Charlie And A Half

Charlie And A Half (1974)

צ'רלי וחצי

Charlie gets by through fleecing suckers with a three-card Monte. He passes himself off as a rich businessman. Miko is a street kid who spends his time with Charlie instead of going to school. The plot follows Charlie's attempt to conquer the heart of Gila, a rich girl whose parents try to matchmake her to an American millionaire somewhat against her will.

Date of release
1974-06-06
TMDB
5.5 / 10 (12)
Runtime
1h 45m
Genres
Comedy, Romance, Drama
Director
Boaz Davidson

Casting

Interesting facts

Charlie and a Half is a 1974 Israeli comedy bourekas film directed by Boaz Davidson and produced by the Filmor company. The film stars Yehuda Barkan as Charlie, a charming but unscrupulous con artist from a working-class Tel Aviv neighborhood, and David Shushan as Miko, a streetwise orphan who helps Charlie run his schemes. The story follows Charlie's romantic pursuit of Gila played by Haya Katzir, a wealthy North Tel Aviv woman.

Production

The film was produced by the Filmor company, owned by the Zaboloni brothers. One of the brothers Simcha Zevuloni was born in Iran, grew up and was educated in Israel, and served in the IDF. Simcha Zaguloni worked with Moshe Sinai, and Yitzhak Yosipzon, who were co-producers of the film with a budget of 800,000 Israeli pounds.

The film was inspired by the "Luti" genre, which was at the height of its popularity in Iranian cinema in 1970s. In this genre, the protagonist—known as the Luti—is a rough-edged, working-class "tough guy" or streetwise delinquent who stands in sharp contrast to the Westernized–upper class. The typical storyline centers on a wealthy woman who falls in love with the Luti, setting the stage for a clash between two very different worlds.

The title "Charlie and a Half" was chosen as a tribute to Lieutenant General Moshe Levi, who was famously nicknamed "Moishe and a Half" due to his towering height. The film touched on "social wounds that erupted in the 1970s" in Israeli society, both before and after its release. At the time, the Israeli Black Panthers were "shaking" the country and its leaders with their campaign against discrimination toward the Mizrahi community.

The idea for the film also stemmed from a request to adapt the premise of an unnamed "popular Iranian film." The original told the story of a man from the margins of society—a local delinquent—who falls in love with a wealthy woman. In a later interview with the Israeli Cinema Testimony Database, Yehuda Barkan who played Charlie recalled, "It was cross-fertilization. Many people don’t know, but Charlie and a Half didn’t have a full script.

Zevuloni brothers brought in Boaz Davidson to direct. At the time, Davidson was a member of the “Lol” group, and a few years earlier had co-founded the "Hagar" production company with Arik Einstein and Zvi Shissel, with whom he also created Shablul (1970). However, when Uri Zohar joined the group, Davidson felt increasingly pushed aside, until he eventually chose to leave.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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