IMDb RATING
6.5/10
2.3K
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The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 4 wins & 3 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaStandard Oil of New Jersey (became Exxon in 1972 and Exxon/Mobil in 1999) contributed $258,000 to the film's production. Although the company had no rights and no identification in the film, it stood "to get across the idea that oil companies are beneficently public-spirited, their employees honest, industrious and amiable, and their operations productive and innocuous." According to a modern source, Robert J. Flaherty's contract with Standard Oil insured that all of the film's profits went to him. The only connection was that Humble Derrick No. 1 is mentioned - and the Humble Oil Co. was 50% owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey at the time.
- GoofsIn the opening sequence, when The Boy first spots the raccoon, his hair is neat. Then it's mussed. Then it's neat again.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Studies for Louisiana Story (1965)
Featured review
Joseph Boudreaux is a Cajun boy living in the bayous. When a wildcat rig starts to drill near his home, he makes friends with the crew.
It's directed by pioneer documentarian Robert J. Flaherty. Flaherty for decades was considered the model documentarian. This was in large part because his NANOOK OF THE NORTH was wildly successful. Nowadays, the admiration has died down.He imposed story lines on his movies, and directed scenes to support them, as opposed to the modern ideal of shooting a tremendous amount of footage of things happening, and then editing the results to bring some sort of coherence to the resulting film. You can see his story-telling technique in the sequence where Boudreaux captures an alligator. In addition, the presence of the drillers is portrayed as completely benign, with no impact on the local wildlife. Modern understanding of global warming and the impact of oil spills and the Deepwater Horizon disaster makes this seem naive. However, Standard Oil underwrote this movie, just as NANOOK had been underwritten by furriers.
The resulting movie is a warm and idyllic one, with amusing details of Cajun superstition and the beauty of the local setting. Although not as informative as modern documentaries try to be, it's beautifully shot and well put together. Virgil Thomson won the Pulitzer Prize for best composition, the only time a movie score has achieved that distinction.
It's directed by pioneer documentarian Robert J. Flaherty. Flaherty for decades was considered the model documentarian. This was in large part because his NANOOK OF THE NORTH was wildly successful. Nowadays, the admiration has died down.He imposed story lines on his movies, and directed scenes to support them, as opposed to the modern ideal of shooting a tremendous amount of footage of things happening, and then editing the results to bring some sort of coherence to the resulting film. You can see his story-telling technique in the sequence where Boudreaux captures an alligator. In addition, the presence of the drillers is portrayed as completely benign, with no impact on the local wildlife. Modern understanding of global warming and the impact of oil spills and the Deepwater Horizon disaster makes this seem naive. However, Standard Oil underwrote this movie, just as NANOOK had been underwritten by furriers.
The resulting movie is a warm and idyllic one, with amusing details of Cajun superstition and the beauty of the local setting. Although not as informative as modern documentaries try to be, it's beautifully shot and well put together. Virgil Thomson won the Pulitzer Prize for best composition, the only time a movie score has achieved that distinction.
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Box office
- Budget
- $258,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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