Fiddler on the Roof: stage vs screen

Norman Jewison's 1971 film of Fiddler on the Roof stars Topol as Tevye, the poor milkman of Anatevka, and adapts the 1964 Broadway musical by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein, who also wrote the screenplay. It is a faithful movie musical, but it changes the cast, drops songs, adds new scenes, and trades the stage show's storybook look for a gritty one. These are the main differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (1964)

Screen

Fiddler on the Roof (1971), directed by Norman Jewison

1. Topol replaces Zero Mostel as Tevye

Zero Mostel originated Tevye on Broadway in 1964, but Jewison felt his larger-than-life personality would make film audiences see Mostel rather than Tevye. He cast Topol, who had played Tevye in the original 1967 West End production. Topol won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

2. Two stage songs are cut

The film drops "Now I Have Everything," the song Perchik sings when he proposes to Hodel, and "The Rumor (I Just Heard)," and it trims the lyrics of "Tevye's Dream" to avoid repetition. Another song for Perchik, "Any Day Now," was recorded but left out of the final print. The rest of the score stays, with John Williams adapting and conducting the music.

3. A realistic look replaces the Chagall palette

The stage title was inspired by the paintings of Marc Chagall, and the original production's palette echoed them. Jewison went for a grittier, more realistic Anatevka, shot on location in what was then Yugoslavia (now Croatia) and at Pinewood Studios in England. Oswald Morris won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for the film.

4. Perchik is arrested in Kyiv

The film adds a scene in which Perchik is arrested at a workers' rally in Kyiv, and it extends the scene where he tells Hodel he plans to leave for the city. Perchik is later exiled to Siberia, and Hodel goes after him, as on stage. The added scenes give the revolutionary subplot more room on screen than it has in the musical.

5. Smaller changes to the village

In the film, Tevye visits the butcher Lazar Wolf at his well-appointed home rather than meeting him at the village inn as on stage. Yente the matchmaker, created on Broadway by Beatrice Arthur and played on screen by Molly Picon, is a smaller part in the film. The film also adds a scene in the synagogue in which news arrives of Motel's new sewing machine.

6. The fiddler and Isaac Stern

The Fiddler is played on screen by Tutte Lemkow, but the violin solos heard in the film are performed by Isaac Stern, for whom John Williams wrote an original cadenza. Williams won the Academy Award for adapting the score, one of the film's three Oscars. On Broadway in 1964, the role of the Fiddler was created by Gino Conforti, in a cast led by Zero Mostel.

7. A record run and a box office hit

The stage show opened at the Imperial Theatre on September 22, 1964, and became the first Broadway musical to pass 3,000 performances, running 3,242 in all. United Artists released the film on November 3, 1971. It became the highest-grossing film of 1971, earning $83.3 million worldwide on a $9 million budget, and won three of its eight Academy Award nominations.

Fiddler on the Roof movie vs musical: FAQs