Tag: Arabs

With the Persian Expedition

Source: Major M.H. Donohoe, With the Persian Expedition (London: E. Arnold, 1919), pp. 26-27

Text: The cinema also exercised a great influence on the native mind. Never quite understanding its working, he accepted it all philosophically as part of the travelling outfit of that strange race of infidels from far away who had chased the Turks from the shores of the Arabian Sea, who seemed to be able to make themselves into birds at will, and who rushed over the roadless desert in snorting horseless carriages. Men such as these were capable of anything, and when the first cinema film arrived, the Arabs filled to overflowing the ramshackle building which served as a theatre. In Basra I often went to the cinema, not so much for the show itself as to catch the joy with which that primitive child of nature, the Arab, followed the mishaps and triumphs of the hero through three reels. How they were moved to tears by his sufferings! And how they shouted with joy when the villain of the piece was hoist by his own petard and his career of rascality abruptly and fittingly terminated!”

One thing, I found on talking to some of these native onlookers, puzzled their minds exceedingly, and that was the morals and manners of European women as shown on the screen. The Arab is a fervent stickler for the conventionalities, and it was a great shock to his religious scruples to see women promenading in low-necked dresses with uncovered faces, frequenting restaurants with strange men not their husbands, and imbibing strong drink. “The devil must be kept busy in Faringistan raking all these shameless creatures into the bottomless pit!” said one Arab to me, when I asked him what he thought of the cinema. It was useless to seek to explain that cinema scenes did not represent the real life of the Englishman or the American, and that all our women do not earn thier [sic] living as cinema artists.

In Basra I never saw a Mohammedan woman frequenting a cinema performance. Even had she won over her husband’s consent to such an innovation, public opinion would veto her presence there, and she would not be permitted to look upon this devil’s machine illustrating foreign “wickedness.”

Comments: Martin Henry Donohoe (1869-?) was a major in the British army Intelligence Corps and prior to that a special correspondent for the Daily Chronicle newspaper. The Persian expedition described in his book was an Allied military force named Dunsterforce (after its leader General Lionel Dunsterville), formed in December 1917 and made up of Australian, New Zealand, British and Canadian troops. It played a part in the latter stages of the First World War conflict in Persia (Iran) against the forces of the Ottoman Empire. Donohoe travelled to Iran by way of Basra (now in Iraq), which had been part of the Ottoman Empire but which was now occupied by the British.

Links: Copy at the Internet Archive

Dynamite in the Middle East

Source: Khalil Totah, Dynamite in the Middle-East (New York: Philosophical Library, 1955), pp. 146-147

Text: Before leaving the Syrian capital, I must relate the tale of American influence. The film of Hamlet was advertised and as I had been unable to see it in the United States, I asked myself in what better place could it be seen than in Damascus. I invited Miss Jane Hockett, whose parents I know in Whittier, to go with me. She is in the United States service as a librarian in the Information Center. People at the Semiramis Hotel advised against my going to that theatre because they thought it was cheap, noisy and dirty. I warned Miss Hockett about the probable undesirability of the place, but she was a good sport. The hall was down in a kind of cellar and full to overflowing. There were no reserved seats and one had to take his chance. I came to the theatre early and requested one of the ushers to save me a couple of seats as I was bringing a lady. He held the seats. The hall was crowded with a noisy lot of adults and children. How a film like Hamlet should attract so many “kids” was rather astonishing. Of course the film was in English, but on the side there was an Arabic translation. People were eating peanuts, pumpkin seeds and roasted peas. At the intermission Coca-Cola, lemonade and ice cream were hawked by boys in the aisles. The seats were crude and hard, but it was a unique experience to see Hamlet in Damascus. The crowds and goings on which are so unlike an American movie theatre were indeed worth the admission of fifteen cents.

