What's the best New Orleans based literature/movies?

ALL DISCLAIMERS IN PLACE: THE HUMAN LOSS OUTWEIGHS BY FAR THE MATERIAL LOSS OF KATRINA

That said, the cultural loss is incredible as well. Luckily, the Quarter itself still stands and will survive with damage.

I’ve been replaying all of my New Orleans stories in my mind (my parents honeymooned there, some of my earliest memories of vacation are from there, the first time I danced was there, my one and only orgy was there (I was in the Orgiast Reserves and never called to active duty), the only topless bars and pimps and leather fags and voodoo rites [not the touristy type but for the true orthodox practitioner] and Klansmen, etc., that I’ve ever encountered were there, it’s just incredible. And of course I’ve been reliving the literature set in New Orleans.

The two immediate ones that come to mind as the best of New Orleans based literature are probably the two obvious ones:

STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE- you can appreciate this play if you’ve never been to New Orleans in summer, but it has another level if you know how the heat and air literally hit you in the face when you walk outside and know the sound and smell and characters of the quarter.

CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES- THE New Orleans novel. It could not have been set anywhere else.

What are your favorite movies and novels and other works set in N.O.?

P.S.- No snobbery allowed in this thread. Cheesy movies, historical romance novels, anything counts.

Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer was my first thought.

ZOMBIE! VS. MARDI GRAS. Yeah, I know it’s been called ‘the worst film ever made’, but there are a couple of great N.O. ‘nuggets’ in it – like ‘Blue Dog’ being hit by a car, and idiots shooting guns in the air. Not to mention beads, blood and breasts, Galileo, and a pudgy ninja. Besides, I shot two scenes. :wink:

CUT UP. I worked on this one as well. Beautiful shot of the Huey P. Long bridge at the beginning, a nice cemetery, and I get killed on a levee. :smiley:

A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren. There was a movie, but I felt it lacked, you know, that Nelson Algren-ness.

Definitely Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. Also, strangely enough, lesser Anne Rice imitator Poppy Z. Brite’s novels deftly accomplish, if nothing else, portraying a very loving and magical view of New Orleans.

My favorite book on the city’s history and culture is Fabulous New Orleans by Lyle Saxon, first published in 1928.

I mourn the potential loss of music history. Louis Armstrong to Louis Prima to 9th Ward Hip Hop.

That’s a “Duh!” Camp and NO went together like red beans and rice.

Note the use of the past tense. Mark my words, New New Orleans will be built by Disney.

Dean Koontz new Frankenstein series takes place in New Orleans. Of course, it could easily be any other city, but he does seem to accuratly protray it, in terms of how people lived down there and what have you. At least, I think he got it right, having never been there myself.

There’s an 80’s movie called “AngelHeart” that I always liked. Most of it took place in New Orleans.

And let’s not forget “Gaberial Knight:Sins of the Fathers”. I’ll never be able to look at Rada drummers without thinking about that game.

For a good movie, there’s Panic In The Streets which was shot almost entirely on location in New Orleans.

For a cheesefest, Live and Let Die should suffice.

Here’s a list of other films shot in New Orleans.

I came in specifically to mention Angel Heart, a great horror-noir film starring Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro, and Lisa Bonet. Also two of the three great jazzmen named Louis hailed from the Crescent City, one black and one white: Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima. More recently, the entire Marsalis clan, first family of jazz, and the great Harry Connick, Jr. call N’awlins home. Celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse (born in Massachusetts), Paul Prudhomme, and the late Justin Wilson (I gar-ron-tee!) are all from there as well, and helped bring Cajun and Creole food to the mainstream.

I know the guy who wrote Pedestrian Wolves, a story about a hedonistic romp through New Orleans. The writing style takes some getting used to, but it’s an over all good book.

a confederacy of dunces

Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice

James Lee Bourke has written a slew of books set in Cajun country and in NO featuring Dave Roubechoix (sp?). Dave is an recovering alcoholic detective washed up from NO and back at his family home nearby.

These are all pretty good reads and the area covered was hit hard.

BTW, some of the books mention earlier hurricanes that had ripped through the area in IIRC the 1950’s

If you count TV shows, there was Bourbon Street Beat, one of four 50’s Warner Brothers mystery shows set in “exotic” American cities. The others were “Hawaiian Eye” (Honolulu), “77 Sunset Strip” (LA) and “Surfside Six” (Miami Beach).

The Big Easy

Remember Scarlett and Rhett’s New Orleans honeymoon. And how Rhett was always going to New Orleans to visit the young boy that was his “ward” and went to school there (what an incredible coincidence that prostitute Belle Watling had a son who also went to school in New Orleans snickersnicker*).

One of my favorite mystery series is set in New Orleans. I seem to be able to mention this about a million times a year on the SDMB, in threads like “What is your favorite mystery book?” or “What is your favorite historical fiction book?” so far be it from me to pass up another opportunity to plug it – anyway, it’s Barbara Hambly’s series featuring Benjamin January, who is a free person of color in New Orleans in the early 19th century. The books do a great job of setting the time and place, and there’s tons of fascinating details about N.O. customs and society. The first book in the series is called A Free Man of Color.

Frances Parkinson Keyes wrote a whole bunch of novels set in New Orleans, although nearly everything is out of print these days. They’re mostly society plays, very prim, very mannered, but intriguing in their attention to detail. Dinner At Antoine’s is probably her best known book.