What a Wonderful "World"

This is a fascinating, often-wonderful rarity.  It’s not for everyone, but quite an ethereal joy for those who do watch.  It comes from the Golden Age of TV, a broadcast on December 14, 1959, of the anthology series Play of the Week.  The 90-minute episode is “The World of Sholem Aleichem – an adaptation of two short stories by the author known as the “Jewish Mark Twain” whose Tevye stories served as the foundation of Fiddler on the Roof.  (Plus, there’s one very short tale by another author in between.)
 
But it’s the cast that takes this to another level – all the more notable with the connection to Fiddler.  That’s because it stars Zero Mostel, along with Nancy Walker, Gertrude Berg (hugely popular at the time for her Molly Goldberg TV show), Lee Grant, Sam Levene (who created the role of ‘Nathan Detroit’ in the musical Guys & Dolls, and starred in the original production of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys), Jack Gilford,  Charlotte Rae (best known today as the housemother on the TV series The Facts of Life, but who starred as ‘Mammy Yokum’ in the musical Li’l Abner – though is most famous, at least in my family, for being a sorority sister at Northwestern with my Aunt Joan), and Morris Carnovsky (a rarely seen today, but renowned actor who was one of the founders of the Group Theatre, alongside such people as Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Will Geer, Sidney Lumet, Luther Adler, and Stella Adler).  And others.  (For those who know musicals well, also in the cast is Henry Lascoe who played ‘Mr. Schlegel,” the owner of the carnival in the musical, Carnival!)

​The first story is a very funny tale about the town of Chelm, Sholem Aleichem’s village of foolish people.  It stars Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker.  And the third tale, the longest, is a touching, dramatic story about a couple trying to help their son get into a Russian high school where heavy quotas against Jews predominate.  The couple is played by Morris Carnovsky and Gertrude Berg.  The middle story is more of a short interlude that takes place in heaven, with Lee Grant and Jack Gilford.  Actors overlap in stories, playing small roles Sam Levene serves as a sort of host, playing a book peddler who connects all the stories.  And Carnovsky introduces it all.
 
The quality of the video is respectable.  The live production itself is barebones, but it’s all charming and effective.  And being three separate stories, you don’t have to watch it all at once.
 
But what a treat to be able to watch it.