Toha – Mahmoud Qasim – Shorouk Gate

Teacher Touha is a classic example of the popular status in our 1950s culture, she is the equivalent of a bully or a qadawi in this culture, each of whom possesses power, rudeness, wealth and the ability to triumph over others. In 1954, when Samiha Ayoub played Samara in a radio play written by Abdel Moneim El Sebaei, the play quickly turned into a successful film. The stars, led by Tahia Karioka, went from performing elegant dancer roles to a gangster lady living in the neighborhood, who men were fascinated by, fought for, and sought to possess through money and marriage. Given the many roles the actress had played in other films, including “Teacher”, “Samara the Enchanter”, “The Flower Seller”, etc., actor, writer and director Mahmoud Ismail sought to add a new character, the name “Touha” combines all of these roles. The character of that woman, teacher or bully, but the role was given to the relatively new star Hind Rostom, so she took off the seductive dress and put on the popular women’s robe in the film directed by Hassan Al-Saifi. Previously directed the film “Samara”, this thing became an unprecedented phenomenon, I remember that a publishing house printed a radio play “Donha” with a photo of Donha teacher in popular clothes printed on the outside. Another name “My Dream Teacher” was added to the name “The Boy of My Dreams”, which means that people heard Toha on the radio, saw her in the film, and read about her in a book similar to reading a literary work. In the novel, there is no doubt that all these cultures are intertwined.

Let’s meet Toha, whose ideal model is a woman without a family, she only has workers working in the bakery, who serve her loyally and obediently and protect her by possessing her men. Men easily enter her life, and she easily gets angry for no reason, we see that she married more than one man, all of them firm men, and she should remain like this until the late stage. Until Rashad and his sister came to live in the area where Toha’s house and bakery are located, this Rashad is single, a virgin who has never been married, despite this, he is pious, conservative and physically strong. When angry he controls himself and does not use muscle confrontation, but he has the patience and self-esteem of a lustful woman, Toha falls in love with Rashad and tries to possess him with all temptations. Until she is forced to devise a disgusting plot against him, she forces the teacher Fajila to seduce his sister Safa in order to marry her against her brother’s will. The men run over Rashad and he is admitted to the hospital. Only here does the teacher send Toha to find virtue and cry for her lover, and things end up in his favor… Rashad goes to Toha and completely forgives her for everything. In the last scene, the two go to the holy land for the pilgrimage, and the film wants us to believe that only repentance can wash away all the filth of Toha and her evil team. Strangely, this woman gets the man she loves, a fate completely different from Samara, who was murdered after her ambition reached its peak.

This is the stage that emerged after the spread of the phenomenon of the film “Rhea and Sakina”, this evil woman lived among us, whose image we saw on the screen was magnified and there is no doubt that the image of this woman. The sixties almost disappeared, and other women appeared in our lives who were gentler and more positive than Dongha and her sisters.