Topol, Israel's best-known actor, played Tevye... delivering an unforgettable and barnstorming (literally — see the If I Were a Rich Man number) performance in the film.

Fiddler on the Roof, stunning, joyful, jubilant and emotion stirring, is an artistic triumph for Norman Jewison.

The movie offers the pleasures of big, bold strokes; it's American folk opera, commercial style.

The concepts may be potent, with morbid historical lessons to be imparted, and the script intelligent, with a knack for elucidating Jewish plights and defiance under tsarist rule, but they’re nonetheless considerably drawn-out.