This 1939 movie is a precursor for the 1964 Broadway Musical "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971 Film). It is not as sentimental as the Broadway production. It was interesting to hear the Yiddish, interesting to see what were essentially Yiddish theatre actors in film performance.
There were a lot of things terribly wrong with "Fiddler on the Roof"--excessive sentimentality, saccharine, musical numbers that almost made pogroms seem to be a good idea... (Mel Brooks--"Don't be stupid, be a smarty / Come and join the Nazi Party!"). And in the end, the audience of "Fiddler on the Roof" as they egress the theater knows for 6 million Jews, there was no happy ending.
The 1939 film is not beset with history that was about to unfold. Tevye,at the end of the film, is heading for "The Holy Land/Palestine" with his family reunited. He has forgiven his daughter for marrying a goy whom she has now left. Goldie has long since died. And so Tevye, departs, knowing that it happened as he had prophesied to Khave--"You think our friends would come to our defense in a pogrom?" Sadly, those very friends were the first to abandon him when the Czar called for his expulsion. And, of course, 'Tevye' was based on several short stories of Sholom Aleichem, written between 1894 and 1914. Sholom Aleichem wrote a play adaptation of the stories, upon which the movie relies.
The film is available on YOUTUBE and is worth looking at. Partly for the insight it gives to the Broadway Musical--"Fiddler on the Roof"--partly for its place as an indie film in 1939, partly for it exposition on Yiddish Theatre. This was not a second rate performance or second rate production values; it was first rate all round.
There were a lot of things terribly wrong with "Fiddler on the Roof"--excessive sentimentality, saccharine, musical numbers that almost made pogroms seem to be a good idea... (Mel Brooks--"Don't be stupid, be a smarty / Come and join the Nazi Party!"). And in the end, the audience of "Fiddler on the Roof" as they egress the theater knows for 6 million Jews, there was no happy ending.
The 1939 film is not beset with history that was about to unfold. Tevye,at the end of the film, is heading for "The Holy Land/Palestine" with his family reunited. He has forgiven his daughter for marrying a goy whom she has now left. Goldie has long since died. And so Tevye, departs, knowing that it happened as he had prophesied to Khave--"You think our friends would come to our defense in a pogrom?" Sadly, those very friends were the first to abandon him when the Czar called for his expulsion. And, of course, 'Tevye' was based on several short stories of Sholom Aleichem, written between 1894 and 1914. Sholom Aleichem wrote a play adaptation of the stories, upon which the movie relies.
The film is available on YOUTUBE and is worth looking at. Partly for the insight it gives to the Broadway Musical--"Fiddler on the Roof"--partly for its place as an indie film in 1939, partly for it exposition on Yiddish Theatre. This was not a second rate performance or second rate production values; it was first rate all round.