Sallah
Israel,
1965, 110 min
Shown in 1964
CREDITS
- dir
-
Ephraim Kishon
- prod
-
Menahem Golan
- scr
-
Ephraim Kishon
- cam
-
Floyd Crosby, Nissim Leon
- editor
-
Roberto Cinquini, Jacques Ehrlich, Danny Shick
- mus
-
Yohanan Zaray
- cast
-
Haym Topol, Geula Nuni, Gila Almagor, Albert Cohen, Shraga Friedman, Zaharira Harifai
- prod co
-
Sallah Company
- gga award
-
Best Actor, Haym Topol; Best Screenplay: Feature Length Films
-
COMMENTS
Ephraim Kishon, Haym Topol in person.
OTHER
The state of Israel was founded in 1948 and the multitude of immigrants who arrived included not only the thousands of Jews who had survived the horrors of Nazi-occupied Europe, but other people as well. One such man was an Oriental by the name of Sallah Shabati, who was looking for a home for himself, his wife and seven children (well, really seven-and-a-half, for his wife was expecting another). The first "home" he found was a transit-camp, known as a maarabot, which was not at all to his liking. He had no common language with the other immigrants. He did have uncommon individuality, however, and his exercise of this faculty makes for the mad humor of this Israeli comedy, which is the personal odyssey of an Oriental who finally found his happy home among Jews. There is a lesson here for anyone in the Arab republics, or in Israel.
—Alvah Bessie
FACTOID #202
At the 1978 SFIFF, Paul Mazursky received a tribute at the Palace of Fine Arts. Apparently, the facility’s janitorial staff had not been notified, and the padlocked doors of the Palace had to be cut so the filmmaker and his audience could be let in.
