Why did Fiddler on the Roof lose Best Picture to The French Connection?

It lost because of Anti-Semitism!

I think it really signaled the end of an era of the old MGM & other musical films. This was the 70s, film was gritty and dramatic. It was a transition period.

Because it was five hours long and boring watch poor people sing joyless songs.

The audiences kept yelling, “Bring on the pogrom!”

Fiddler on the Roof needed some sassy black people like Gone With The Wind or Song of the South.

The ox-cart chase scene in Fiddler just wasn’t that exciting.

I’ve seen regional, community and even high school theatre productions of Fiddler that have made me go “oh yeah, this is a great show. You can’t really fuck it up.”

But man, the movie is like sitting through a day-long Yom Kippur service in a mud pit.

[quote]I thought Fiddler was the better film.

And you would be wrong, OP.

Salute to Topol, nominated for the 1971 Oscar for Best Actor, who recently died.

Norma Crane, who plays the wife, died at age 44 in 1973. Does anyone know more about her? Was it best explained that her death was tragic?

#FiddlersoJewish

The French Connection is one of those perfect films, like Goodfellas. It deserves all the awards and praise it got.

The French Connection has Fernando Rey as the bad guy and one of the best car chases in movie history. That's why, OP.

No love for (yawn) Nicholas and Alexandra? The Massie bio was a great read, the movie even more boring than Doctor Zhivago.

I would have picked The Last Picture Show—I bet it came in second. Fiddler lacked the great humor and pathos of the stage show and A Clockwork Orange, while revolutionary for its time, hasn’t aged well.

[quote]Norma Crane, who plays the wife, died at age 44 in 1973. Does anyone know more about her? Was it best explained that her death was tragic? [quote]

Breast Cancer

Agree about [bold]The Last Picture Show[/bold] R12. It gets better & better every time I watch it. It seems like the further away we get from its time period, the more resonant it becomes.

Don't agree about [bold]A Clockwork Orange[/bold] however. I just watched it again last year and felt it hadn't aged at all. Prescient and still very relevant.

A Clockwork Orange was too controversial to ever win. But I agree that it's held up beautifully.

I guess the Jews DON'T run Hollywood.

I live in a small town that is very much like the town in The Last Picture Show, even now. That film really captured something just perfectly, even with Cybil's big brown beaver in the nude scene.

R8 Was it best explained?