A 1953 Egyptian melodrama where love gets ruined by class anxiety and one very shady cousin.
Jalal is a successful engineer who loves his neighbor Laila, the granddaughter of a pasha, but he hides his love for fear of social differences. Her uncle supervises her money, even though he is a gambler. Laila's cousin, a reckless young man, covets marrying her to seize her money. He learns by chance that Jalal loves Laila, so he tricks them both, and seizes the money from both of them.
Acting
Laila Fawzy's tragic restraint steals every scene.
Direction
Zulficar's shadowy black-and-white compositions scream emotional doom.
Production
Pasha-era Cairo opulence vs. middle-class modesty, perfectly contrasted.
Director
Ezz Eldin Zulficar
Laila Fawzy
ليلى هانم الدخيلي
Farid Shawqy
عزت بيه الدخيلي
Hussein Reyaad
حسين بيه الدخيلى
Ferdoos Mohamed
والدة جلال
Mahmoud Shoukoko
زقلط
Samiha Ayoub
جمالات
Mohsen Hassanein
أمين مجاهد عبد ربه - السفرجى
Ali Abdel Aal
الخواجه سيبو ستوجلوبولس
Reyaad ElQasabgy
المعلم دكش الفحلاوى - الجزار
Sayed Suleiman
مرجان عبد الباسط
Ahmed Elhaddad
المعلم عباس الجمل - الجزمجي
Abdel Halim ElQala'awy
المعلم حتحوت - القهوجى
Zeinab Muhammed
زوجة عباس
Fahmy Amman
سرور الزناتى - الحانوتى
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ezz Eldin Zulficar directed this during Egyptian cinema's golden age, when studios churned out social melodramas that made audiences weep in air-conditioned theatres.
The 'pasha's granddaughter' trope reflected real anxieties about Egypt's crumbling aristocracy under the 1952 revolution's shadow — this film literally captures a dying social order.
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