Shadia

Fatma Ahmed Kamal Shaker was given the stage- name “Shadia” by director Helmi Rafla. In her heyday during the 1950s and 1960s, she avoided being typecast by working with a number of different directors and in different genres—melo­drama, romance, and comedy. It was, however, her musical talent as a singer that established Shadia as one of the most important Egyptian cinema stars of her era. She starred with actor Kamal E­Shinawy in more than 30 films, and sang opposite Farid al-Atrache and Abdel Halim Hafez —most notably in The People’s Idol (Rafla, 1967). She appeared with Faten Hamama in An Appointment with Life (Ezzedine Zulficar, 1954), while in The Unknown Woman (Mahmoud Zulficar, 1959), she plays the role of Fatma in a heavy melodrama in which she faces a series of tragedies and injustices, commits murder, and is defended in court by her estranged son; she also played the good-hearted seductress who takes in a fugitive in The Thief and the Dogs (Kamal E1-Sheikh, 1962). Shadia likewise performed strongly in comedy roles, most notably in Wife Number 13 (Fatin Abdel-Wahab, 1962) and My Wife the General Manager (Abdel-Wahab, 1966).

Although often cast in cunning and cheeky roles, Shadia’s fea­tures could adopt serious, melodramatic expression. In The Road (Zulficar, 1964), while Souad Hosni played the young, naive desk clerk who falls in love with Saber (Rushdi Abaza), Shadia took on the role of his mistress who sneaks to his room while her elderly husband sleeps. She also played Skina opposite actress Soheir El­Bably in the stage version of Raya and Sakina, based on the true story of two Alexandrian serial killers and directed by Hussein Kama (The 1953 film version directed by Salah Abu Seif is heralded as a classic of Egyptian cinema.) Shadia performed in more than 100 films before she retired from the public eye and joined a number of actresses who took on the veil (hijab) in an act of Islamic resistance and salvation.

Abdel Halim Hafez

For thirty years, Muhammad Abdel Wahab dominated Arabic song. Then suddenly a sickly young man called Abdel Halim Hafez appeared, and earned for himself the name al-Andalib al-Asmar, The Dark Nightingale.

The upstart’s sudden rise to fame took the Singer of Kings and Princes by sur­prise. In an attempt to smother him, he signed him up with his own production company, Sawt al-Fann (The Voice of Art) and paid him a pittance. But there was no stopping the new arrival, and before long he was every girl’s dream and the role model for young men. He had replaced Abdel Wahab in their hearts.

His success was even enough to irritate Umm Kulthum. “Boy, you’re a crooner, not a real singer,” she told him one day, in front of the press.

In his short life, Abdel Halim made more films than Abdel Wahab and Umm Kulthum put together, acting and singing with almost every female star of the 1950s and 1960s. He shared his first film, Lahn al-Wafa’ (The Song of Fidelity, 1955) with Fatin Hamama and singer Shadia. In Banat al-Yawm (Today’s Girls, 1957), he costarred with actress Magda, and in al-Wasada al-Khaliya (The Empty Pillow) with Lubna Abdel Aziz. Mariam Fakhr al-Din played alongside him in Hikayat Hubb (Tale of Love, 1959), followed by Suad Husni in al-Banat wal-Sayf (The Girls and Summer, 1960), and Zubayda Tharwat in Yawm min `Umri (A Day in My Life, 1961). In al-Khataya (The Sins, 1962) he was joined by Nadia Lutfi, who appeared with him once again in 1969 in Abi Fawqa al-Shagara (My Father is up the Tree).

Henry Barakat, who directed him in Ayyam wa-Layali (Days and Nights, 1955), Maw’id Gharam (A Romantic Date, 1956) and Today’s Girls (1957), described Abdel Halim as “sensitive, as much an actor as he was a singer.” Other directors who helped his ascent to stardom were Muhammad Karim in Dalila (1956), the first Egyptian film in cinemascope; Salah Abu Sayf in The Empty Pillow (1957); Hilmi Rafla in Fata Ahlami (Man of My Dreams, 1958) and Ma’budat al-Jamahir (Public Idol, 1967); Fatin Abdel Wahab in The Girls and Summer, Hasan al-Imam in The Sins and Husayn Kamal in My Father is up the Tree.

My Father is up the Tree, Abdel Halim’s last film, was an unprecedented suc­cess in Egyptian cinema, running for thirty-six weeks. Abdel Halim played the lover of a prostitute (Nadia Lutfi) in a tavern on the Alexandria harbor. His rival is his father, played by Emad Hamdi. Young men would return to the theater several times in an effort to count the kisses. The film has never been shown on Egyptian television, for censorship reasons.

Tawfik Saleh

In a career in cinema of more than forty years, Tawfik Saleh has made just seven feature films. Al-Mutamarridun (The Rebels, 1967) was banned for politi­cal reasons, and his last two films, al-Makhdu’un (The Dupes, 1972) and al­Ayyam al-Tawila (The Long Days, 1980), made in Syria and Iraq, have never been shown in Egypt.

In Saleh’s last year at university, Tawfik al-Hakim’s play, Russassa fil-Qalb (A Bullet in the Heart) was presented at the French Friendship Club in Alexandria. Saleh was asked to direct it just three days before its presentation. The French Cultural Attaché was impressed by Saleh’s direction and sent him to study theater in Paris for a year.

Saleh returned to Egypt soon after the Free Officers’ revolution, having actually studied cinema rather than theater. His first film, Darb al-Mahabil (Fools’ Alley, 1954) was influenced by al-Suq al-Sawda’ (The Black Market, 1943), which Saleh had seen being filmed by director Kamel al-Tilmissani during his first year at university. The Black Market was set in a poor district of Cairo in the manner of director Kamal Selim’s al-Azima, but unlike al­Azima, this time there was no happy resolution at the hands of an enlight­ened pasha. Instead, the people confronted the greedy merchants and emerged victorious. With this setting in mind, Saleh collaborated with Naguib Mahfouz, in his first work for cinema, to create a film which was outside the ordinary in every respect. Although awarded the National Prize for Directing in recognition of its social commentary Fools’ Alley was badly received by both critics and public.

Saleh then made no films for seven years, until 1962, when he directed Sira’a al-Abtal (Conflict of Heroes), relating the cholera epidemic of the 1940s to the effects of British occupation. Over the years, he made three more films, The Rebels, based on a story by journalist Salah Hafiz; Yawmiyat Na’ib fil-Aryaf (Diary of a Country Prosecutor, 1968) from a novel by Tawfik al-Hakim; and al-Sayyid al-Bulti (Mr Bulti, 1969) from a story by Saleh Mursi.

He then moved to Syria for four years, where he made his masterpiece, The Dupes, written by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani about the tragedy of the Palestinian diaspora.

In 1973, Saleh moved to Iraq, directing his last film, The Long Days, about Saddam Husayn’s revolutionary youth. He now lives in Cairo.