Mohammed Karim, an innovator in many ways, is credited with directing the first Egyptian movie, the 1930 silent film Zeinab, and also the first talkie awlad al zawat "Jet Set" in 1932. In his memoirs, Karim says about his 1938 film yehia el hob "Long Live Love," "We had unusual publicity stunts. When I was in Paris I had the idea to print the name of the film and pictures of the two stars on a special perfumed heavy cardboard card. We printed about 20 thousand of those and distributed them only to the audiences in the boxes. It was an instant success. The name of the perfume was 'Je Reviens,' meaning 'I will come back to watch yehia el Hob.'"

This was not the only time Egyptian cinema used unusual publicity. In 1951 for the film sett al-hosn, postcards were printed with the design of the poster. It was sent out with exibition locations and times printed on the other side. Nahass Films, which produced sett al-hosn, also sent out official correspondence about a film with the film's title and the names of its stars printed on the outside. However these are very rare and unfortunately no example is available to us.

Yahya el hob! featured a cast starring Mohamed Abdel Wahab. Laila Mourad also appeared for the first time in this film. Shooting began in Egypt in what was then called the New Studio Misr. However it was discovered that the machines and the sloppiness of the technicians was somehow ruining the quality; production was moved to France, where Mohammed Karim and Abdel Wahab had to shoot some of the scenes again.

Publicity Card (2.5" x 4") for Vive l'amour "Long Live Love" (1938) directed by Mohammed Karim