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Director Ephraim Kishon’s widely acclaimed hit comedy drew a whopping 555,000 viewers to cinemas when it first opened. In the film, Topol plays Ervinka (a character that made its debut in Kishon’s Maariv tabloid columns in 1952) – a charming troublemaker who can’t resist a good prank or hoax: he cons, lies to the police, crashes a Bar Mitzvah, and convinces his neighbour that his radio’s been possessed by a malevolent spirit, all to get him to stop making so much noise with the bloody thing.
Amongst his many adventures, Ervinka also falls in love with Ruthie (Gila Almagor), the beautiful police officer, and manages to win her affections. His ultimate dream is to win the lottery and during the film’s climax, we find Ervinka attempting to rob Israel’s National Lottery HQ with the help of some dodgy underworld folk, played by the Pale Tracker (‘HaGashash HaHiver’) comedy trio – a heist which they disguise as part of a film shoot.
Ervinka also marks the big screen debut of Shaike Ophir’s hopelessly clueless Officer Azoulai; a character that will recur in Kishon’s 1969 film, The Big Dig, and 1971’s critically-acclaimed The Officer. Kishon, himself, has a cameo in the film playing an advert director.
The theme song, ‘Ervinka,’ as well as ‘Who Planned Tel Aviv’ (‘mi tichnen et tel aviv’) were both written by Didi Menosi, with music by Dov Seltzer.
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All rights are reserved to the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israeli Film Archive (RA) and the rights holders of the works. Any use of works on the website for non-individual and non-personal purposes is strictly prohibited without prior, written permission.
For more information about the rights holders, please visit the relevant collection page, or contact the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israeli Film Archive (RA) offices.
We have the utmost respect for all rights holders’ copyright and put great efforts to track down any and all intellectual property owners for the purpose of seeking and obtaining permission to use their materials featured on the website.
Any and all materials are used in accordance with clause 27a of the 2007 Copyright Act. If you believe that your rights as intellectual property and copyright owners of any material featured on this website have been compromised, then you may contact the Israeli Film Archive via email with a cease-and-desist notice, requesting that the material in alleged copyright infringement no longer be used. When contacting the archive, please state the merit to your copyright ownership claim, as well as your full name, email address, and telephone number, with a link to the relevant webpage.
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