A Glass and a Cigarette (Egypt, 1955)

Despite being fronted by a trio of Egypt’s most beloved female entertainers, A Glass and a Cigarette, with its retrograde sexual politics, does women few favors. After all, what hoary old patriarchal stereotype is more hoary and old than that of the marriage-minded career girl? Even when that career girl is a belly dancer? And, yes, the film does feint toward being a gritty examination of alcoholism, but all such concerns get sent out with the trash once the home-wrecking floozy gets her slapstick come-uppance and the wayward heroine comes to realize her rightful place as a wife and mother. Ugh.

And I say the above with a real sense of disappointment, as Egyptian cinema, even in the fifties, was not necessarily hostile to feminist--or borderline feminist—statements, such as the films in director Salah Abu-Sief’s “Female Empowerment Trilogy”. Of course, those films came a couple of years after A Glass and a Cigarette, and have been hailed for their progressive attitudes. Maybe Glass, with its emphasis on hand-wringing domestic melodrama, wrapped in a legitimizing veil of social concern, provides an example of the type of movies that Abu-Seif was progressing from. Nevertheless, the film is considered a classic of Egyptian cinema’s Golden Age, thanks to the sure-handed direction of Niazi Mustapha (Antar, The Black Prince), the dazzling star power of its lead cast, the rich, black and white cinematography of Abdel Aziz Fahmy, and several glamorous musical numbers that put the vocally talented actors to good use.

In the film, Samia Gamal and Kouka play Hoda and Samma, two dancers at Cairo’s Al-Gala Casino. Both of them dream of marriage, but with Hoda, that dream has grown into a full-blown obsession. Early in the film, Samma, ever eager to help her friend, culls an assortment of unattached men from among the casino regulars and cajols Hoda to pick one of them to marry. The marriage designs of Samma, a non-resident Tunisian, are more administrative in character. It is at this time that we see Hoda throwing back shot to allay her “shyness.”

But Hoda’s shyness is not enough to keep Mamdouh (Nabil El-Aify) an up-and-coming-and-handsome young doctor, from sweeping her off her feet. As Hoda is primed like some kind of matrimonial rocket, almost no time passes before the two are married and have a baby, who they name Samma, after the woman who tried to pimp out her best friend in an Arabic augury to The Bachelorette. After a period of domestic bliss, trouble arises in the hourglass-shaped form of Mamdouh’s new nurse, Yolanda (Dalida), a dark Italian beauty whom the women mockingly call “Yolanda Macaroni’.” Yolanda sets her sites on Mahmoud and it is not long before Hoda, driven mad with jealousy, is throwing back highball after highball. This is treated as a new development, although we’ve already been shown that Hoda will turn to the sauce over being cut off in traffic.

A word about the women of A Glass and a Cigarette: At the time of making the film, Samia Gamal was widely regarded as one of the best belly dancers in the world. Six years earlier, she had starred as a mischievous genie in the comedy Afrita Hanem, one of the most beloved Egyptian films of its era. Kouka, who was the wife of director Mostafa, was so identified with the legendary figure of  Abla, the storied lover of first century Egyptian poet Antarah ibn Shaddad al-Abs, that one of the film’s musical numbers is dedicated to retelling the tale.

But it was Dalida who might have outshone them all. An Egyptian or Italian heritage, the actress and singer gained worldwide fame as a singer of French language songs. She could even claim the honor of singing the French language version of Brian Highland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weeine Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”

All three woman acquit themselves wonderfully in the acting department. I loved Gamal and Kouka’s antic portrayal of female friendship, which at times reminded me of the girls in  Broad City. Dalida’s Yolanda is a Kohl-eyed personification of feminine malignancy, cold, covetous and calculating. She also steals the movie with a gorgeous torch song that she sings near the end.

Gamal also is really good at portraying someone who is completely stinking drunk while maintaining her glamorous aura. In one penultimate scene, after coming to understand that she has accidentally killed her baby, she staggers wildly down a city street and tumbles into a doorway, where she splays her long body out elegantly before passing out.

Anyone who comes to A Glass and a Cigarette looking for a way to overcome alcoholism will probably be bitterly let down. As the film has it, Hoda begins drinking because her life is imperfect, but at the end, when she has humiliated Yolanda and has reclaimed her happy family, her life is perfect, and no more mention is made of her little problem until the cheerful closing credits music plays.

It all seems so simple.