Not far from my hotel was another ramshackle cinema house. The performance started at 9 p.m. There was bedlam at the door! It seemed as if half of the ragged bootblacks, porters and errand boys were there. There were hardly any women to be seen. The place looked more like a market place or an oriental street scene than a cinema house. Everything was being hawked. Boys were yelling at the top of their voices and selling everything — chewing gum, cakes, cigarettes and chocolates. People felt at home, shouted, yelled, visited, laughed and enjoyed themselves to the full. It was more like a circus or a baseball game in America. There was no reserve, no hushed tones, no restraint. The boys and young men just “let her go.” But when the curtain was up and those Hollywood beauties appeared in their underwear, you should have heard the exclamations of the crowd’s delight. “Ya salam! Ya Allah!” No wonder there was such a mob at the door and several performances. As to the admission fee, it was in two classes. First class on the balcony was 12¢. Second class for the riffraff was 8¢.

In the balcony, and therefore first class, was a rotund, corpulent gentleman. He took his seat and then ordered an usher to bring him a nargileh (a hubble bubble). While feasting his eyes on the Hollywood girls, he drew on his nargileh, the long pipe attached to a large bottle almost full of water. On top was a sort of tobacco called tunback, which was placed on some burning coals. The smoke passed through the water, through the pipe and to the mouth. This gentleman was relaxation itself. The bottle gurgled and laughed, he drew and drew and hugely enjoyed a rare smoke. What would Americans give to see that scene in an American movie house on Main Street? “Ya Allah! Ya salam!”

Comments: Khalil Totah (1886-1955) was a Palestinian author, lecturer and educationalist, who wrote books on Palestinian history and political development. He became an American citizen in 1946. The book from which this this extract comes was his final work, posthumously published, giving a view of Middle Eastern affairs for an American audience. The film he saw was Hamlet (UK 1948), directed and starring by Laurence Olivier.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Memories of Eden

Source: Violette Samash, Memories of Eden: A Journey Through Jewish Baghdad (Virginia Water: Forum Books, 2008), p. 89

Text: In the same lane, I loved watching the tcheraakh khashab – wood-turner – who worked on a kind of lathe making poles for our bannisters. spindles, chair legs and so on. But best of all, on the right-hand side of the lane as we went to school, was the man with the sandouq el-welayaat: a magic lantern (the name literally means a ‘box of the countries’). It was truly magical. It had a narrow front with a big lens fixed on each of its other three sides. Inside was a scroll, with pictures lit by a lantern. The man turned the scroll and narrated a story about each picture, starting every time with ‘Shoof ‘indak Ya salaam!‘ (‘Look here, what a wonder!’). I can still remember some of them, all to do with the Ottoman days: ‘Shoof ‘indak Ya salaam!’ This is Istanbul with its towers and castles … Here is ‘Antar with his beloved ‘Abla! This is a German gun…’ And so on. It was cinema to us.

Comments: Violette Samash (1912-2006) was a member of the Jewish community in Baghdad before the Second World War. Her memoir, compiled posthumously from letters, notes and essays, culminates in the Farhud, the Nazi-inspired pogrom of 1941. The ‘magic lantern’ she describes sounds not unlike the street bioscopes of India, albeit with still images rather than short clips of film.

From the Bosphorus to Bagdad and Beyond

Source: Extract of letter from Frederick Thompson Wright to Dr L. These, 13 June 1914, reproduced in Frederick Thompson Wright, From the Bosphorus to Bagdad and beyond, an epistolatory epitome of an expedition from Constantinople to the Caspian (Douglas Arizona, 1915), p. 49

Text: Bagdad, June 13.

Last night I was at dinner with Major Scott, the medical man connected with the British Consulate. The others were Captain Scott, who commands the dinky little gun-boat the English keep here, Mrs. Scott and Mr. Richarz. After dinner we all went to the cinema show; they make a great deal of it, being the only amusement they have. The pictures were mostly American.

Comments: Frederick Thompson Wright was an American traveller. His account of a journey through the ‘Near East’ in 1914 was published privately in the form of letters sent to a colleague. Cinema shows are thought to have started in Baghdad in 1909.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust