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.

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.

Essabet El Nissae (Lebanon/Turkey, 1968)

I freely admit to jumping on the Frank Agrama bandwagon, spurred on by posts from such reliable sources as the Mondo Macabro blog and loveable madman Jack J's En Lejemorder Ser Tilbage -- as well as the astonishingly well researched comments of one Doctor Kiss over at the Classic Horror Film Board. Hey, as far as being the subject of cult appreciation, Agrama is, from what I've seen, far more deserving than -- oh, I don't know -- Sompote Sands, say. And I'm certainly not above trying to squeeze my way in on the ground floor. All the better to hypocritically scoff at perceived Agrama newbies a few months down the line.

To the extent that he is known in the West, Agrama is probably most recognized for his role as CEO of Harmony Gold, the company that brought Robotech to American television and with it, the seeds of every anime body pillow subsequently sold to white wannabe otaku. (Though he might also ring a bell as being a co-defendant, alongside Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in the massive Mediaset tax fraud case brought by Italian officials a couple years back.) Fans of Z grade horror films might also know him as director of 1981's woeful Dawn of the Mummy.

But before distinguishing himself in those ways, the Egyptian born Agrama, under his given name of Farouk Agrama, directed a series of lively pop films in his native Middle East. These were typically International co-productions that combined stars from all of the participating regions, which were then released in alternate edits that highlighted whichever actors were the biggest draw in the targeted country. The result is the sort of "when worlds collide" casting that, in 1968's Essabet El Nissae, sees Turkish action god Cuneyt Arkin trading dialogue with beloved Egyptian comic Ismail Yasin and Lebanese singer and actress Sabah. Even Egyptian action film legend Farid Chawki shows up for a brief, fourth wall busting cameo (literally: "Hey, it's Farid Chawki!") in order that publicists for the Arab language version might tout his presence.

Agrama's approach to  Essabet El Nissae exhibits a good-natured, horny aimlessness that rivals that of the Mexican popular cinema of its day. He combines in the film tropes from both Eurospy movies and haunted house comedies, but still finds plenty of time for musical numbers and abundant cheesecake. In this busy context, Cuneyt Arkin gets to do a lot less of the trademark acrobatic brawling than you'd typically see in one of his purely Turkish productions, and instead spends a lot of his time simply fulfilling his role as just one of many pieces of eye candy, either by simply sitting and looking suave and unflappable or by laying back against a scenic background as Sabah serenades him with one of her many songs.

Essabet El Nissae centers around that most beloved of 60s spy spoof totems, the highly trained army of amazonian hit women (Las Sicodelicas, Deadler Than the Male), who, of course, also double as nightclub entertainers (Black Tight Killers). Arkin plays a reporter, saddled with both a cowardly, bespectacled photographer for a comic relief sidekick and a harried boss in the form Ismail Yassin -- here in one of his last screen appearances -- who stumbles onto the trail of the female gang while on assignment in Beirut. The ladies then employ their feminine wiles to throw him off the scent, as it were, which leads to a long series of burlesque interludes. Somewhere in all of this he meets and begins to woo Sabah, who appears to be a member of the gang.

Eventually Cuneyt follows a lead to an abandoned old house that we have seen, by way of a flashback, was the site of a brutal murder. This opens the way for some goofy, spook show slapstick reminiscent of Ismail Yasin's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein remake, Haram Alek, albeit without the participation of Yasin. This house will prove to have relevance to the overall plot later on, as perhaps will the ghost of the murdered woman, although on that last point I can't be entirely sure. Seriously, once all plot development has halted for the third time for someone to launch into an extra-narrative belly dancing routine, you will realize that none of these details matter very much. There is even an extended comic sequence in which Arkin and his sidekick don drag to sneak their way into a lady's spa. Oh, and I should also mention that the cut of the Arabic version I watched had edited into it a sequence from a different, French subtitled version that featured a woman lip synching an English language beat pop song to an audience of fright-masked dancers as Arkin engaged in a comedic brawl. So there's that.

