The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  “You won’t like it. It’s what we call avant-garde.”

  “Watch it,” Mr. Cohen said. “This is where he begins to lie. Right before your eyes the price is going up.”

  Duddy smiled at Mrs. Cohen. “I suppose what you expected was an ordinary movie with shots of all the relatives and friends… well, you know what I mean. But Mr. Friar is an artist. His creation is something else entirely.”

  “Can’t we see it, Maw?”

  “Aren’t you taking a lot for granted, young man? Don’t you think my husband and I can appreciate artistic quality when we see it?”

  “Don’t fall into his trap,” Mr. Cohen said.

  Duddy turned to Mr. Cohen. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said. He told him that Mr. Friar had been a big director, but he had had to leave Hollywood because of the witchhunt. That was the only reason why he was in Montreal fiddling with small films. He wanted to make his name and get in on the ground floor of the Canadian film industry, so to speak. Turning to Mrs. Cohen, he added, “Please don’t repeat this, but if not for Senator McCarthy I wouldn’t have been able to hire a man as big as Friar for less than five thousand dollars. Not that he isn’t costing me plenty as it is.”

  Mr. Cohen started to say something, but his wife glared at him. She smiled at Duddy. “But why can’t we see the movie? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s different. It’s shocking.”

  “Oh, really now!”

  “Mr. Friar has produced a small screen gem in the tradition of Citizen Kane Franju’s Sang des Bêtes.”

  “How can we cancel all the invitations at this late date? We insist on seeing it.”

  Duddy hesitated. He stared reflectively at the floor. “All right,” he said, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you first.”

  Mr. Cohen laughed. “Don’t believe a word he says, Gertie. It’s good. It must be very good. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here talking it down. But listen here, Kravitz, not a penny more than I promised. Wow! What a liar!”

  Duddy gulped down his plum brandy. “I’m not selling,” he said. “That’s something else. You can see it, but… “

  “Hey,” Mr. Cohen said, “hey there. Are you getting tough with an old friend?”

  “I want it, Daddy. I want the movie! Gee whiz, Maw.”

  “You outsmarted yourself, Mr. Cohen. You wouldn’t give me an advance or put anything in writing.”

  “Sam, what’s the boy saying?”

  “You gave me your word, Kravitz. A gentleman doesn’t go back on his word.”

  Bernie began to cry.

  “You can’t blame him, Mrs. Cohen. He didn’t want to take too big a chance on a young boy just starting out.”

  “All right,” Mr. Cohen said hoarsely, “just how much do you want for the film?”

  “Money isn’t the question.”

  “Such a liar! My God, never in my life — Will you stop crying, please. Take him out of here, Gertie.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Well, Kravitz, I’m waiting to hear your price. Gangster!”

  Duddy hesitated.

  “Please,” Mrs. Cohen said.

  “I can’t sell outright. I’d still want to enter it in the festival.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Cohen said warmly.

  “We can’t talk here,” Mr. Cohen said. “Come up to my bedroom.”

  But Duddy wouldn’t budge. “For fifteen hundred dollars,” he said, “I’ll give you an excellent color print. But you’d have to sign away all rights to a percentage of the profits on Canadian theater distribution.”

  “What’s that? Come again, please?”

  “We’re going to distribute it as a short to Canadian theaters.”

  “Gee whiz.”

  “For twenty-five hundred dollars in all I’ll make you a silent partner. I’d cut you in for twenty per cent of the net theater profits. My lawyers could draw up the agreement. But remember, it’s a gamble. This is an art film, not one of those crassly commercial items.”

  “Would my husband’s name appear anywhere?”

  “We could list him in the credits as a co-producer with Dudley Kane Enterprises.”

  Mr. Cohen smiled for the first time. “A boy from the boys,” he said, “that’s what you are.”

  “Maybe you’d like to think it over first.”

  “Moe.”

  “All right. O.K., I’ll write him a check right now.” Mr. Cohen looked at Duddy and laughed. “Look at him. He’s shaking.”

  After Duddy had left with the check Mr. Cohen said, “I could have got it for less if you and Bernie hadn’t been here.”