The Charmer, aka Saher Al Nisa' (Egypt, 1958)

That Egypt suffered its own share of post-war anxieties is evidenced in part by the prevalence of film noir within the country’s cinematic output of the 50s and 60s. These films are remarkable not just for their high technical quality, but also for how easily they slot into the genre overall, deep shadows, rain slicked streets and all. As such, they’re worthy of being judged side-by-side with the canonical works of masters like Wilder, Mann and Tournier. Take, for example, The Charmer, which chooses as its subject one of noir’s most generative figures, the shady spiritualist.

From Nightmare Alley to The Amazing Mr. X, the fraudulent fakir has provided for some of noir’s bleakest visions of human nature, given he is a character who cynically exploits people at their most vulnerable. I think it’s a gimme that anyone who is driven to find a supernatural solution to their problems has got to be at a pretty catastrophic low point in their lives. Only a monster would play such a person for a sucker.

Hamza, the character played by Farid Chawki in The Charmer, is just such a monster, although director Fatin Abdel Wahab (Ebn Hamido, The Haunted House) cannot resist giving his exploits a somewhat light-hearted treatment during the film’s first half. The idea of the picaresque con man seems to have an intractable hold on the imaginations of commercial filmmakers, perhaps because they see in him/her a sort of fellow traveler. Wahab, for instance, piggybacks upon Hamza’s prolific use of spooky sideshow gimmicks to swath his moody crime thriller in a haunted atmosphere worthy of Val Lewton. It’s all good fun, but ultimately makes for a stirring transition once The Charmer takes an inexorable turn into darkness.

As the film begins, we find Hamza, a small time crook, on the eve of his release from prison. Another inmate, Kawakby (Tawfik El Deken), has become Hamza’s criminal mentor during his time inside and now asks him for a favor. He will point Hamza toward a treasure ripe for the taking if Hamza promises that, after stealing it, he will use half of the money to pay the tuition of Kawakby’s sister so that she won’t be expelled from school. Hamza agrees, but not necessarily out of a generousness of spirit. Instead, he launches into a diatribe about how much he hates women and about how this job somehow will provide a platform for his revenge against the whole damn lot. Hamza’s misogyny is due, he tells us, to a history of abuse, neglect, and disappointment from the women in his life—in particular his mother, sister, and step-mother. Not surprisingly, that information does nothing to make this exchange any less troubling.

Hamza’s marks are two people who live in the same tenement in Tablia Alley, a rough part of the city. They are Morsi Amin, a drug dealer (Reyad El Kasagby) and Adalat, a matchmaker (Wedad Hamdy). Hamza shows up in the guise of wild-haired holy man Sheikh Maksouf and, using information provided him by Kawakby, makes short work of dazzling the two with his mind reading abilities. A series of supernatural escapades follow, which end with Hamza fleeing town with both Amin and Adalat’s treasure in hand—and each of them blaming the other for the loss. As I mentioned before, most of this is played for laughs, with Hamza making preposterous animal noises (awoooo!) during his conjurations and quite hilariously portraying himself as an ascetic who cannot touch cash.

The Charmer then skips forward in time a bit, where we find a much more high-toned version of Hamza (smart suit, groovy shades) haunting an upscale resort with a female accomplice. His target this time is Rashid Abdel Wahab, a disabled businessman (Mohamed Elwan), and his devoted wife Aziza (Hind Rostom). Hamza introduces himself to Aziza as Sharraf Eddin, a “Spiritual Scientist”, and gradually convinces her that he alone is capable of curing her husband.

Given that he is already planning to rob them, the “treatment” that Hamza then subjects Rashid to can only be seen as needlessly humiliating and cruel—an insult added to injury. Declaring Rashid’s infirmity the result of demonic possession, he proceeds with an “exorcism” that mostly consists of a weird floor show involving dancers in devil costumes and really loud drums. At the same time, opining that it would be helpful to Rashid to be more aroused by his wife, he encourages Aziza to wear ever more revealing outfits. He also sets out to seduce her, with the result that the character played by Hind Rostom gradually goes from being a tremulous innocent to being exactly the kind of back-stabbing gold digger that we’re used to seeing her play. Eventually, she falls so deeply under Hamza’s spell that she says she is willing to kill Rashid to get him out of the way. This, of course, not before Hamza has encouraged her to steal a fortune in jewels from her husband’s safe—such loot being necessary to Hamza purchasing from America the “nuclear device” he needs to complete Rashid’s treatment.

Hamza’s ruse begins to unravel when Kawakby, released from prison, returns home to find that Hamza, contrary to their agreement, has contributed absolutely nothing toward his family’s wellbeing. Incensed, he sets out to track his former friend down—only to blackmail him into giving him a cut of the take when he finds him. Meanwhile, the District Attorney (Hassan Hamed), now hot on Hamza’s tail, has other plans for the two. No amount of legal intervention, however, can prevent poor Aziza from meeting a karmic fate which she perhaps does not so richly deserve.

