Cinema Misr

It was after the war that things started to go bad for Egypt’s foreign elite. With Europe exhausted and unemployment soaring, nationalism, long appeased by the promise of money, sprang from the shadows. Cinema -- larger than life, model and mirror of the European presence -- became a target. in 1947 the "Moslem Brotherhood" struck the Metro, setting off a bomb that blew a matinee of the Wallace Beery western, Bad Bascomb, right off the screen. Five years later, after a botched attempt to disarm the movement during which British soldiers killed fifty Egyptian policemen, a spontaneous campaign of mass arson swept the city. January 27, 1952. Black Saturday, movies were among the first to be set to the torch, flame and shadow playing over jubilant mobs swarming under the burning marquees of the Rivoli and the Metro chanting "Foreigners Out!" 

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