Friday, February 7, 2014

Sleepless [لا أنام] - (Faten Hamama) - (1958)

Sleepless [la anam] (dir: Salah Abouseif) (1962) Egyptian film poster

This is an undated Egyptian rerelease poster made to promote the 1958 Salah Abouseif 121-minute color film Sleepless [la anam] starring Faten Hamama and Omar Sharif based on a story by Ihsan Abd al-Qudus with screenplay by El Sayed Bedeir and Salah Ezzedine, dialogue by Saleh Gawdat and cinematography by Abdelhalim Nasr. Plot summary: Nadia's [Faten Hamama] father [Yehia Chahine] divorced her mother and she grew up in her father's care. He did not remarry and dedicated his life to educating and caring for his daughter. When Nadia was 16 her father married Safia [Mariam Fakhr Eddine] who was a lady of nobility, but Nadia was alienated from the woman who came to take her mother's place in her father's castle. Nadia met Mostafa [Imad Hamdi] at a party and began dating him and frequenting his apartment without the knowledge of her family. Then Mostafa met her father's wife at a party and showed an interest in her. Nadia became more jealous of her, which led to her banishment from the house. Nadia deceived her father into believing there was a sinful relationship between his wife and his brother Aziz [Omar Sharif] who was living in the house with him. The father divorced his wife and she departed from the home, leaving Nadia lady of the house once more. Nadia felt remorse of conscience and arranged for her father to marry Kawsar [Hind Rostom], an old associate of hers they encountered while on a beach in Alexandria. However she quickly discovered that her father's new wife Kawsar had a lover named Samir [Rushdy Abaza] to whom she intended to give the wealth of Nadia's father. Nadia recorded a telephone conversation between them demonstrating this. She refrained from telling the truth to her father to keep from ruining his marriage a second time. Her suffering increased when she realized Mostafa did not love her after all and that he had gone to Safia after the divorce and courted her for himself. Her father came upon Mostafa's new wife with her lover and Nadia had to convince her father that he was her own lover who had come to court her. However Nadia could not continue the deception and finally told her father the truth on the wedding night. Fate intervened another time when a candle set fire to Nadia's wedding gown right after she had refused to marry Samir during a forced ceremony and was taken to a hospital, where they saved her life leaving her body disfigured with burns. This film is included on critic Ahmad Al-Hadari's 2007 list of Egypt's 100 most important films.

Cast and crew: Imad Hamdi, Hind Rostom, Salah Abouseif, Ihsan Abd al-Qudus, Faten Hamama, Mariam Fakhr Eddine, Omar Sharif, Rushdy Abaza, Yehia Chahine, Abdelhalim Nasr, Mahmoud Nasr, Rafia al-Shal, Salah Ezzedine, El Sayed Bedeir, Saleh Gawdat



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