The Silent Life of Louis Armstrong on big screen

Two different movies featuring the life of jazz legend Louis Armstrong – one silent and one more traditional biopic – are to hit the big screen in America.

“Louis” is a 68-minute non-talkie from first-time director Dan Pritzker. The hotel heir – and America’s 246th richest man – funded and produced the movie, which he plans to premiere in 2010.

The picture focuses on Armstrong’s childhood in New Orleans, reconstructing the spirit of the early 20th century and the film-making tradition of the time. Dialogue cards, which went out of use in the 1920s, spice up the picture. The sound, at showings in six U.S. cities, comes from jazzman Winston Marsalis and his trumpet.

Dan Pritzker is also involved in the production of another biopic – this time of Buddy Bolden, a horn player, who could have been a legendary jazzman, but was consumed by insanity before any of his music was recorded.