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  “Because yesterday I spoke to Dave in Toronto. He’s with Columbia of Canada now and he told me a screen short is worth up to twenty thousand dollars. I could have got it for less, it’s true, but in the end it still won’t have cost me a cent for the color print. And think of the publicity. It must be terrific, you know. Otherwise he wouldn’t have talked it down like that. He’s still got a lot to learn, that boy.”

  Duddy met Yvette at a quarter to ten the next morning. He told her what had happened while they waited for the bank to open. “But that’s wonderful,” she said.

  “Yeah, sure, until they see the damn thing. Then the lawsuits start. And nobody in town will ever want me to make a movie for them again.”

  “Maybe they’ll like it.”

  “Are you kidding? Listen, I’m taking cash for this check. Pay Brault and put the rest in your account. If they sue I’ll go into bankruptcy.”

  “All right.”

  “I hope the check’s still good. Maybe he’s stopped payment on it.”

  THE SCREENING

  DUDLEY KANE ENTERPRISES

  with M. Cohen, Inc., Metal Merchants

  Presents

  A Peter John Friar Production

  “HAPPY BAR-MITZVAH, BERNIE!”

  executive producer d. kravitz

  directed, written, and narrated by

  p. j. friar

  additional dialogue by

  rabbi harvey goldstone, m.a.

  “So far so good.”

  “Would you mind taking off your hat please, Elsie?”

  “Sh.”

  1. A close shot of an aged finger leading a thirteen-year-old boy’s hand over the Hebrew letters of a prayerbook.

  2. Grandfather Cohen is seated at the dining room table with Bernard, teaching him the tunes of the Torah.

  NARRATOR: Older than the banks of the Nile, not so cruel as the circumcision rite of the Zulus, and even more intricate than a snowflake is the bar-mitzvah…

  “Hey, what’s that he said about niggers being clipped? I thought —”

  ” — Comparative religion. I take it at McGill.”

  “Comparative what? give you such a schoss.”

  3. In the synagogue Bernard stands looking at the Holy Ark. His reaction.

  CHOIR: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is Our God, the Lord is One.

  4. Grandfather Cohen, wearing a prayer shawl, hands the Torah to Mr. Cohen, who passes it to his son.

  NARRATOR: From generation to generation, for years before the birth of Christ…

  “Hsssssss…”

  “O.K., smart guy. Shettup!”

  NARRATOR: … the rule of law has been passed from hand to hand among the Chosen People. Something priceless, something cherished…

  “Like a chinchilla.”

  “One more crack out of you, Arnie,” Mr. Cohen said, “and out you go.”

  In the darkness Duddy smiled, relieved.

  NARRATOR: … a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

  5. The wrappings come off and Mr. Cohen holds the Torah aloft.

  CHOIR (recites in Hebrew): In the beginning God created heaven and earth…

  6. Camera closes in on Torah.

  NARRATOR: … In the beginning there was the Word… There was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… There was Moses…

  As choir hums in background


  NARRATOR: King David… Judas Maccabee …

  Choir to climax

  NARRATOR: … and, in our own time, Leon Trotsky …

  “What’s that?”

  “His bar-mitzvah I would have liked to have seen. Trotsky!”

  NARRATOR: … in all those years, the Hebrews, whipped like sand by the cruel winds of oppression, have survived by the word… the law…

  7. A close shot of a baby being circumcised.

  “Lock the doors. Here comes the dirty part.”

  “Shame on you.”

  “Awright, Sarah. O.K. You’ve seen one before. You don’t have to pretend you’re not looking.”

  NARRATOR: … and through the centuries the eight-day-old Hebrew babe has been welcomed into the race with blood.

  Tomtoms beat in background. Heightening.

  8. (Montage) Lightning. African tribal dance. Jungle fire. Stukas diving. A jitterbug contest speeded up. Slaughtering of a cow. Fireworks against a night sky. More African dancing. Torrents of rain. An advertisement for Maidenform Bras upside down. Blood splashing against glass. A lion roars.

  “Wow!”

  “Are you all right, Zeyda?”

  Drums to climax. Out.