The Charmer is a rewardingly tight little thriller filled with gorgeous kitsch. The film loses none of its narrative punch for you taking time out to bemusedly savor Sharraf Eddin’s modish office with its smoke billowing whatsit and prominent disco ball, or its talk of nuclear devices from America that cure the lame… or that batcrap crazy dance number, for that matter. More importantly, it is a superb showcase for Egyptian cinema’s legendary tough guy, Farid Chawki. As Chawki is usually presented as more than a bit of a roughneck, it could be said that playing a suave and calculating con man might be a little off his beat—yet he acquits himself terrifically, making Hamza as compelling as he is loathsome. Meanwhile, Hind Rostom, if not playing against type, definitely plays against her normal trajectory, playing a good girl whose heart gradually ices over, rather than the other way around.

Sadly, those sympathetic to Hamza’s brash misogyny might see Aziza’s turn toward treachery as a validation of it. That’s awful, but I like to think, perhaps naively, that those people don’t read 4DK. If they do, I would point out to them that one of the translations of this movie’s Arabic title is “Betrayer of Women”, which indicates to me that no endorsement of Hamza’s behavior is being made on the part of its makers. Yes, it might be nice if they had expressed that sentiment a little more emphatically, but I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that this is the best we can hope for from a film made in the Middle East—or America, even—during the 1950s. In other words, sure, you might not like this film, and with good reason--but, personally, it is simply too good for me to conceive of any reason that it should not be seen.

Welcome to Cairowood

You know, I'm about a lot more than luring people into Bollywood's seductive embrace--though, of course, I am about that. Take, for example, my latest piece for Teleport City, in which I provide a handy introduction to the glamorous pleasures of Egyptian Cinema's golden age. These films offer all the attractions of classic Hollywood, with the welcome addition of lots and lots of belly dancing. It's called "Welcome to Cairowood" and you can Check it out here.

Struggle on the Nile (Egypt, 1959)

As most of you probably know, the recently departed Omar Sharif, before starting his ascent to international stardom with his role in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, had already become a major star in his native Egypt. Seeing a 26 year old Sharif in 1959’s Struggle on the Nile, it’s easy to see why. Indeed, those who’ve become accustomed to the masculine gravitas projected by the magnificently ‘stached Sharif in so many of his English speaking roles might even be taken aback by the fresh faced and clean shaven version that appears here. This younger Sharif (billed here a “Omar El Cherif”) is downright pretty--though, as we will also see in Struggle on the Nile, mere prettiness is not enough to keep him from being upstaged by a particularly electric performance from one of his co-stars.

In the film, Sharif plays Muhasab, a naïve village boy who has been tasked by his father, the village chieftan, with shepparding the Bride of the Nile, a dilapidated sailing vessel owned by the village, from Luxor to Cairo, where it will be sold for cash that will be used toward purchasing a motorized barge. This, it is believed, will make the village more competitive in matters of commerce. At the same time, the journey is clearly intended as a transition into manhood for Muhasab. We are told that he has been feminized by his mother during his upbringing, as symbolized by an earring she has made him wear since an early age. This is ceremoniously torn from his ear by his father on the eve of his departure.

To look after Muhasab along the way, his father appoints Mujahed, a rugged family friend played by rugged star Rushdy (or “Roushdy”) Abaza, who we’ve previously seen here at 4DK in Oh Islam!, Bride of the Nile and El Achrar. The chief also entrusts Mujahed with a purse containing £6000 that the village has collected toward the purchase of the barge. This he hands over to Muhasab in a potentially costly test of his ability to be responsible for it. We then have a scene of Muhasab bidding a fond farewell to Ward, a village belle whom he promises to marry upon his return (and who is played by an actress I was unable to identify).

Meanwhile, Abu Saafan, a ruthless rival merchant, assigns Hisham, one of his minions, to insert himself into the Bride’s small crew and sabotage the mission. He is also directed to kill Muhasab and steal the £6000. The rest of the crew is made up of two more or less bumbling sidekick types, one of whom is the village idiot who’s in love with a donkey. (As we’ve seen in Ismail Yassin’s Tarzan, the Egyptians don’t shy away from bestiality as a comic subplot.)

