Shot on Location

b>El Naser Salah El-Din (1963)

The Crusades as told by iconic Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and great Egyptian writers Youssef Al-Sebai and Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sharkawy, Saladin the Victorious was also ranked among the top 100 films in the history of Egyptian cinema. When Muslim pilgrims are slaughtered by Christians in the holy lands, Saladin (Ahmed Mazhar) succeeds in taking back Jerusalem under the leadership of Richard the Lionheart of England. The film was shown at Moscow International Film Festival in 1963. The movie had one blunder: among its various battle scenes are the attack of Richard’s fleet and the Siege of Acre which Chahine shot near the Citadel of Qaitbay. However, history tells us that the Siege of Acre took place between 1189 and 1191 while the Citadel of Qaitbay was constructed in 1477.


El Naser Salah el Dine (1963)

008 Operation Exterminate (1965)

Many Italian films came to shoot in Egypt during the 1950s and 1960s. Some belonged to the “Sword and Sandals” genre like The Slave aka The Son of Spartacus (1962) starring muscleman of the era Steve Reeves and our very own Ahmed Ramzy in a supporting bit role. Others belonged to the spy genre like 008: Operation Exterminate where Ingrid Schoeller played the title character A008, a female-like James Bond searching for a stolen anti-radar device. Writer-director Umberto Lenzi created many action sequences at the Pyramids, Cairo streets and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. The film featured cameo appearances by several Egyptian actors including Ahmed Luxor and Omar Al-Hariry, both playing their signature roles as an outlaw and a policeman.


008 Operation Exterminate (1965)

Pharaoh (1966) / al-Mummia (1969)

This iconic three-hour Polish film was directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, who adapted the fiction novel of the same name by Boleslaw Prus. The Pharaoh of the title is Ramses XIII, played by Jerzy Zelnik, who must overcome the loss of his father and political intrigues to keep Egypt safe. Some scenes were filmed at authentic Egyptian locations like the Pyramids of Giza. One of the many consultants on the film was Shadi Abdel Salam, the legendary Egyptian film and art director who had worked on the 1963 Cleopatra. Three years later Abdel Salam, who was the costume designer for Pharaoh, directed his renowned The Night of Counting the Years aka al-Mummia in Arabic. Through Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, the film was restored and presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Abdel Salam passed away in 1986 before realizing his ambitious project on Akhenaton, aka The Tragedy of the Great House.