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'ROOF' TOPOL A Collector's Edition DVD of this underrated 1971 movie Fiddler turns out to be a wonder of wonders, a miracle of miracles
Everett Collection

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Rated: G; DVD Release Date: Oct 02, 2001; Genre: Musical; With: Topol; Distributor: United Artists (MGM)

In the pantheon of great stage-to-screen adaptations, 1971's Fiddler on the Roof is all too frequently forgotten. Director Norman Jewison opened up the musical — the story of God-fearing milkman Tevye (charismatic Israeli actor Topol) and his daughters — beautifully: setting ''If I Were a Rich Man'' in a dusty, run-down barn; using songs to underscore rather than stop the show. (In ''Tradition,'' the butcher and blacksmith provide percussion, women knead dough on the downbeats; we hear the villagers' voices, we just don't see them sing.) Even after three hours in Anatevka — fret not, the film zips by like a hem on Motel the tailor's sewing machine — you'll be up for the extras on this two-disc Collector's Edition; on top of myriad previously released featurettes, there's a chat with the female stars (Rosalind Harris, who understudied Bette Midler's Tzeitel on Broadway, auditioned at Midler's behest) and a tribute to Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's standard-stuffed score. It's a wonderful way to revisit — or discover — a stunner of a musical. A


Posted Jan 24, 2007
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