The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974 Ted Kotcheff)

A Canadian film, written by Jewish-Canadian writer Mordecai Richler, based on his 1959 novel. Richard Dreyfuss is absolutely fantastic as young man who succeeds in ambitious entrepreneurial plans but at the cost of loyalty, friendship and love. Although the time period and location (Montreal) is different, I found it quite Eisnery.

Weirdly obscure now - seems only to exist on VHS - our copy was a 4x3 crop and seems oddly truncated in places, e.g. why did the bastards come clean about the dodgy roulette game, what was in the letter his uncle left him (it clocks at just over two hours*)? I got it from Zeus DVDs.

With Jack Warden, Micheline Lanctôt, Randy Quaid, Joseph Wiseman, Denholm Elliott, Joe Silver (in both Shivers and Rabid).

*That's also the time given by the BBFC when they originally rated it.