Themes: Success is the Best Revenge, Work Ethics, Rags To Riches
Main Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Micheline Lanctôt, Jack Warden, Randy Quaid, Joseph Wiseman
Release Year: 1974
Country: CA
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Richard Dreyfuss put himself on the map with his performance in this movie about how ambition and greed can drive someone at the expense of his own happiness. Duddy Kravitz (Dreyfuss) is an 18-year-old Jewish kid from Montreal whose mother is dead, and whose father drives a cab and does a little pimping on the side to pay the bills and send Duddy's older brother to medical school. Duddy has bigger dreams, and he does everything from producing films of bar mitzvahs to attempting to buy real estate to (unknowingly) smuggling heroin in order to strike it rich. Along the way, however, he alienates his girlfriend, drives his grandfather to despair, loses all his friends, and even paralyzes his best employee, while making himself more and more miserable. Duddy's desire to be a success is easy to understand, which makes this potentially unlikable character forgivable, and the film's gallery of details and characters adds realism and energy to the story. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Review
This 1974 film established Richard Dreyfuss as a comic star, and it contains his most compelling performance. Directed by Ted Kotcheff from a screenplay by Mordecai Richler based on his own semi-autobiographical novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz showcases Dreyfuss as a young Jewish man growing up in Montreal after World War II. Driven by a need to be "somebody," the hero stumbles into various get-rich-schemes that backfire. Instead of gaining the admiration he desires, he alienates everyone who is important in his life. Typical of the era's breed of films that center on the misadventures of an anti-hero, the film earned Richler an Oscar nomination for best screenplay and Dreyfuss many subsequent roles. Much of its strength comes from its richly detailed urban characters, portrayed by such stalwarts as Jack Warden, Denholm Elliott, and Randy Quaid. Independently made and shot in Canada in a realistic semi-documentary style, Kotcheff's film was a rare box-office success that temporarily revived a dormant Canadian film industry. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Reluctant army cadet Duddy Kravitz is a brash Jewish kid from Montreal who is determined to "make it", whatever "it" is, and whatever "it" takes. Taking to heart his grandfather's maxim that "a man without land is nothing", Kravitz schemes and dreams and hits on his idea: a lakeshore property in the Laurentian Mountains. To become successful, he often betrays the people who have loved and helped him. He finally gains the land he wants, but loses love and friendship.
Production
The film was actually Kotcheff's second adaptation of Richler's 1959 novel. In 1961, he had directed a television play for the BBC's Armchair Theatre based on "Kravitz", with Hugh Futcher in the title role. Richard Dreyfuss was initially horrified at his performance in the film, and fearing it would end his career, jumped at the role of Matt Hooper in Jaws.[1]
Duddy Kravitz has an important place in Canadian film history because it was the most commercially successful Canadian film ever made at the time of its release, and has thus been described as a 'coming of age' for Canadian cinema.[2] The film has been designated and preserved as a "masterwork" by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada, a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the preservation of Canada’s audio-visual heritage. [1]
