On Louisiana's Cajun Coast, moody bayous, moss-draped cypress trees, and preserved 19th-century buildings make it easy to imagine that you're in a movie. It's the area that stretches from the cities of Houma to Lafayette, encompassing the Atchafalaya Basin, America's largest swamp and a paradise for wildlife lovers, and some of Louisiana's best-kept Cajun-influenced secrets, like the Gulf Coast fishing town of Delcambre. Dozens of locations along this portion of the Louisiana coastline have served as backdrops
to classic films and indie treasures alike. You can get the best of the region's cultural and culinary highlights by plotting a self-guided road trip through the key filming locations of the Cajun Coast. Contained within about 100 miles along the coast, it's convenient to spend a day or a weekend stopping at stand-out movie spots.
The film trail begins in the bayou outpost of Stephenville, a quiet neighborhood of Morgan City. It's about a 1.5-hour drive from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. You can get to the first stop, the now-closed Bailey T-Man store, in about a 30-minute drive from downtown Morgan City. The store and its surrounding waterways were used for the filming of 2006's "Déjà Vu" starring Denzel Washington — the original store was actually exploded for the movie. It's an isolated location, but one that puts you right in the heart of some of the Cajun Coast's most incredible scenery. Among the winding bayous and marshland vegetation, you can see how the landscape is a ready-made, dramatic film set.
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The Movie Legacy Of Morgan City And Its Marshes
If you drive along Four Mile Bayou Road from the old store, the swampland all around this area has served as a backdrop for a few other films. Most notably, it was supposed to represent the African jungle for the original adaptation of "Tarzan of the Apes," a 1917 silent film with Elmo Lincoln in the titular role. The film and its deliberate location were a big step in cinema history: "It was the first feature film to be made on location instead of in Hollywood," said Al Bohl, who made a documentary about the film, in Country Roads Magazine.
After getting an initial sampling of the cinematic swamps of the Cajun Coast, drive along Highway 70 towards the center of Morgan City. Around Doiron's Landing, a nondescript convenience store, the marshes set the scene in the film "All the King's Men" (2006) and the miniseries "The Fire Next Time" (1993). Both also filmed around downtown Morgan City. Head to Railroad Avenue within the city's historic district, which was styled as the 1940s for "All the King's Men" and was the site of a flood in "The Fire Next Time." Walk around the wharf by Berwick Bay and picture yourself in 1953's adventurous "Thunder Bay" or 2008's Oscar award-winning "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," both of which were filmed here.
More Film Spots From Berwick To Baldwin
From Morgan City, cross the Route 182 bridge over the Atchafalaya River to Berwick. The bridge is a memorable setting from the 1969 movie "Easy Rider," in which two bikers heading to New Orleans ride over it, passing from Berwick to Morgan City. Another road trip movie through Louisiana, 2008's "The Yellow Handkerchief," was filmed around Berwick's docks and downtown.
Drive about 25 minutes from Berwick to Franklin, and stop at Oaklawn Manor, used as a filming backdrop for "The Drowning Pool" starring Paul Newman in 1975. The plantation house is beautifully preserved from the 1830s and is a museum with ticketed admission today. For horror lovers, 1974's low-budget "Nightmare Honeymoon" was also filmed around Franklin, and "Easy Rider" was filmed on Franklin's West Main Street. Close out the film trail by driving seven minutes further north along Bayou Teche to Baldwin. The 2011 documentary "Make" was partly filmed here, as was a speech scene from "All the King's Men," which took place at the Baldwin Baptist Church. If you want to extend your trip to see the shore, you can drive 30 minutes from Baldwin to reach Cypremort Point State Park, with its pristine beach and boardwalk.
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