Romance of Louisiana (1937)

This 1937 Vitaphone short was reissued in 1953 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, American President Thomas Jefferson appointed James Monroe to ... See full summary »

Director:

Crane Wilbur

Writer:

Crane Wilbur

Stars:

Addison Richards, Erville Alderson, Suzanne Kaaren

Cast

Cast overview:
Addison Richards	...	James Monroe / Radio Actor in Studio
Erville Alderson	...	Radio Broadcaster / Thomas Jefferson
Suzanne Kaaren	...	Empress Josephine
Ian Wolfe	...	Tallyrand (as Ien Wulf)
Alphonse Ethier	...	Marbaugh
Ted Osborne	...	Ross of Pennsyvania (as Theodore Osborne)

Storyline

This 1937 Vitaphone short was reissued in 1953 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, American President Thomas Jefferson appointed James Monroe to negotiate with Napoleon to acquire the Louisiana territory from France. England's King George urges the United State's to take the territory by force as France is selling the territory only to get more money to fight against England. Napoleon learns of this and promptly sells the territory for $15,000,000 in an early example of a distress sale.

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Plot Keywords:

napoleon | louisiana | england | france | american | 

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Genres:

Short | Drama | History

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 March 1937 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Vitaphone Corporation, The, Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

18 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Vitaphone production reels #8304-8305.

User Reviews

dull as dirt history lesson

This short tells the story of the Louisiana Purchase. And, while it gets most of the facts essentially correct, the short film fails on two major levels. First, little, if any, effort was made to have the actors look like the actual personalities--Monroe, Jefferson, et al look shockingly little like the originals. They didn't even get the hair right! Second, and this is most unforgivable, it is pretty dull and difficult to watch. I am an American History teacher and I had a hard time watching it--imagine how tough it would be to get kids to watch it! Why does a historical re-creation have to be THIS uninteresting? I am not proposing cute kids or dogs to spice it up, but come on folks--this IS really tough viewing.