---
name: "Joseph Boudreaux"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/joseph-boudreaux"
fi1m_id: "joseph-boudreaux"
imdb_id: "nm0099220"
tmdb_id: 1060516
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "20 July 1933"
died: "26 September 2015"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-25T04:28:35.323046+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Joseph Boudreaux

## Identity

Joseph Boudreaux

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/joseph-boudreaux
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** joseph-boudreaux
- **IMDb ID:** nm0099220
- **TMDB ID:** 1060516
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0099220/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1060516

Actor. Born 20 July 1933 in Louisiana. Died 26 September 2015.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 20 July 1933, Louisiana
- **Died:** 26 September 2015
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0099220/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1060516

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Louisiana Story*](https://film.one/film/louisiana-story.md) (72)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Joseph Boudreaux

> Joseph Boudreaux gives *Louisiana Story* a boy whose curiosity makes the bayou worth watching closely. We value the unforced presence of this non-professional lead, while recognising how little room the film gives him to develop a character.

In *Louisiana Story* (1948), Joseph Boudreaux has a pirogue, a pet raccoon and plenty to look at. Playing The Boy, he gives Robert J. Flaherty a convincing reason to linger over the bayou and watch its daily activities. We were charmed by his curiosity, which makes the familiar business of fishing and travelling through these surroundings absorbing. The story is slight, but following a child through it gives the film enough purpose to hold our attention.

The casting matters: Boudreaux was a local Cajun youth rather than a professional actor, and Flaherty staged scenes around his existing skills. He looks occupied with familiar things, without having to signal their importance. Those practical activities give us something to watch in a performance with little dialogue to help establish who the boy is or what he thinks. This was his only screen role, and the pleasure lies in how comfortably he inhabits this particular place.

The limitations are visible, too: he sometimes smiles at the camera, letting us see the boy taking part in a production. Those moments are mildly distracting, though hardly a reason to dismiss him. More limiting is the sparse dialogue, which gives his relationships with the father and mother played by Lionel Le Blanc and E. Bienvenu little room to grow. We get a clearer sense of how he spends his days than of how this family lives together.

Richard Leacock’s photography and Virgil Thomson’s music do much to sustain our interest, and Boudreaux gives their work a human centre. The film becomes harder to accept when its friendly drilling workers seem to settle every question about the industry arriving in the bayou. Boudreaux’s curiosity suits that cheerful account, but the script seldom lets it lead to an awkward question. We can enjoy his presence without accepting the reassurance built around him. See *Louisiana Story* for his company in the bayou, with some caution about what the friendly adults are asking us to believe.

## Biography

Joseph Boudreaux was an American actor. A Louisiana native, he played the central role of the boy, credited simply as "The Boy", in Robert J. Flaherty's 1948 film *Louisiana Story*.

Boudreaux was a non-professional performer selected locally for the production. It remained his only screen credit. He later worked in the oil industry and as a telephone lineman.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, catalog.afi.com, imdb.com, grokipedia.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Louisiana Story* (1948), Fi1m 72, as The Boy — [page](https://film.one/film/louisiana-story.md)

## Complete filmography (1)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Louisiana Story* (1948), as The Boy — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/louisiana-story.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/joseph-boudreaux