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 appeared in the December 1945 issue of Woman's Home Companion magazine as "The Pearl of the World." It was illustrated by John Alan Maxwell. The novel is an imaginative telling of a story which Steinbeck had heard in La Paz in 1940, as related in "The Log From the Sea of Cortez", which he described in Chapter 11 as being "so much like a parable that it almost can't be". Steinbeck traveled to Mexico for the filming with Wagner who helped with the script; on this trip he would be inspired by the story of Emiliano Zapata, and subsequently wrote