The 1974 Movie "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz"

The Canadian movie The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was released in 1974. The movie was adapted from a 1959 novel written by a Jewish novelist named Mordecai Richler. The movie portrays a young secular-Jewish man who works as a waiter in a summer resort that serves mostly Jewish guests.

The movie enjoyed some critical praise. It was nominated for the Academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film. The movie did win the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium.

In 1973, Eleanor Bergstein published her first novel, Advancing Paul Newman, which I have discussed in previous posts. Bergstein's novel was read by a young producer, Claudia Weill, who liked it so much that she tried relentlessly during the following four years to convince Bergstein to write a screenplay for her. Eventually Bergstein agreed and wrote the screenplay for Weill's movie It's My Turn, which was released in 1978.

During the mid-1970s, therefore, when novelist Bergstein was thinking about becoming a screenwriter, the adaptation of Richler's novel into a successful 1974 movie probably interested both Bergstein and Weil. Their interest would have been heightened by the fact that Richler's story takes place within a secular Jewish family. Both Bergstein and Weil were secular Jews, and their movie It's My Turn takes place within a secular Jewish family.

The 1974 movie Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz enjoyed such continuing interest that it was adapted into a stage musical, which premiered in 1984.

In that same year, 1984, Bergstein was trying to develop a story for her second movie. In a previous post, My Speculation About the Construction of the Story, I argued that Bergstein constructed her story through the following stages:

The movie will revolve around sexy dancing.

The movie will be about two women -- a professional dancer and an amateur dancer.

The professional dancer gets an abortion.

The movie will portray the consequences of laws that prohibit abortion.

The story will take place before 1973.

The two women will be Penny Johnson and Vivian Pressman.

Penny became pregnant from a non-dancer.

The story will take place at a Catskill resort.

The Houseman family enters the story.

I figured that Bergstein reached the penultimate stage -- The story will take place at a Catskill resort -- in about late 1984 or early 1985. In the summer of 1985 she traveled to the Catskills to interview employees of Jewish resorts. Perhaps the news that Richler's Apprenticeship story had been adapted into a 1984 musical prompted Bergstein to begin thinking that her own new story should take place at a Jewish resort.

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Several elements of Richler's Apprenticeship story resonate with Bergstein's Dirty Dancing story.

The main character, Duddy Kravitz, feels intellectually and socially inferior to his brother, who is a medical student.

Instead of going to college, Duddy aspires to make his living as an entrepreneur.

Duddy works as a waiter in a summer resort where most of the guests are Jews.

Another waiter is a condescending college student and becomes Duddy's enemy.

Duddy, who is Jewish, becomes romantically involved with a Gentile young woman.

Many of the movie's events take place near a lake.

An important subplot involves gambling at the resort.

You can read a sequential and detailed summary of the movie's plot in the Wikipedia article about the movie.

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The movie's main character Duddy was played by Richard Dreyfuss, who subsequently was nominated for the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor. Another character was played by the then young actor Randy Quaid.

The following video shows the movie's trailer.

The following clip shows Duddy talking with his Jewish uncle (who owns a garment factory) and with his Jewish grandfather.

You can watch the entire movie on YouTube.

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The following video shows an advertisement for a recent version of the stage musical.