"This is a word on the Egyptian cinema by Mr. Rushdi Kamil, which we have seen fit to publish for its usefulness."

During the last two years the film industry in Egypt has begun to expand to a degree that has astonished those who concern themselves with its affairs, since they know that the means of that industry are very limited. The studios are few, the actors are few as well, and artistic directors are a rare thing in Egypt. Yet despite these difficulties we have found the film companies appearing one after another. Every actor in Egypt has his film company, and every director likewise has his own company. We have seen the films fill the picture houses, until the government imposed on the owners of the foreign houses the obligation to show Egyptian films at a fixed, regular time. This expansion may be evidence of the flourishing of the film industry; it may be evidence of the flourishing of the art of acting as well. But we have noticed that it rests neither on mastery nor on quality, just as we have noticed that the motive for forming the companies was not to raise up the art of acting, but rather to profit from this lucrative trade. The com-petition among the companies has resulted in films being produced in such abundance that neither author nor director nor actor is allowed to perfect his art. So the screen sto-ries have come out weak in story, in direction, and in acting alike.

The screen author in Egypt does not think of invention and innovation. And how could he, when he knows that Western literature is rich in stories, and that the Egyptian public has no thorough acquaintance with that literature? If the author raids a Western story, only a few will know of it. There may indeed be a double benefit in adaptation from Western literature: it entertains the public and educates it, and

it profits the author and educates him as well. But our authors' raiding of Western stories is an aggression contrary, first, to right and to morals; and then, beyond that, it does more harm than good, for it gives the public distorted pictures of Western literature, and it distracts the author from perfecting his art when he stands in need of perfecting it. The author sees, on the one hand, that trifling with art and literature is a matter of no consequence, and, on the other, that it is easier than straining mind, imagination, and pen to create an original, fresh story that would raise his own standing, the standing of his art, and the standing of his public. I do not know how long this trifling will last, and when these authors will come to feel that art and the public have rights that must be respected and a dignity that must be observed. Is it not their duty in justice to look upon the cinema as a means of amusement, but at the same time an instrument for education and the reforming of taste? And the way to that is for

art not to descend to the taste of the masses, but to raise the taste of the masses up to where it stands — or at least to meet it halfway. Is it not time for our authors to leave off producing stories of this sort: "Love Is Forbidden," "Tears of Love," "First Love," "Layla the Schoolgirl," "Layla, Daughter of the Poor," "Layla, Girl of the Countryside," "Layla in the Dark," "The Unknown Past," "The Return of the Caravan," and other such feeble stories, which aim at treating our social problems and miss the way to it? The author does not leave the spectator to draw the moral of the story from the events themselves; instead he delivers sermons to him through one of his characters. And sermons do no good when they are delivered as a sort of lesson or lecture on morals; souls recoil from them and minds grow weary of them.

Nor is the dialogue any better off than the story. The spectator suffers from the one as he suffers from the other — if we except the single successful film of this season, "The Lady's Plaything," by