Horeya Hassan (1951)

Horeya Hassan (حورية حسن) is the singer/dancer in this scene from the 1951 Egyptian drama ‘Ibn al Nil/e’ (Son of the Nile ابن النيل). The film was directed by Youssef Chahine and produced by early female film maker Mary Queeny. As the scene shifts from the nightclub singer to the village men on the boat the same song is being sung by both groups. Shukry Sarhan plays Hamid, a country boy who dislikes his life as a rural farmer but marries a village girl named Zubaida played by Faten Hamama. Hamid decides to leave the village behind and catch the train to Cairo, the big city. There’s an accident, he thinks Zubaida has been killed and he heads to the city alone. There he quickly changes into a ’city slicker’ and gets involved with a gang based in a nightclub. He’s eventually arrested and after serving his sentence returns to village life a wiser man. Shukry Sarhan is the tearful man in this scene and the woman who sits with him at the end is actress/dancer Samiha Tawfik who plays Poussi the club dancer. Also st