Suffice it to say that Muhasab fails his first test of character spectacularly. Upon the Bride’s first stop, at the port of Qena, Hisham lures him to a carnival where he and a couple of cohorts easily relieve him of the purse. It is only by the fist-wielding intervention of Mujahed that it is retrieved, after which Mujahed locks it away in the ship’s cellar. Hisham then recruits the carnival’s hoochie coochie dancer, Nargis (Hind Rostom), to charm her way aboard the boat and get her hands on the money. Arriving at the dock with suitcase in hand, she begs to join them, claiming that she is fleeing from an abusive lover. Above Mujahed’s objections, a smitten Muhasab allows her aboard.

Predictably, Nargis’ presence causes havoc aboard the Bride of the Nile. Mujahed commands her to stay in the ship’s hold, but she continues to make herself a mischievous presence on deck, where she is a crippling distraction to the all-male crew. (Upon seeing her, one of them, according to the English subtitle, exclaims of the light-skinned Nargis, “I love white plumpness!”) One episode, in which she comes on deck to wash her bare legs in the river’s waters, results in the ogling crewmembers allowing the ship to run aground.

Even more destructive are Nargis’ emotional manipulations. She easily seduces the callow Muhasab and begins the work of turning him against Mujahed. Mujahed, for his part, desperately tries to get rid of her, but finds that she outsmarts his every effort to strand, abandon, and even kill her. Eventually, she maneuvers Muhasab, who is quick to forget his romantic commitments at home, into a quickie marriage. Then she sets her romantic sights on Mujahed, inciting in Muhasab a jealous rage that leads to a physical confrontation between the two friends.

I have elsewhere described Hind Rostom as Egypt’s answer to Rita Hayworth, and have since learned that she was described in her time as the Egyptian Marilyn Monroe. However, if she must be described by way of comparison, I suggest that we broaden the field of potential corollaries to include the female stars of Indian cinema. I say this because I think that fans of classic Bollywood films will see in her an Egyptian equivalent of the great Helen. Like Helen, she typically plays the role of the vamp, siren, or homewrecker, and as such must, within the male dominated culture she inhabits, eventually be punished for inflaming the libidos of the men around her, as well as for the misdeeds those men have committed as a result.

Rostom, who has given outstanding performances in Egyptian classics like Cairo Station and Sleepless, takes to her role in Struggle on the Nile with astonishing ferocity. It is nothing if not a bravura performance, exhibiting, on the one hand, a scalding sensuality, and, on the other, a chilling sociopathic remove. It is a classic femme fatale turn, no doubt the result of Rostom taking full advantage of a role that keeps her front and center for much of the film.

Despite the heat that Rostom brings to the film, the fact that so much of its drama takes place within such a confined space renders it a bit of a slow boat to Cairo, pacing-wise. Its focus on a destructive love triangle playing out on a boat tempts comparisons to Polanski’s Knife in the Water, although director Atef Salem in no way manages the sustained tension that Polanski does in his film—nor, apparently, does he mean to. Instead, Salem treats much of Nargis’ bedevilment of the men around her as antic farce, complete with whimsical music. This creates even more of a disconnect once events take a markedly darker turn near the film’s conclusion. (Beware yon spoilers ahead.)

Indeed, when Nargis’ comeuppance arrives it is a gruesome one. And this despite the fact that Muhasab’s horny impulsiveness and terrible decision making has played as much or more of a part in the Bride of the Nile’s difficulties than any of her scheming did. Nonetheless, upon arriving home with the much anticipated barge, Muhasab is given a hero’s welcome by the village—and happily falls into the welcoming arms of his none-the-wiser fiancé. He is, by all appearances, no more of a man and no wiser than when he left. Given that, this dubiously “happy” ending tempts one to turn a side eye toward the two hours of Struggle on the Nile that has preceded it.

As far as recommending Struggle on the Nile goes, I'm torn. On the plus side, it is considered by many to be a classic of Egyptian cinema. Hind Rostom’s performance deserves to be seen, as do those of Rushdi Abaza and Omar Sharif, despite my having found Sharif’s character loathsome. The strain of misogyny that runs through it, however, has to be reckoned with. Our choice, on the one hand, is to turn away from the chauvinistic view of womankind that the film presents. On the other, it is to celebrate the woman who—in the tradition of all great screen femme fatales, Helen and Rita Hayworth included—took what little was offered her and imbued it with as much power, ferocity and raw living spirit as her considerable skills allowed. I suppose which of those you choose depends on the extent to which you see that as any kind of power at all.

Cairo Station (Egypt, 1958)

My reviews of films from Egyptian cinema's golden age have a tendency to momentarily class things up here at 4DK. Cairo Station should prove no exception, as it is a recognized classic from one of Egypt's most celebrated directors. Formal attire may be appropriate.

