the year: 1971
the genre: musical
the cast: Topol (Tevye); Norma Crane (Golde); Leonard Frey (Motel); Molly Picon (Yente); Paul Mann (Lazar Wolf); Rosalind Harris (Tzeitel); Michele marsh (Hodel); Neva Small (Chava)
the plot: Tevye the Milkman is a Jewish peasant in pre-Revolutionary Russia, coping with the day-to-day problems of 'shtetl' life, his Jewish traditions, his family (wife and daughters), and state-sanctioned pogroms.
don't miss: Teyve's dream.
listen for: "Money is the world's curse." "May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover."
did you know: to get the look he wanted for the film, director Norman Jewison told Director of Photography Oswald Morris to shoot the film in an earthy tone. Morris saw a woman wearing brown nylon hosiery, thought "That's the tone we want," asked the woman for the stockings on the spot, and shot the entire film with a stocking over the lens. The weave can be detected in some scenes.
extra bonus points: if you know where Tevye's cart-horse came from.
also listen for: "A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!"
and for your sing-a-long pleasure - all together now:
5 comments:
Scott is by far the best at imitating Tevya. The music in this movie get stuck in my head WAY too easily, but thankfully it's pleasant music.
Did you mean pleasant music, or peasant music? Because everyone in the show is a peasant. Perhaps it is pleasant peasant music. That raises an important philosophical question: in order to have pleasant peasant music, does one first need pleasant peasants? If no pleasant peasants are available, will pleasant peasant pheasants do the trick? But I imagine pleasant peasant pheasant music would not make for pleasant peasants. Perhaps if unpleasant peasants cooked and ate the pleasant peasant pheasants, thereby squelching the pleasant peasant pheasant music, the unpleasant peasants would turn into pleasant peasants who could make pleasant peasant music for Laney to get stuck in her head. I'm just sayin...
Ah, Scott - I love it when you have something to share! :)
Answer: The cart-horse (nicknamed "Shmuel" by the cast) was purchased from a lot destined for a Zagreb glue factory. After production Norman Jewison paid a local farmer to keep him for the rest of his natural life, which was another three years.
Oh Scott - that really was the icing on an already fabulous morning! Thank you. Now if you could get your wife to write some music for it then I'll work on getting it stuck in my head ;)
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