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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters An enormous flop
"In August 1933 I received a cable from Emil Khouri, who used to be Al-Ahram's publication secretary, along with a transfer for LE50. The cable instructed me to proceed to Paris, which I immediately did, telling Badie Khairi to follow me as soon as I cabled him from Paris. Only after my arrival did I begin to understand what the whole thing was about. Khouri had persuaded a leading French studio to let him produce a film and he was trying hard to persuade me to enter as a partner with him in return for a third of the profits. He presented me with a script that he had written which, he insisted, would do Egypt a world of good, that would meet with unprecedented acclaim, and that would, generally, be the best thing ever.
Naguib El-Rihani
as Kishkish Bey
"I looked at the script and thought that it might, just be passable, if we were allowed a free hand with the dialogue, so I immediately cabled Badie' Khairi to come. But before he arrived, Emil had given me a copy of a dialogue he had written in French, asking me to translate it into Arabic without the slightest alteration. I read his dialogue and thought it pretty useless, certainly given the kind of audience we were hoping to attract, and what that audience had come to expect from me. I tried to persuade my always contrary partner that the dialogue was enough to sink not one film but three, but he insisted on having his way and refused to listen to any objections. In the face of his stubbornness, I thought perhaps the best thing might be to call the whole thing off and return home, but Badie' kept arguing with me to return empty-handed would only give my detractors an opportunity to talk and spread rumours.
"I began to be persuaded, a process helped no doubt by the fact that I was so broke I did not even have the fare to get back. Why not compromise this time, I told myself, do the film, and then forget about it. So we started work at the studios on Monday, and had finished the whole thing by Saturday. We rushed through the whole film in six days because Khouri's only concern was to squeeze the budget to a minimum. Two weeks later the whole editing process was finished and Khouri and co came to me to congratulate me on an excellent performance that no actor would be able to surpass. I nodded and assured them that no matter what they believed now the film would never be anything but an enormous flop."
Extracted from Muzhakirat Naguib El-Rihani (Naguib El-Rihani's memoirs), Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, 1959.
