Hetzi Hetzi

This is an Israeli comedy from before television presented serious competition. It trusts the audience to stay seated and enjoy simply seeing local streets on the big screen (through the eye of master cinematographer David Gurfinkel) and hearing intervals of reasonably entertaining music from David "Karibushi" (more often spelled Krivoshey) in between episodes of farce and slapstick. The humor is occasionally too insensitive or too improbable. Yossi Pollak, today one of Israel's most revered elders in the acting profession, appears in his first movie role, as a simple-minded apprentice baker, and he provides a little pathos in what would otherwise be an offputtingly heartless movie if it were presented at all seriously. Krivoshey's music helps keep it at least ostensibly light, even when Assi Dayan is at an old-age home singing a song about death while his partner in crime is stealing purses from the old people's rooms.