Both the Arabic and Turkish versions of Essabet El Nissae are available in full on YouTube. (And, true to our expectations, the Turkish version is exponentially more distressed and crappy looking than the other.) While I wouldn't call it a must see, I will say that, if you can approach it with the kind of patience and goodwill that its lazily amiable approach to entertainment requires, you might, as I did, get a kick out of it. Arkin, so often comically intense, makes for an especially charming and affable presence, and as such nicely embodies the spirit of the endeavor as a whole. This is a film that seems to say that, if you don't have time to watch a few fights, chuckle at some dumb gags, listen to some songs, and look at some cool and attractive people and locations being cool and attractive, that's fine; but if you do, why not? Consider yourself Agrama'd.

Oh Islam! (Egypt/Italy, 1961)

One of the most lavish Egyptian productions of its day, Oh Islam! is a swoony mix of history, folklore and plain old Hollywood style hogwash. The Egyptians have proven themselves adept at this kind of thing, but in this case they turned to the real experts, hiring American director Andrew Marton, a television mainstay who also served as either an AD or 2nd unit director on such A-list epics as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra and The Fall of the Roman Empire.

The Italians were also involved in Oh Islam!, though to what extent is a little more difficult to say. The IMDB entry for the film is one of that site’s more Frankensteinian, and whether that’s more indicative of the basic nature of the IMDB or of Oh Islam! I will momentarily withhold judgment. What I can say is that the version of Oh Islam! that was eventually released in Italy, under the title La Spada dell’Islam (The Sword of Islam), was altered to the extent that some of its original Egyptian stars were replaced by Italian ones, most notably Italian screen siren Silvana Pampanini, who was substituted for famed belly dancer and actress Taheya Cariocca in the prominent role of Shagrat al-Durr.

Why look, here’s a photo of Cariocca in the role, followed by one of Pampanini, standing beside Egyptian actor Imad Hamdi, essaying the same role in a still from the Italian cut:

The primary credited director for La Spada dell’Islam was Enrico Bomba, who also has a production credit. The IMDB credits Marton and Bomba as co-directors of Oh Islam!, even though Marton alone is given onscreen credit as director in the original Arab language version. This is likewise the case for Italian cinematographer Marcello Masciocchi, whom the IMDB credits alongside Egyptian cinematographer Wahid Farid, despite the latter having sole screen credit in the original.

This above information is repeated on a number of other sites which obviously used the IMDB as their source. And while it’s certainly plausible that all of the named parties worked alongside one another on the original Arab language version of Oh Islam!, I nonetheless want to be cautious of becoming part of an ongoing misinformation loop where the film is concerned. Further undermining my confidence in the internet’s ability to supply me with solid, incontrovertible facts is Wikipedia’s assertion that the film was submitted as Egypt’s bid for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1961 under the title Love and Faith. This is contradicted by the IMDB’s listing of Egypt’s Oscar submissions, which claims that the country’s 1961 entry was something called Teenagers, while also erroneously including on the list a 1973 film called Love and Faith which was actually Japanese. FFFUUU…

Thankfully, a much clearer picture is yielded by watching Oh Islam! itself. And what becomes most immediately apparent is that it boasts a dazzling constellation of Egyptian star power well worthy of its monumental subject. On hand are such familiar faces as Lobna Adel Aziz and Roushdy Abaza -- both stars of the previously reviewed Bride of the Nile -- as well as “The Beast” himself, Farid Chawki, who here gets to truly unleash his trademark ferocity in the role of an irredeemable villain. Shoring up the frontline, along with Cariocca, is Egyptian screen heartthrob Ahmed Mazhar, who plays the male romantic lead opposite the radiant Aziz.

At the center of Oh Islam! is the Battle of Ain Jaloot, a decisive confrontation in 1260 AD that saw the Egyptian military successfully drive back the invading Mongol forces, thus beginning the reversal of a tide of Mongol conquest that had swept the majority of the Islamic Middle East. At the same time, the film dramatizes the rise and fall of Egypt’s first female ruler, the Sultana Shagrat al-Durr, a role that offers the diva-ish Taheya Cariocca ample opportunity for lusty scenery chewing. And if this wasn’t already enough to fill your narrative plate to overflowing, we’re also offered a romance that takes a pinch of historic detail and mixes it with a generous helping of Bollywood-style “lost and found” drama -- as well as a fistful of jackhammer-subtle patriotic symbolism.

