A Mensch on the Make

"THERE'S not one successful businessman I know, Duddy, who hasn't got something locked in the closet," a wrinkle-faced, cigar-chomping Jewish businessman assures the nineteen-year-old entrepreneur. "A fire, maybe. A quick bankruptcy, the swindling of a widow...funny business with a mortgage...a diddle with an insurance agent. It's either that or you go under, so decide right now."

The lines of worry and aggravation engraved on Cohen's face are all too common to middle-aged businessmen for me to question the truth of his counsel to the young Kravitz. In the dog-eat-dog world of business, the skeletons pile up rapidly in the closets of seemingly respectable men who expose themselves to the fluctuations of the marketplace.

I saw The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz in a Jewish suburb of Baltimore, and a large part of the audience consisted of middle-aged, middle class businessmen whose backgrounds could not have differed much from that of Cohen. It seemed a bit strange to me when these men chuckled at the rapid accumulation of bones by the capitalist whiz kid in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. How could people who agree with Cohen's statement, and who have similar experiences, laugh at a teenage boy who cheats, lies, threatens, and eventually forges checks in an effort to be a success in the business world?

The audience's comic reaction is a measure of both the movie's appeal and its failure as a moral statement. Duddy Kravitz is a thoroughly lovable character. Richard Dreyfuss is superb in his portrayal of the poor mischievous Jewish boy who sets out to make his mark after his hunched-over bearded grandfather tells him, "A man without land is a nobody." Motherless since the age of six, left to fend for himself by his taxi-cab driving father, ignored by his rich uncle, and taunted by his peers, Duddy determines to win the respect of his grandfather and the rest of his humble neighborhood, a Jewish ghetto in Montreal.

In the process of obtaining a tract of land and becoming a "somebody," Duddy's eagerness to be accepted evokes our pity, while his childlike audacity endears him to us. His fawning over customers as a waiter in a Catskills-like resort is understandable in light of his enthusiastic desire to please. His abominable treatment of his girlfriend seems pardonable when he describes to her how beautiful it will be when he finally gets the land he yearns for.

But, as much as the viewer may enjoy watching Duddy's immature and innocent antics, it is this very childishness that constricts the movie's moral comment. Duddy's endearing naivete includes such a lack of self-consciousness, such a lack of self-awareness, that his desires rule without any ethical restraints. Duddy is so wrapped up in his effort to win the respect of others that he loses any sense of respect for himself, and he is accordingly unable to distinguish right from wrong.

As a result, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz operates on a very different level than does, say, Save the Tiger, in which Jack Lemmon plays an all too aware salesman who realizes that the only way he can escape bankruptcy is to set his clothes factory on fire and collect insurance on the damage. The balancing of financial exigencies with the principles of fair play make for a far more sophisticated handling of moral tension than takes place in this movie about a boy "still soaking behind the ears."

THE LACK of moral tension is evident at the end of the film, when Duddy finally is able to buy his long-coveted land and proudly takes his grandfather for a look. We are almost indifferent when the zeyda turns away in disgust, disappointed that Duddy had to forge a check to meet the final payment. Yes, we agree with the grandfather, Duddy committed a deplorable act. Yet at the same time, we excuse Duddy for the deed because in our minds he is no more than an unprincipled child. Duddy Kravitz never developed a set of principles as he lurched down the road of success. The conflict between ethical conduct and instinctual behavior is there, but only in subtle, sublimated forms, and it is only after the laughter has subsided (which takes a long time) that echoes of a deeper meaning resound.

In what is perhaps the most poignant scene in the movie, Cohen sits down with Duddy in the sauna of his country club and lectures him on the risks and pitfalls of the business world. Cohen's face is fatter, his eyes puffier, his hair thinner, but underneath he is a 45-year-old Duddy, playing the same game. All the failures, the deadends, the shameful deeds accumulated over decades have done nothing to wean Cohen from a world where all behavior is governed by passions. "Listen, Duddy," he tells Kravitz through the steam sauna, "it's not all wine and honey in this world, but I've got a family and I take damned good care of them. My Bernie won't have to send his partner to jail. But he didn't land in this country with three words of English and fifty cents in his pocket, either, and there you are."

Duddy is not part of the immigrant generation, but to begin with he too had little more than fifty cents in his picket. And we feel the same respect for him as we do for those uprooted souls, forced throughout this century to flee Europe and to make their way in an alien and hostile world. The self-made man may be forced to step on his neighbor's toes, but his energy, resourcefulness, and perserverance remain a source of admiration for the Bernies of the world born with a free ticket to medical school. Duddy is young and unthinking, and in his haste to make a niche for himself in the world he steps on more than a few toes. The question remains if, like Cohen, he will remain oblivious to the howls of pain around him, or if his experience will teach him to tread more gingerly.

The title The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is an apt one but at the same time it leads us to expect more from the movie than it gives us. "Apprenticeship" implies a period of development, a time during which a young person grows out of his childish impulses and selfish desires. But young Kravitz shows little sign of any development at all, and we are left to guess whether or not he will serve out his apprenticeship and become a master or as Cohen would call it, a mensch.