Director: Youssef Chahine
Surprisingly, Egypt has a vibrant movie industry that dates back to 1896! Its golden era is between the 1940s and 1960s. Despite the changing of guards and political outlook, it stood the test of time. President Gamel Abdel Naseer's planned nationalisation had irreparable damage to its heydays and never really recovered after that.The director of this movie is also credited for introducing Omar Sharif to Hollywood, although not through this movie.
This 1958 release is an Egyptian noir film depicting small people in a busy railway station. Even though the story is a simple one of which we have seen many by now, it must have been revolutionary at its time. The movie's lovely thing is how the various strata of society are depicted to intermingle at an economic level. It also shows the difference in people's outlook in metropolitan Cairo, the modern outgoing Western viewpoints and conservative ones who frown upon the antics of the so-called 'immoral' ones. It is a meeting place of many characters; some make a living there.
With this background, the story starts with a newsstand owner adopting a young man, Qinawi, who has a deformed leg and lies idle on the platform. He is sent off vending newspaper. He soon realises that Qinawi is not right in the mind. His shack is filled with newspaper cuttings of scantily clad models.Qinawi fancies (obsessed) Hanoumma, a flirtatious soft drink vendor. He has big plans for a wedding and settling down by the seaside. Unfortunately, Hanoumma has her eyes set tightly on Abu Sirieh, a hunky porter at the station.
Inserted into the subplot is how Hanoumma and her friends are always on the run from the railway security as their business is illegal and hurts the legitimate shop owners. A couple of love birds secretly wish each other farewell as the boy leaves for overseas, and their relationship is unknown to the family. Then, there is a feud among the porters. A group wants to form a union to fight for their alleged unfair wages. Abu Sirieh is supportive of the old system of patronage. There is looming a story of a murderer in the newspaper.
The filmography is interesting because it has many closeups of the steam train and sets the mood of the humid and explosive set of the scenes.
Qinawi, after being rejected by Hanoumma, recoils into a rage and systematically plans to kill Qinawi. The wrong girl is stabbed in the confusion of darkness, put in a trunk and packed off in a train. The remaining shows the truth surfaces and how Qinawi is tricked into a straightjacket by his adopted father.
