This is a 47" x 35" two-piece Egyptian poster designed by Ragheb
for the 1948 Niazi Mostafa musical Princess Leila AKA layla
al-amiriya AKA Leila and Magnun written by Abol-Farag
al-Isfahani and starring Kouka as Leila. Plot summary: In a desert
village in 7th Century Arabia Qays ibn al-Mulawah [Yehia Chahine] fell
madly in love with his cousin Leila and incessantly recited poems
about her. His story spread through the village, but it was a
violation of tradition. Moreover, although Leila was happily spending
her days with Qays, Qays had a rival for her hand in a man named Ward
[Mahmoud El-Meliguy]. When the rival proposed her father [Ibrahim
Emara] agreed and married Leila to him without her consent. The
distraught poet took to wandering aimlessly, reciting poems and
hallucinating about his lost love, while Leila got sick and died.
Cast and crew: Niazi Mostafa, Yehia Chahine, Kouka, Mahmoud
El-Meilguy, Reyad El Kasabgy, Ibrahim Emara, Abol-Farag al-Isfahani,
Rafia al-Shal, Abdullah al-Husseini, Ali Rushdy, Mohamed Nehad, Shafiq
Noureddine, Husny Claude, Awham George
Pictured is a 35.5" x 47" oversize Egyptian poster designed by Abdel
Rahman to promote the 1956 Hassan El-Seify 89-minute black-and-white
film Who Is the Killer? [min al-qatel?] starring Samira Ahmed
based on story, screenplay and dialogue by Mohamed Kamel Hassan with
cinematography by Alevise Orphanelli. Plot summary: A girl was killed
during a wedding celebration. An inspector [Adly Kasseb] arrived
immediately to determine the murderer's identity. He questioned a
number of people and found they all had good motives for killing the
girl, but the real murderer turned out to be someone nobody suspected.
Pictured is a 35.5" x 47" oversize Egyptian poster designed by Abdel
Rahman to promote the 1956 Hassan El-Seify 89-minute black-and-white
film Who Is the Killer? [min al-qatel?] starring Samira Ahmed
based on story, screenplay and dialogue by Mohamed Kamel Hassan with
cinematography by Alevise Orphanelli. Plot summary: A girl was killed
during a wedding celebration. An inspector [Adly Kasseb] arrived
immediately to determine the murderer's identity. He questioned a
number of people and found they all had good motives for killing the
girl, but the real murderer turned out to be someone nobody suspected.
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
This is a 27" x 39" undated rerelease poster designed by an unknown
artist to promote the 1947 82-minute Niazi Mostafa black-and-white
film Queen of the Desert [soltanet al-sahra] starring Kouka
with story and screenplay by Niazi Mostafa, bedouin dialogue and songs
by Bayram El Tounsi and cinematography by Klelio. Plot summary:
Soltana, the queen of the desert, had been kidnapped and left among
the desert tribes after a dispute between her father and a member of the
lower classes. Her cousin, a pilot, came upon her by chance, fell in
love with her and told her father about it. At first the father did
not know Soltana was his missing daughter, but when this became clear
to him he helped his nephew rescue her from the desert tribes and the
two cousins married.
Cast and crew: Niazi Mostafa, Yehia Chahine, Kouka, Mahmoud El-Meliguy, Ismail Yasseen, Mokhtar Hussein, Rafia al-Shal, Bayram El Tounsi, Abu Seoud El-Ibiary, Farag al-Nehas, Fatheya Chahine, Fahmy Imam
