Despite a decent story idea and an interesting historical setting, "Old Louisiana" is still a largely routine movie. It is interesting to see Rita Hayworth in one of her pre-stardom roles, but she does not really get that much to do, as her character is really just forced into the plot.The story is set in Louisiana before the Louisiana Purchase, and has Tom Keene going up against a group that is trying to exploit the political situation for their own ends. Keene is generally believable enough, but he doesn't have quite the screen presence to be able to carry things through the slow stretches. The story itself is quite predictable, and it needed something extra to give it some life, but the overall production is not good enough to make it more than mediocre.
Louisiana is about to be purchased by Thomas Jefferson. John Colfax, realizing there is going to be trouble because of higher taxes, goes to speak with the president. Coming back, he falls in love with Rita Hayworth, whom he meets on the boat. She is the governor's daughter. In the meantime Gilmore from the fur company is doing everything he can to get the power to rule the state. This one hour film is very entertaining.