The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974)

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is a 1974 Canadian Film based on a novel by Mordecai Richler. It was directed by Ted Kotcheff and starred Richard Dreyfuss and Randy Quaid. The film was financed in part by the Canadian Film Development Corporation.

Synopsis
Duddy Kravitz is a poor young Jewish man growing up in Montreal. He is coarse and brash and a bit of a outcast in his family. Duddy gets a job at a Jewish resort in the Laurentians, where his attitude puts off some of the customers. He begins a relationship with a waitress named Yvette. She takes him on a picnic one day, and Duddy is so enamored with the setting that he pledges to buy and develop the property.

In order to raise enough funds, he starts filming bar mitzvahs and weddings with an American director. Though he begins to make money, when a lot comes up for sale, he has not yet saved enough money. He asks his father to connect him with a gangster, who he then asks for a loan. He is given a loan, but also becomes a herion mule. Duddy becomes friends with a man named Virgil, whom he hires as a truck driver. Virgil has epilepsy, and he has a seizure while driving. He becomes permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Yvette leaves Duddy because of this, and takes care of Virgil. When the ganster finds out about Duddy's lake dream, he bids on the last piece of property Duddy needs. Duddy desperately forges a check with Virgil's signature.

Duddy invites his family up to see his property, and offers his grandfather a plot for his farm. However, Yvette informs him what Duddy did to get the land, and his grandfather refuses to join him.

Reception
The film originally cost about $910,000[citation needed] about half of which came from the Canadian Film Development Corporation. Duddy Kravitz was at the time of its release the most commercially successful Canadian film ever made. The film won as 'Film of the Year' at the Canadian Film Awards in 1974, in addition to winning the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. It was also nominated for an Academy Award (Writing Adapted Screenplay) and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

Critical Responses
Whereas Fothergill discusses the tendencies of male characters in Canadian cinema to represent 'losers', Kravitz is, if not entirely likeable, nonetheless a winner. As Melnyk states, 'the Duddy character may be an outsider, but he is integral to the North American urban environment'.

Legacy
Duddy Kravitz paved the way for Jewish characters in Canadian cinema. It continued the next year with Lies My Father Told Me, based on a script by Ted Allen about the Jewish district of Montreal.

The film has consistently made lists of the top ten Canadian films; in August of 1996, it was one of ten special postage stamps comissioned by the government to commemorate 100 years of film in Canada.