Canadian Must-Sees: The Apprencticeship of Duddy Kravitz

Ted Kotcheff’s adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s CanLit classic brought a hint of Hollywood to the wilderness of Canadian cinema, blazing a trail for the next generation of storytellers looking to bring a slightly different eye to the Canadian experience

THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974)

4/5

Directed by: Ted Kotcheff

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Micheline Lanctôt, Denholm Elliot, Jack Warden, Randy Quaid, Joe Silver.

Running time: 121 minutes

One of the first movies I can remember that actually showed me where I lived, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz somehow legitimized the Canadian experience to Canadians — and somewhat ironically, made a bona fide star out of its American lead in the process.

Richard Dreyfuss plays Duddy Kravitz, a character born from the imagination of the late, Montreal-based shit-disturber, Mordecai Richler. Duddy is part weasel, part brass-balled hero, which means we have a love-hate relationship with him throughout the film. We want him to “do the right thing,” but as a member of an oppressed minority, Duddy’s idea of the “right thing” doesn’t always mesh with that of the WASPy mainstream.

When we first meet Duddy, he’s a wide-eyed teenager living in Montreal’s Jewish ghetto in the ‘40s. His mother is dead, leaving Duddy to define himself in opposition to his underachieving father (Warden), a taxi driver with small dreams. Duddy has big dreams: he wants to be a somebody, and following the advice of his grandfather — who works the postage-stamp-sized plot of dirt in his backyard — he focuses his life on becoming a big-time landowner.

While working as a waiter at a Laurentian resort, he meets Yvette (Lanctôt — who married Kotcheff before she turned her own talents to directing) and the two opposites enter a romantic relationship. With all this added pressure on Duddy’s masculine identity, he looks for shortcuts to financial success. He turns to filmmaking, recording weddings and bar mitzvahs, and eventually falls in with a two-bit gangster named Dingleman. Duddy becomes a drug smuggler, a pinball king and a scam artist — but we still like him because he’s so focused on his dream. It’s when he takes advantage of a young epileptic that he falls out of favor, not just with the audience, but his sweetie Yvette.

A Canadian film in an American mould, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was hailed as a milestone in Canadian film by outsiders — winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — but once again, half-heartedly embraced by Canadian critics who felt the film was either too Canadian, or not Canadian enough. Kvetsch. Kvetsch. It’s not a brilliant movie and it’s not as good as the book, either, but it’s a solid piece of film-making with some standout performances, some good scenes, astounding Laurentian scenery and best of all — a real Canadian story.

– Katherine Monk

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