Duddy returns to Montreal and starts a company to produce bar mitzvah films. To this end he hires Friar, an alcoholic, avant-garde filmmaker blacklisted in the United States, for his communist tendencies. Since Duddy's childhood, his father, Max, had told him stories about Jerry Dingleman, the local "Boy Wonder" whose rags-to-riches story is canonical among the residents of St. Urbain Street. Looking for help with his film company, Duddy attempts to engage Dingleman. The two travel to New York City, but Duddy fails to secure any assistance from the "Boy Wonder", who sees Duddy as a naive upstart and uses him to ferry a package of heroin across the Canada-U.S. border.