So is 'Al Ataba El Khadra' For Sale Or...?
No, it's a scam. A town square is never for sale.
Watch the movie here! But only if you’re cool with black and white films without subtitles and Ismail Yassin’s face
Before I begin I just want to apologize to everyone. This should have come out a while ago but a lot of life happened all at once. Who knows, maybe I’ll write something thinly veiled about it later.
This 1959 film was written by Galil al-Bindari who was inspired by the real life crime of an Egyptian fraudster boldly trying to sell the entire Cairo tram system that was headquartered in Ataba Square. This tram system was (and still is) owned by the government and could go all over Cairo as well as some key cities in Egypt such as Alexandria and Tanta. No Egyptian native would go for this type of grift, of course, but a foreigner would and almost did. That is all I know about the story. There aren’t many English language sources that detail it and the scheme seemed to have failed anyway. If anyone knows anything else about I implore you to comment on this article and tell me because I cannot tell you how long I have been dying to know.
But the gambit was so comical in how bombastic it was. That was the approach al-Bindari and director Fatin Abdelwahab took. It’s a plot and a script that perfectly fits Ismail Yassin’s signature over the top physicality.
Now Yassin’s character Mabrouk (which roughly means ‘good fortune’) wasn’t in the market to buy a tram system. You read the title and the subtitle of this article. Ahmed Mazhar’s Youssef Gamil intends to sell this rural fish out of water the actual town square. This piece of public property is a prime piece of real estate from the Italian architecture, the vastness of the greenery, and the history that lives and breathes by that point for at least seventy years. During the events of the film, Gamil enlists the help of Muna who’s played by Sabah as she wonders if this is really the price of fame that she is willing to pay. We see Gamil manipulating both of them as they try to get what was promised and slowly realize that this is in fact a con man and he will never deliver. We have all been there so I totally get it. Ahmed Mazhar is a hottie with a body in this movie.
Now the hook for both Muna and Mabrouk is that Youssef Gamil is a high rolling businessman with a large inheritance in which he owns Ezzbekiyya Gardens, Ataba Square and the Cairo Opera House. He wants to sell off these assets to buy the Pyramids. He has some very realistic goals here. But it’s for a purpose! There is an overall theme of grandeur and absurdity that threads the story, the acting and the dialogue all together. It’s visually driven home by the songs Sabah sings and the her wardrobe that she looks marvelous in. Mabrouk wants to buy Ataba Square and Muna just wants his connections so she can wear her amazing dresses and sing her incredibly catchy songs. But Muna catches on that Youssef Gamil is a fraud but at this point she’s basically his accomplice. And so she has to break off her relationship with Omar al-Hariri’s up and coming writer character who took her for granted anyway. While I know this movie is from 1959, going back to your contrite screenwriter boyfriend at the end of the story is not the character development I would have personally gone with. She’s Sabah. She’s gorgeous. She’s allowed to be single and have success in the story.
Now here’s the real achievement of this movie. It’s a comedy. Jokes tend to age and sometimes not very well. Sometimes it’s dated and sometimes it’s downright offensive. Not this movie. I laughed at all the jokes. I laughed a lot. I enjoyed the performances and I had a lot of fun. I appreciated how meticulous and light it all was. I liked that all of the jokes landed on purpose. This movie is the epitome of the golden age of cinema. It’s probably one of my favorite things I have ever laid my eyes upon.