The film begins with the fall of Afghanistan to Mongol forces, in this case lead by Farid Chawki as the wild-eyed Boltai. Because Boltai cannot claim the country’s throne until every other heir to it has been killed (because invading barbarians always respect the order of ascension of the countries they conquer, I guess), the Sultan has his counselor Salama steal away with his young daughter Jihad and her cousin Mahmoud. Before she escapes, he tells Jihad that hers is not a name, but a “duty… a destiny”, and that one day she will unite the Muslim peoples against their common enemy. From this point on, Boltai continues popping up in the path of the fleeing children like an armor clad, medieval version of Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, necessitating that they disguise themselves and blend in with a procession of slaves being lead to market by their Mongol captors. Jihad is ultimately sold off to serve in the harem of Shagrat al-Durr, while the feisty Mahmoud is bought by Prince Ezz El Din Aibak (Imad Hamdi) to serve in his military forces.

Mahmoud, who in his adult form is played by Ahmed Mazhar, turns out to be a fictionalized version of Saif Ad-Din Qutuz, the man who, as Sultan, would lead Egypt to victory at Ain Jaloot. In Oh Islam!’s climactic portrayal of that battle, it is Jihad, played in her adult form by Lobna Adel Aziz, who urges the forces onward by seizing a trampled flag and repeatedly shouting “Oh Islam” while perched atop a rock -- a feat which actual history argues was performed by Qutuz himself. In this sense, Jihad is as much of a phantom as the character played by Aziz in the fanciful Bride of the Nile, albeit of a different sort. It wouldn’t be much less subtle if this completely invented character were simply perched upon Mahmoud’s soldier with a tiny sword and a set of wings.

Meanwhile, Shagrat al-Durr -- who’s governing philosophy could be succinctly summed up by Michelle Pfeiffer’s Batman Returns bon mot “life’s a bitch now so am I” -- is fighting to maintain power against those many powerful men who’d rather not see Egypt ruled over by a woman. Once Mahmoud and Jihad are tracked down by the now blind Salama and reunited as kissing cousins, the Sultana uses her ownership of Jihad as leverage to force Mahmoud to do her political dirty work, which mostly involves killing folks. Somehow this all leads to the final battle at Ain Jaloot, which sees further complications arise when an army of Spanish Crusaders arrives on the scene (something that apparently actually happened).

Whoever the hell directed and shot Oh Islam!, they did a fine job, seeing as the mandate was obviously to create a Hollywood caliber period spectacle as seductive to the eye and spirit as it is historically dubious. The climactic battle sequence is indeed as spectacular and rousing as one could hope for, employing an awe inspiring legion of extras and an abundance of credible looking costumes and weaponry. Panoramic widescreen compositions are employed to full breath-capturing capacity, as is the intensely vibrant color palette typical of Egyptian epics of the period. Truthfully, this work is as credibly that of Marton and Wahid Farid as it is of any Italian genre veterans of the day granted the appropriate generous budget; Bomba, after all, was no stranger to Peplums, as he also had a hand in producing Romulus and the Sabines, and Maciocchi lensed everything from sword-and-sandal flicks to Antonio Margheriti space operas to Yor, Hunter from the God Damned Future. Hopefully some day I will have the answers to just who did what on Oh Islam! and when, but now I am tired.

Honestly, being a human of middling age, if you had told me twenty years ago that there would one day be a resource as wondrous as the Internet Movie Database, I might not have believed you. And if you had further told me that a large portion of that technological gift-from-god’s most habitual users would end up doing nothing but complaining about it, I would have dismissed you altogether. Yet I have to admit that it’s difficult not to resent the perilous rabbit holes one often gets sent down thanks to a healthy skepticism regarding the IMDB’s version of the facts. Indeed, a couple of the sites I landed upon as a result of Googling the title of Oh Islam! in the original Arabic likely got me added to some kind of FBI watch list. Come to think of it, given the current sad climate, merely reproducing that title in English might be enough to raise some hackles.

And on that note, I must say that it might serve the average Islamophobe well to watch Oh Islam!, as it would allow him or her to thrill along to what is an understandably proud moment in the history of Islam while offering the comfort of being as corny and overblown in its celebration of same as anything John Wayne ever put his name on. By the end, it’s stirring enough to have even the most dedicated yahoo jumping up and down on his chair and shouting “Allahu Akbar!”