[img width= height=]http://www.musicman.com/00pic/bahr1apf.jpg[/img]
This poster is a rare and exciting discovery for me. It is a 13" x 27.5 stone litho designed by Hassan Mazhar Gasour and Dimitri Gabriel to promote the 1956 Hussein Fawzi 95-minute black-and-white film Sea of Love [bahr al-gharam] starring the late Naima Akef. It is the only example I have ever seen of a poster printed in egypt in the locandina size, but on the type of paper stock the Egyptians normally used for their one-sheets in that period. I have only seen one other locandina for an Egyptian film, which was diistributed in Lebanon for the 1965 Youssef Chahine film Aliban the Seller of Jokes [baya' al-khawatem] starring Fairuz. I believe that one was printed in Italy because of the high quality of the printing and the type of paper, and also because the Lebanese used Italian printers for a number of other film posters. Although this poster was printed in egypt by Dar al-Taba'a, it is unusual both because of its size and because Gasour is credited as the source of the poster's maquette. I've never seen him credited that way (Gasour was by far egypt's most prolific film poster artist with a career as egypt's preeminent poster designer that lasted more than 40 years). Dimitri Gabriel was also a very important early Egyptian poster artist. The depiction here of Naima Akef is not to my liking. She was an athletic woman who began her career as an acrobat and a circus performer. She wouldn't have climbed a ship's rigging with a hand on one hip.
