Topoli (film) Topoli (film) Topoli (in Persian: تپلی, literally: The Fatty) is a 1972 Iranian film directed by Reza Mirlohi. Morteza Aghili and Homayun play the main characters of the film. The script is based on the novel "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. The film is dedicated to John Steinbeck. The character of Topoli is loosely based on Lennie Small of "Of Mice and Men" as Essi is the Iranian version of George Milton in the novel. Topoli is an intellectually disabled fat man who lives with his cousin Essi. Topoli is interested in touching soft materials. His assault to
John Steinbeck includes "Rocinante", the camper-truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described in "Travels with Charley". His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives. In Monterey, Ed Ricketts' laboratory survives (though it is not yet open to the public) and at the corner which Steinbeck describes in "Cannery Row", also the store which once belonged to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the hobos of Cannery Row. The site of the "Hovden Sardine Cannery" next to Doc's laboratory is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.