72-minutes – Drama
Language: English
Date of first broadcast: 1979
Originating network: CBC

Set in the 1950s in Montreal, this CBC made-for-television movie centres on Mervyn Kaplansky (Saul Rubinek), a young writer from Toronto who boards with a family on St. Urbain Street only to find his aspirations undermined by the colourful yet desperate characters that surround him. The script by Mordecai Richler is based on his own short stories. Rubinek delivers a very touching performance as the boyish idealistic writer. It is one of the very few English films renowned director Claude Jutra made for television. It is interesting to note that Richler’s character and the title subject of the 1974 film The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz returns in this film, but this time played by 18-year-old Montreal-born Matt Birman making his film debut.