Fiddler on the Roof ***** (1971, Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon) – Classic Movie Review 2,115

Producer-director Norman Jewison’s triple Oscar-winning 1971 movie of the all-time great musical Fiddler on the Roof soars to the rooftops thanks to a great show and the spirited Topol’s charismatic star turn.

On the route to being richly enjoyable, this is a painstaking, long and faithful version of the hit stage show, with the evergreen songs (especially the showstoppers ‘If I Were a Rich Man’, ‘Matchmaker Matchmaker’) present and correct – though alas not Jerome Robbins’s choreography. It is choreographed by Tom Abbott and Sam Bayes.

In the role of a lifetime, the appealing Topol takes over Zero Mostel’s Broadway stage role, which he re-created on the London stage. Topol is exceptionally tuneful, energetic and genial as the 1905 poor Ukraine Jewish milkman Tevye who wants to marry off his five daughters, and has to flee to America.

Tevye, who lives in the Ukrainian village of Anatevka, a typical shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia, compares the lives of the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof. Tevye concludes that he cannot accept Chava (Neva Small), the third daughter, marrying a non-Jew, and accuses her of abandoning the Jewish faith and disowns her. Nevertheless, Ray Lovelock plays Fyedka, a Christian farmer, who becomes Chava’s eventual husband,

It helps that it is a great looking movie and Oswald Morris (previously famed and honoured for his stark black and white cinematography) rightly won an Oscar for his brilliant Technicolor cinematography of the Yugoslav locations. And, even if you miss the theatre’s quaint stage sets, they obviously had to take the film outdoors and shoot it in real countryside – and they make a superb job of it.

Satisfyingly, the film follows the plot of the stage play very closely, retaining nearly all of the play’s dialogue, although it omits the songs ‘Now I Have Everything’ and ‘The Rumor (I Just Heard)’ and lyrical portions of  ‘Tevye’s Dream (tailor Motel Kamzoil)’.

The music is conducted and adapted by John Williams from the original score by Jerry Bock. Williams also composes additional music and an original cadenza for Isaac Stern. The score is orchestrated by Williams and Alexander Courage. John Williams won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score, basically his scoring of the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick songs. By 2023 John Williams had won five Oscars, 25 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards and, with 53 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated person, after Walt Disney.

Joseph Stein writes the screenplay based on the Arnold Perl book, adapted from Sholem Aleichem stories, particularly Tevye and His Daughters.

The third Oscar was for Best Sound (Gordon K. McCallum, David Hildyard).

The full version runs 182 minutes and the cut version runs 150 minutes. As the stage musical did not have an overture, the roadshow presentation features a solo by the Fiddler played over the opening credits, an intermission featuring entr’acte music, and exit music.

Also in the cast are Norma Crane (as Golde), Leonard Frey (as Motel), Molly Picon (as Yente), Paul Mann, Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, Neva Small, Paul Michael Glaser, Raymond Lovelock and Louis Zorich (as constable).

It was an enormous hit. Costing $9 million, it took $50 million at the US box office, for a global total of $83.3 million.

Jewison was brought into the project by executives at United Artists thinking he was Jewish. His first words to the executives on meeting them were: ‘You know I’m not Jewish… right?’

The decision not to cast Zero Mostel was controversial as he had originated Tevye and had made the role famous. Jewison said he felt Mostel’s larger-than-life personality, while fine on stage, would cause film audiences to see him as Mostel, rather than Tevye. It must have been a bitter pill for Mostel to have swallowed. For the role, Orson Welles, Anthony Quinn and Marlon Brando were all considered.

Rosalind Harris, who plays the oldest daughter Tzeitel, was Bette Midler’s understudy in the original Broadway production.

Chaim Topol (September 9, 1935 – March 9, 2023).

Topol died on 9 March 2023 at the age of 87 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He is best known for playing Tevye in the stage musical Fiddler on the Roof and the 1971 film, performing this role more than 3,500 times from the late 1960s through 2009.

The cast are Topol as Tevye, the milkman of Anatevka, Norma Crane as his wife Golde, Rosalind Harris as the oldest daughter Tzeitel, Michele Marsh as the second daughter Hodel, Neva Small as the third daughter Chava, Molly Picon as Yente, the matchmaker, Paul Mann as Lazar Wolf, the butcher, Tzeitel’s older suitor, Leonard Frey as Motel Kamzoil, the tailor, Tzeitel’s eventual husband, Paul Michael Glaser as Perchik, the Bolshevik revolutionary, Hodel’s eventual husband, Ray Lovelock as Fyedka, a Christian farmer, Chava’s eventual husband, Elaine Edwards as the fourth daughter Shprintze, Candy Bonstein as the fifth daughter Bielke, Shimen Rushkin as Mordcha, Zvee Scooler as Rabbi, Louis Zorich as Constable, Alfie Scopp as Avram, Howard Goorney as Nachum, Barry Dennen as Mendel, Ruth Madoc as Fruma-Sarah, the butcher’s late wife, Patience Collier as Grandmother Tzeitel, Arnold Diamond as Moishe, Marika Rivera as Rifka, Aharon Ipalé as Sheftel, Roger Lloyd-Pack as Sexton, Carl Jaffe as Isaac, Vernon Dobtcheff as Russian official, and Tutte Lemkow as the fiddler.

Canadian film director Norman Jewison was nominated for the Best Director Oscar three times in separate decades for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Moonstruck (1987).

Canadian film director Norman Jewison (July 21, 1926 – January 20, 2024) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director three times in three separate decades for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and Moonstruck (1987).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,115

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