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Tevya is a 1939 American Yiddish film, based on author Sholem Aleichem's stock character Tevye the Dairyman, also the subject of the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. It was the first international picture selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.[2][3]

Tevya
Theatrical release poster in English and Yiddish
Directed by	Maurice Schwartz
Written by	Maurice Schwartz
Produced by	Henry Ziskin
Starring	Maurice Schwartz Miriam Riselle Rebecca Weintraub Paula Lubelski
Distributed by	Maymon Films Inc.
Release date	December 21, 1939 (1939-12-21)
Running time	93 min
Country	United States
Languages	Yiddish Russian
Budget	$70,000[1]

Cast

• Maurice Schwartz - Tevya
• Miriam Riselle - Chava
• Rebecca Weintraub - Golde
• Paula Lubelski - Tzeitel
• Leon Liebgold - Fedya
• Vicki Marcus - Shloimele
• Betty Marcus - Perele
• Julius Adler - Aleksei the Priest.

Production

The script was adapted by Marcy Klauber and Schwartz from the Sholem Aleichem play based on his own book. Schwartz directed the film, which was based on two works by Schwartz from 1919: the silent film Broken Barriers (Khavah) and the stage production of Tevye.[4][5]

The production was filmed at Biograph Studios in New York City and on a farm in Jericho, Long Island, New York. Midway through the shooting of the film, on August 23, 1939, Hitler seized Danzig and a Nazi invasion of Poland was imminent. These and other events in Europe affected the actors, many of whom had family in Poland. The filming was completed nevertheless.[6]

The story focuses primarily on the plotlines from Sholem Aleichem's stories "Chava" and "Lekh-Lekho (Get Thee Out)" but provides a definite ending rather than Sholom Aleichem's ambiguous ending. In this version of Tevya, as the Jews are expelled from their shtetl, Chava who had previously converted to Christianity to marry, leaves her husband, returns to her family and to Judaism. It is felt that the antisemitism of the time influenced Schwartz to provide this ending.[6]

Post-production

Long thought to be a lost film, a print was discovered in 1978. The same story was the basis of the 1964 stage musical Fiddler on the Roof and its 1971 film version, though the fate of Chava in the ending was changed for the change in attitudes by that time.[6]

In 1991, Tevya was the first non-English language film to be named "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

See also

• List of rediscovered films

References

External links

• Tevye essay by J. Hoberman at National Film Registry
• Tevye essay by Daniel Eagan in   America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 302-304.
• Tevya at IMDb
• Marat Grinberg, Rolling in Dust: Maurice Schwartz's Tevye (1939) And Its Ambiguities.
• Thomas Pryor, A Ukrainian Village Is Erected on a Long Island Farm for a Yiddish Film Drama, New York Times, 30 July 1939.

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