Cairo Station looks to the bustling train station of its title--which also serves as the film's sole location--as a portal into the world of Egypt’s working poor, ignoring the thousands of commuters, tourists, and travelers who pass through its gates daily in favor of the various porters, hacks and vendors who keep its gears turning. Front and center among these is Qinawi, played by director Youssef Chahine, a newspaper hawker who lives in a lowly shack on the station grounds; this thanks to Madbouli, the kindly newsstand proprietor who rescued Qinawi from the streets. Gimp-legged, slow witted, and oddly passive, Qinawi is an easy target for bullying and ridicule by the calloused bunch who are his fellow workers.

Qinawi has developed a fixation on Hanouma (Hind Rostom), one of a number of unlicensed female juice vendors who make up part of the underground economy that has grown up around the station. A boisterous troublemaker, Hanouma teasingly encourages Qinawi's crush, even though she is engaged to marry Abu Serih (Farid Chawki), a burly porter who is engaged in an uphill struggle to unionize the station’s workers. Hanouma’s flirting inspires delusions in Qinawi that, once shattered, send him spiraling into madness, at which point Cairo Station takes a very dark turn indeed.

In terms of its cast, Cairo Station packs a lot of star power. “Egypt’s answer to Marilyn”, Hind Rostom (Ebn Hamido, Sleepless) imbues Hanouma with an almost savage sensuality while at the same time maintaining the hard, cynical edge one would expect from a character attuned to a life of scrabbling. As Abu Serih, Farid Chawki (Oh, Islam!, Antar The Black Prince), demonstrates the same brute physicality that made him one of Egyptian action cinema’s biggest stars and earned him the nickname “The Beast” among his fans.

The standout among the cast, however, is Chahine, whose Qinawi is alternately pathetic and sinister, sympathetic and repellent. Deprived of human touch, Qinawi can only look, and look he does. The walls of his shack are plastered with pictures of pinup girls, which, it is intimated, he spends most of his time clipping out of magazines and whacking off to. We are repeatedly shown close-ups of his eyes as he looks at the chests and legs of female passersby, and at Hanouma in particular. As wanton and free as Hanouma may seem, Chahine won't let us forget that she is nonetheless a prisoner of Qinawi’s tyrannical gaze.

Cairo Station was rightly praised by critics in its day, but Egyptian audiences-- accustomed to the frothy, Hollywood-style entertainments of Egypt’s studio system—gave it a much less cordial welcome. After all, while many films had at that point covered the topic of loneliness, few if any—especially in the Arab world--had addressed the issue of sexual frustration with such frankness. And it is indeed sexual frustration that sends Qinawi on the path to madness and murder, essentially turning him into a monster. Once he realizes that Hanouma’ s acceptance of his marriage proposal was only made in jest, he savagely knifes a friend of hers, Hawwalitum, thinking it is her, and stuffs her body into a trunk meant for Hanouma’ s trousseau, after which he attempts to frame Abu Serih for her murder. Hawwalitum, however, survives, and Qinawi, realizing he has avenged himself against the wrong girl, sets a desperate trap for Hanouma.

Like its namesake, Cairo Station contains multitudes, both narratively and in terms of genre. The primary story of Qinawi, Hanouma and Abu Serih is periodically pushed aside to focus on Abu Serih’s battle against his union-busting superiors, as well as a mostly silent story about a young girl who is waiting at the station to say goodbye to her apparently indifferent boyfriend. Stylistically, it combines gritty neo-realism with moody Film Noir atmospherics.

The film also, to some extent, works as a Hitchcockian thriller, albeit one that undermines its own suspense somewhat by playing havoc with audience sympathies. For example, it is still possible to feel sorry for Qinawi while at the same time fully appreciating the threat he poses to the women around him. Hanouma, meanwhile, is as cruel to Qinawi as she is kind, and Abu Serih, while unequivocally heroic in his efforts to establish a union, is also seen beating Hanouma mercilessly simply for dancing to rock and roll music. In short, there are victims here, but no heroes. The cumulative effect of that is that Cairo Station’s violent denouement, when it arrives, comes across as much more preordained and tragic than it does horrific.

The hostility toward Cairo Station on the part of Egyptian audiences resulted in it being banned in its home country for twenty years. When it was later rediscovered by more appreciative filmgoers, some claimed that it was the greatest Egyptian film ever made. I do not know whether that is true or not (I have not seen every Egyptian film ever made), but I would certainly recommend it. It is a well-crafted work of considerable risk taking, marked by both a clear-eyed vision of the human condition at its most humble and debased and an uncommon compassion.