Mary Ezzeldin in 'El Helw Fil Varanda' - A Scene from 'Lahn Al Wafaa' (1955)

This clip is from the 1955 film Lahn Al Wafaa ( Melody of Faith) starring Abdel Halim Hafez in his very first film role, and singer Shadia. This scene takes place at a club on Mohamed Ali Street (in fact, the sign in arabic at 0:13 says Mohamed Ali Street) The father and his young son travel by train from Alexandria to Cairo were the father plans to try his luck as a music composer. They stop to get a bite to eat before continuing to a club where one of his friends works as a musician. The club is owned by an almee, played by Egyptian actress Mary Ezz Eldeen. She is the singer in this scene. The song is called El Helw Fi El Varanda. It means The Beautiful One on the Veranda, referring to a large usually semicircular balcony that used to be typically found on old Egyptian villas. The author of this song's lyrics is Fathi Oura who was a very famous Egyptian song writer, and the composer of the music is Ibrahim Hassen. Many people erroneously think that El Helw Fi El Varanda was written for Dina, because Fatme Serhan used to sing it regularly in Dina's shows as did Hoda Sinbati. It was not written for Dina. The song is from this film. The dancers in this scene are background dancers that appear in many Egyptian films. The shimmy that they do here is very typical of this era.