  9. A slow dissolve to close-up of Bernard Cohen’s shining morning face.

  NARRATOR: This is the story of one such Hebrew babe, and how at the age of thirteen he was at last accepted as an adult member of his tribe.

  “If you don’t feel well, Zeyda, get you a glass of water.”

  NARRATOR: This is the story of the bar-mitzvah of Bernard, son of Moses…

  10. A smiling Rabbi Goldstone leads Bernard up the aisle of the temple. In the background second cousins and schoolmates wave and smile at the camera.

  “Good,” Duddy said. “Excellent.” He had asked Mr. Friar to work Rabbi Goldstone into every possible shot. “Look, there I am! Did you see me, Mommy?”

  “You see Harry there picking his nose? If he’d known the camera —”

  “A big joke!”

  11. As Bernard and Rabbi Goldstone reach the prayer stand.

  NARRATOR: As solemn as the Aztec sacrifice, more mysterious than Helen’s face, is the pregnant moment, the meeting of time past and time present, when the priest and his initiate reach the ho’mat.

  Rabbi Goldstone coughed. “That means priest in the figurative sense.”

  “He’s gone too far,” Duddy whispered to Yvette. “Jeez.”

  CHOIR: (singing in Hebrew): Blessed is the Lord our God, Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…

  “There, Zeyda, that nice?”

  “Oh, leave him alone, Henry.”

  “Leave him alone? I think he’s had another stroke.”

  12. As Bernard says his blessings over the Torah the camera pans around the temple. Aunt Sadie giggles shyly. Ten-year-old Manny Schwartz crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue. Grandfather Cohen looks severe. Mr. Cohen wipes what just might be a tear from his eye. Uncle Arnie whispers into a man’s ear. The man grins widely.

  13. A close shot of Bernard saying his blessings. The camera moves in slowly on his eyes.

  Bring in tomtoms again.

  14. Cut to a close shot of circumcision again.

  “It’s not me,” Bernie shouted. “Honest, guys.”

  “Atta boy.”

  “Do you think this’ll have a bad effect on the children?”

  “Never mind the children. I’ve got such a pain there now you’d think it was me up there.”

  15. Resume shot of Bernard saying his haftorah.

  NARRATOR: The young Hebrew, now a fully accepted member of his tribe, is instructed in the ways of the world by his religious adviser.

  16. A two-shot of Rabbi Goldstone and Bernard.

  NARRATOR: “Beginning today,” the Rabbi tells him, “you are old enough to be responsible for your own sins. Your father no longer takes them on his shoulders.”

  As choir hums Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance”

  17. Camera pans round temple again. Cutting back again and again to Bernard and the rabbi.

  Superimpose Kipling’s “IF” over the above NARRATOR: Today you are a man, Bernard son of Moses.

  18. (Montage) Lightning. Close shot of head of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Cartoon of a Thurber husband. African tribal dance. Close shot of a venereal disease warning in a public urinal.

  “Zeyda, one minute.”

  “You’d better go with him, Henry.”

  Soldiers marching speeded up. Circumcision close-up again. Upside-down shot of a hand on a woman’s breast.

  “Hey,” Arnie shouted, “can you use a new casting director, Kravitz?” “Haven’t you any appreciation for the finer things?”

  “Hoo-haw.”

  Duddy bit his hand. The sweat rolled down his forehead.

  “This is meant to be serious, Arnie. Oh, he’s such a fool.”

  A lion roars. Close shot of Bernard’s left eye. A pair of black panties catch fire. Lightning. African tribal dance.

  NARRATOR: Today you are a man and your family and friends have come to celebrate.

  Giuseppe di Stefano sings drinking song from “La Traviata.”

  19. Close shot of hands pouring a large Scotch.

  20. Cut to general shots of guests at temple kiddush.

  “There I am!”

  “Look at Sammy, stuffing his big fat face as usual.”

  “There I am again!”

  “What took you so long, Henry?”

  “Did I miss anything?”

  “Aw. Where’s the zeyda?”

  “He’s sitting outside in the car. Hey, was that me?”

  “I’d like to see this part again later, please.”

  “Second the motion.”

  NARRATOR: Those who couldn’t come sent telegrams.

