"The Big Easy" takes a starring role

Sitting near the New Orleans streetcar line aboard a van equipped with video screens and a speaker system, tourists watch actress Vivien Leigh ride the city's vintage electric rail vehicles in a scene from the 1951 film "A Streetcar Named Desire." In the French Quarter, passengers look on as Bruce Willis escapes attackers outside a praline shop in the 2010 film "Red." They also watch a young Kirsten Dunst bite into a woman's neck in Jackson Square in one of her early roles as a child vampire in 1994's "Interview With a Vampire."

A new multimedia tour being offered in New Orleans takes passengers to locations where famous movie scenes were filmed and shows them a clip from the film on site.

"It really is a different way to see the city," said Debbie Carroll, a movie buff from Springfield, Mo. "I love movies, so I was excited to take this tour, but I also like that I got to see parts of the city I had never seen before."

ABOUT THE TOUR

Besides the tourist-heavy French Quarter, there are stops in Treme and the Faubourg Marigny. Clips from those neighborhoods include an action-packed fight sequence with Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1993's "Hard Target" and scenes from 2004's "Ray" about the life of singer Ray Charles.

The HBO television series "Treme," which films in both the Treme and Faubourg Marigny, is in the tour. Altogether, it's about two hours long, and is packed with location stops and clips from roughly 30 films shot here, among them 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," starring Brad Pitt, and 1958's "King Creole," starring Elvis Presley.

Since Louisiana film tax credits were introduced in 2002, movie production hubs have popped up in cities across the state.

"If there's something filming, we try to include it on the tour, so the tour can change slightly from day to day," says tour co-creator Jonathan Ray.

IF YOU GO

WHATNew Orleans Movie Tours

WHEN | WHERE10 a.m. and 1 p.m. daily

INFO 800-979-3370, nolamovies.com

COST $39 ($29 ages 4-12)