A Love Crime

The lawyer Jalal Rushdi (Emad Hamdy promises Souad Hanem (Fathia Shaheen), the wife of Ahmed Abdelmaqsoud (Ahmad Shawqi), a swift acquittal of her husband accused of bribery so that he can return to Souad and their daughter Nawal (played by a child actress named “Wazza”). Jalal meets his lawyer friend Salah (Abdel Aziz Kamel) and his diplomat friend Hamdi (Hussein Kandil), the latter of whom is traveling to work in Japan, and the three go into a bar named Spiro, where bartender Shalabi (Mohamed Ahmed Al-Masry) holds court. Jalal drops an important document proving Ahmed's innocence from his bag. Jalal returns home to find his wife Soraya Abdelwahed (Mariam Fakhr Eddine) In bed and wakes up her to spend the night together. The next day, in court, Ahmed is found guilty due to lack of the document Jalal lost, which the attorney blames on his wife's carelessness. Jalal loses confidence in himself despite the encouragement of his assistant, Ezzat Effendi (Abdel Aziz Ahmed), to move on. Laila (Hind Rostom) comes to Jalal's office to seek protection from her ex-husband, Hassanein (Salah Mansour), but finds that Jalal is the one in need of help. After Laila leaves the office, Hassanein asks Jalal to help reconcile the couple, which Jalal attempts to no avail as he seeks to compensate for his feelings of loss by moving in with Laila on a houseboat on the shores of the Nile.

Jalal finally obtains the missing document. When he returns to his wife after learning he is pregnant and abandons Laila's yacht for good, Hassanein calls Soraya to inform her of Jalal's dalliance. Soraya hurries to the boat to find the door open and Laila's body on the ground wife next to a knife and grabs it, trying to wake her and screaming at the realization that Laila has been stabbed to death. Bystanders rush in, including obese neighbor Rose (Laila Hamdy), who yells at Soraya that she killed Laila. The crime dominates the newspapers, and Jalal is afraid to defend his wife due to his own low self-esteem, so he assigns his friend Salah to do so. Soraya's health deteriorates and she is hospitalized. Wanting to save his wife, Jalal discovers that the only way for the killer to arrive unnoticed would have been for them to come downriver by boat and leave the same way. Jalal is certain that Omar Shehata Abdelsamad (Hassan El Baroudi), a buoy guard who owns a small boat, is the only possible culprit. Using a cunning trick in front of the judges and prosecution, Jalal gets Omar to confess to killing her as a hit man for Hassanein, proving Soraya's innocence.^[1]

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