In the United States, April 15 is the day your income taxes are due, which is conventionally celebrated with late-night trips to the post office and the frantic filing of extensions. In Canada, it’s National Canadian Film Day, which people celebrate by watching Canadian films at special public screenings. Which sounds like more fun to you?
My taxes safely filed, I’m celebrating the fun April 15 holiday by watching an oldie but goodie, Ted Kotcheff’s 1974 The Apprentice of Duddy Kravitz, with a screenplay by Mordecai Richler from his 1959 novel of the same name. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie that raises interesting philosophical questions about the pursuit of wealth and what it means to be part of a community, and offers a realistic view of poverty without the sickly-sweet layer of nostalgia characteristic of many Hollywood movies. Watching it is a real “no hugs, no lessons” experience and it beat Seinfeld to that approach by about two decades.
The story takes place in the Jewish community of Montreal, where the central character of Duddy (Richard Dreyfuss; “Duddy” is a nickname for David) was, as his tough guy father (Jack Warden) says, “born with a rusty spoon in his mouth.” Duddy has an older brother Lenny (Allen Rosenthal) who is the golden child of the family: he’s studying to be a doctor, bankrolled by his rich uncle Benjy (Joseph Wiseman). Duddy is close with his grandfather, Zaide (Zvee Scooler), who early on tells him early on that his father is nothing because he doesn’t own land, and the young man takes this piece of wisdom perhaps a bit too much to heart.
Duddy is a schemer but it’s hard to blame him—he lives in a world where the rich take advantage of the poor and being poor is no fun at all. Even the richest man Duddy knows, uncle Benjy, works long days managing a sweat shop, and working there (as does Duddy and several other characters) is even less glamorous. Dreaming of a bigger and better life, Duddy sets the goal of acquiring a piece of lakeside property that’s ripe for development. But he has two problem: he doesn’t have the money to buy it, and even if he did, the owner might refuse to sell it to a Jew. So he gets his girlfriend, a French Canadian named Yvette (Micheline Lanctôt), to front for him and sets about getting the money without too much concern for niceties like obeying the law.
Dreyfuss performs his character as if he’s about to burst with animal spirits, doing ten things at once and crashing through obstacles like a Weeble that may wobble but will never fall. His performance is actually a bit exhausting to watch, and I can understand why Dreyfuss disliked it (see below). He may also have worried that he was playing into a stereotype with his character’s single-minded pursuit of wealth, but that’s how Richler wrote the character and his performance is certainly memorable.
Besides its merits as a film, The Apprenticeship is interesting for its place in Canadian film history. Kotcheff and Richler were both Canadians, but many of the actors were Americans because the Canadian feature film industry was underdeveloped at the time. That was due to a decision made early in the history of film to not attempt to compete with the juggernaut that was Hollywood but to concentrate instead on animation and documentary, which became Canadian specialties. Surprising everyone, The Apprenticeship became a huge hit and won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival as well as Film of the Year in Canada.
Interestingly enough, The Apprenticeship was also responsible for Richard Dreyfuss playing Hooper in Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws, a role he had previously turned down. When Dreyfus saw the completed film of The Apprenticeship, he thought his performance was so bad it could end his film career; learning that the role of Hooper was still available, he accepted it, and the rest is history. | Sarah Boslaugh
