Afritah Hanem

"Lady Genie", before anything else, is a fun movie. It's sort of a cross between Gene Kelly and Bollywood. The acting is good, and the singing and dancing are excellent. The plot is very silly indeed, and I found it extremely diverting, despite the flaws which I shall now list.

The first is not a flaw so much as a disclaimer: those not familiar with the Arabic culture may be baffled for most of the duration. This is an Arabic movie made for an Arab audience, and there are no explanations for outsiders.

Second: I have compared "Lady Genie" to a Gene Kelly movie, and the similarities are in that the music numbers are long and don't further the plot. Especially the finale with the demons and the girls in the cages -- long and random.

Finally: it's old, and cheap. The film quality in particular suffers from this.

But, as I said in the beginning, it's a wild romp, quite funny and featuring some world-class belly-dancing.

Afrita Hanem is one of the Classics in Egyptian Movie History. It features both Samia Gamal (a legendary dancer, considered by many to be the greatest Egyptian dancer of all times) and Farid Al-Atrache (one of the best Arab musicians of all times). The two have starred in countless romantic comedies together and are beloved by the Egyptian public even today. This particular movie is the Story of a poor singer(Farid) who finds a magic lamp with a beautiful genie(Samia). The Genie falls in love with the singer instantly because he looks exactly like her long lost love. She promises to give him anything his heart desires. The singer who is in love with his co-star and bosses daughter tries everything he can to gain her interest but his Genie does everything she can to thwart his plans. This leads to some very humorous events. Although the movie is old and it's values are dated it can still be seen and understood by all audiences today including Americans with little to no understanding of Arab or Egyptian culture. Just like the values in our old movies in America are different from the values we hold to day. If you keep in mind what the early portion of the 19th century was like and keep those conservative values in your thought the movie should make a lot of sense. Someone else wrote that one of the scenes which had demons and dancing girls in it, didn't make any sense but seems to have forgotten that that was a part of their show not an actual event that supposedly happens to them in the movie. Throughout the movie they work in an Opera house producing musical and dance productions which are highly successful. This scene is from their show. It is also symbolically supposed to represent the torment that they had to go through to be with each other. The film quality is comparable to American films of the same era. Also if you have the DVD there are English subtitles which make the movie much easier to understand. I'm assuming that the person who wrote the previous review is probably watching one without subtitles.

Farid Al Atrache stars as Asfour, a very, very, VERY dumb man. He's infatuated with the boss' daughter, Aleya (Lola Sedki)--even though she's never really reciprocated and she's totally self-absorbed. Despite this, he holds on to this insane notion throughout most of the film that he wants to marry her. It's even more insane because a beautiful female genie, Kahramana (Samia Gamal), adores him and will do anything to have him as her lover. After finding her magic lamp and freeing her, she helps him in so many ways and is very hot (walking about with far less clothes than I'd expected in an Egyptian film) and willing...yet Asfour keeps talking about Aleya almost non- stop. So, this leads to Kahramana playing a variety of tricks on him to derail this relationship with Aleya until, ultimately, she just gives up and disappears. What's next? See the film.

Like Major Nelson on "I Dream of Jeanie", Asfour is a total moron. He has an incredibly pretty and devoted genie that can and will do anything for him...and he is blind to all her many, many charms. And, like dopey Anthony, he eventually does realize what he's got...but perhaps it's too late.

The film is pretty cute and I was ready to give is an 8. However, the end is just too bizarre and has a song and dance number in Hell....yes, Hell, that makes no sense whatsoever. But overall, still worth seeing.

That was the golden age in Egyptian cinema where the best musicals were produced in the 40's and 50's. Farid and Samia were the Middle Eastern version of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers who entertained audiences over the years and were the perfect couple before their separation; Samia married an American businessman and traveled to the US to amaze people with her first class belly dancing while Farid continued singing and acting in movies with dramatic and sad themes until his death. Afrita Hanem is a masterpiece in Egyptian cinema and it's a shame you'll never find this quality of movies in our present days due to cultural and social changes.