Topol's first film appearance was in the 1961 film I Like Mike, followed by the 1962 Israeli film El Dorado. His breakthrough role came as the lead character in the 1964 film Sallah Shabati. Adapted for the screen by Ephraim Kishon from his original play, the social satire depicts the hardships of a Mizrahi Jewish immigrant family in Israel in the 1950s, satirizing "just about every pillar of Israeli society: the Ashkenazi establishment, the pedantic bureaucracy, corrupt political parties, rigid kibbutz ideologues and ... the Jewish National Fund's tree-planting program". Topol, who was 29 during the filming, was familiar playing the role of the family patriarch, having performed skits from the play with his Nahal troupe during his army years. He contributed his own ideas for the part, playing the character as a more universal Sephardi Jew instead of specifically a Yemenite, Iraqi, or Moroccan Jew, and asking Kishon to change the character's first name from Saadia (a recognizably Yemenite name) to Sallah (a more general Mizrahi name).