  21. Hold a shot of telegrams pinned against green background.

  As choir hums “Auld Lang Syne”

  NARRATOR: Happy bar-mitzvah, Bernie. Best Uncle Herby… May your life be happy and successful. The Shapiro Brothers and Myrna… Best wishes for health, happiness, and success from the Winnipeg branch of the Cohens. Surprise parcel follows… My heart goes out to you and yours today. Myer…

  “You notice Lou sent only a Greetings Telegram? You get a special rate.”

  “He’s had a bad year, that’s all. Lay off, Molly.”

  “A bad year! He comes from your side of the family, you mean.”

  NARRATOR: Those who came did not come empty-handed.

  “Try it some time.”

  NARRATOR: They came with tributes for the boy who had come of age.

  22. Camera pans over a table laden with gifts. Revealed are four Parker 51 sets, an electric razor, a portable record player…

  “Murray got the player wholesale through his brother-in-law.”

  … three toilet sets, two copies of Tom Sawyer, five subscriptions to the National Geographic Magazine, a movie projector, a fishing rod and other angling equipment, three cameras, a season’s ticket to hockey games at the Forum, a set of phylacteries and a prayer shawl, a rubber dinghy, a savings account book open at a first deposit of five hundred dollars, six sport shirts, an elaborate chemistry set, a pile of fifty silver dollars in a velvet-lined box, at least ten credit slips (worth from twenty to a hundred dollars each) for Eaton’s and Morgan’s, two sets of H. G. Wells’s Outline of History…

  As choir sings “Happy Birthday, Bernie!”

  23. Hold a shot of numerous checks pinned to a board. Spin it.

  “Dave’s check is only for twenty-five bucks. Do you know how much business he gets out of Cohen every year?”

  “If it had been Lou you would have said he had a bad year. Admit it.”

  “Hey, Bernie,” Arnie yelled, “how many of those checks bounced? You can tell us.”

  “I was grateful for all of them,” Bernie said, “large or small. It’s the thought that counts with me.”

  “Isn’t he sweet?”

  “Sure,�
�� Arnie said, “but he could have told me that before.”

  24. A shot of Rabbi Goldstone’s study. Bernard sits in an enormous leather chair and the rabbi paces up and down, talking to him.

  NARRATOR: But that afternoon, in the good rabbi’s study, the young Hebrew learns that there are more exalted things in this world than material possessions. He is told something of the tragic history of his race, how they were exploited by the ancient Egyptian imperialists, how reactionary dictators from Nehru to Hitler persecuted them in order to divert the working classes from the true cause of their sorrows. He learns — like Candide — that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

  As Al Jolson sings “Eli, Eli”

  25. Rabbi Goldstone leads Bernard to the window and stands behind him, his hands resting on the lad’s shoulders.

  “Five’ll get you ten that right now he’s asking Bernie to remind his father that the temple building campaign is lagging behind schedule.”

  Rabbi Goldstone coughed loudly.

  NARRATOR (recites): I am a Jew: hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same oils, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick him does he not bleed?

  26. Rabbi Goldstone autographs a copy of his book, Why I’m Glad To Be a Jew, and hands it to Bernard.

  27. Hold a close shot of the book.

  From there the movie went on to record the merrymaking and odd touching interlude at the dinner and dance. Relatives and friends saw themselves eating, drinking, and dancing. Uncles and aunts at the tables waved at the camera, the kids made funny faces, and the old people sat stonily. Cuckoo Kaplan did a soft-shoe dance on the head table. As the camera closed in on the dancers Henry pretended to be seducing Morrie Applebaum’s wife. Mr. Cohen had a word with the band leader and the first kazatchka played. Timidly the old people joined hands and began to dance around in a circle. Mr. Cohen and some spirited others joined in the second one. Duddy noticed some intruders at the sandwich table. He did not know them by name or sight, but remembering, he recognized that they were F.F.H.S. boys and he smiled a little. The camera panned lovingly about fish and jugs and animals modeled out of ice. It closed in and swallowed the bursting trumpeter. Guests were picked up again, some reeling and others bad-tempered, waiting for taxis and husbands to come round with the car outside the temple.