On 26 February 1964, one week before the release of Hassan al-Imam's Bayn al-Qasrayn, the weekly Akhir Sa‘a launched its marketing campaign by casting the film as ‘portraying an important moment in the nationalist struggle for freedom and unity’. Introduced by a short paragraph about ‘the joy that lives in the hearts of more than 80 million Arabs after the success of the kings’ and presidents’ summit [the First Arab League Summit held in Cairo between 13 and 16 January 1964]’, the article puts the film in the frame of contemporary anti-imperialist politics: ‘Art reminds us that unity of purpose and ranks is the most powerful weapon in the struggle’. It casts the film as the General Company for Arab Cinema's first project; the company, so goes the narrative, ‘selected Bayn al-Qasrayn to start its journey in developing Arab Cinema, to be its messenger to the world in order to present ‘our principles’ and ‘our victories’.

The importance that the state was giving to the film was such that when it was released, on 2 March 1964, ‘Abd al-Qadir Hatim, minister of culture and national guidance, attended the first screening in cinema Rivoli, which was fully renovated for the occasion. In the first week, Bayn al-Qasrayn played in Alexandria, Mansoura, Port-Said and Tanta, then in Ismailiyah, Damietta and Minya. It became an immediate box-office success; tickets were routinely sold out, and it played at Cinema Rivoli for five weeks. No wonder: the filmmaker, Hassan al-Imam (1919–88), was ‘as commercial a director as there has ever been in the Egyptian cinema’ (Armbrust 1995: 85). Although contemporary critics were predominantly negative, turning it down as ‘a weak police story’ and lamenting the director's sensationalist style,Bayn al-Qasrayn soon became a cult movie, repeatedly screened on television. The transition to the little screen secured a broader audience and guaranteed the transmission of the visual narrative, a landmark in ‘public memory’ (Bodnar qtd in Gordon 2002: 46) perpetuated from one generation to another. It was so successful that it gave a second life to the iconic characters of the novel in the popular imaginary, with a particularly successful casting of Amal Zayid as Amina, the ‘iconic traditional woman’ (Elsadda 2012: 79) and Yahya Shahin as Ahmad ‘Abd al-Gawwad, ‘the icon of traditional manhood’ (Elsadda 2012: 84).