Cinema
Eldorado
אלדורדו
Menahem Golan · 1963
Synopsis
Benny Sherman, a young hoodlum who spends his days and nights in the gambling and billiard halls of Jaffa, is tried for murder and acquitted on the benefit of the doubt. The trial changes him: he falls in love with Naomi, his lawyer's daughter, and wants to break with the milieu where he grew up among crooks and prostitutes, even leaving Margot, his partner of long standing. But prejudice pursues him, a police sergeant tries to bring him down, and Schneider, a former accomplice, wants to draw him back into crime.
Context
The film adapts the novel and play by Yigal Mossinson, which had been a triumph at the Ohel Theatre in 1955; it takes up the themes the author had treated in Kazablan, the gap between communities, classes and prejudices. Golan wrote the screenplay with Amatzia Hiuni and Leo Filler; Mordechai Navon produced it for Geva Films, Nissim Leon did the cinematography and Yohanan Zarai the music. Chaim Topol plays Sherman, Gila Almagor Margot, Shaike Ophir Schneider. In 2013 Golan made a musical from it, performed only once for lack of agreement from the rights holders.
Who it is for
A feature film in Hebrew, of about an hour and a half, viewable with English subtitles. It helps to know that the original play had been a great theatre success.
Prizes and reception
The film earned its director the Kinor David Prize; he received eight of them over the course of his career.