“Examples of Egyptian filmmaking date back to the beginning of the 20th century, with Cairo becoming a hub of commercial filmmaking in the Arab world with the introduction of sound. It was there that the country’s first “Hollywood-style” film studio, the well-funded Studio Msr (a project of wealthy financier Talaat Harb) was established in 1936. From that point until the mid-60s, when the film industry was nationalized by President Nasser, a vibrant commercial aesthetic prevailed, with a pantheon of glamorous stars churning out genre entertainments calculated for mass appeal. It was a time during which Egypt turned out a staggering majority of the Middle East’s Arab language films—nearly a hundred a year—and did so with a level of technical sophistication easily on par with that of any Western film industry.”
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
#1 by El Santo on October 2, 2015 - 2:12 pm
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“Granted, Afrita Hanem’s plot is only novel to someone unfamiliar with 1960s American sitcoms…”
It’s also very close to a fairly crummy Hollywood film from a few years earlier, the silly comedic fantasy A Thousand and One Nights.
#2 by Tom on October 11, 2015 - 8:17 pm
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Thank you for this. As a result of your article I watched Cairo Station. It was a lot spicier than I’d expect from either the ’50s or a popular film from the Arab world. Although I suppose one always hears about everything having been a lot different there prior to the 60s. And also I suppose the film was banned.
Anyway, it was an extremely good film. The ending was particularly disturbing.