Tears of Love (Aşkın Gözyaşları) (translated)

Nejat Saydam wrote and directed Aşkın Gözyaşları ("Tears of Love", also released as Şoför Ömer), a black-and-white Turkish melodrama of 1959 produced by Ümit Utku for Kervan Film, with Costas Prosos behind the camera; it runs 99 minutes. Muhterem Nur stars as Gül opposite Kemal Kan as Ömer, alongside Ahmet Tarık Tekçe as Turgut, Hadi Hün as the merchant Şevket Bey, İhsan Aşkın as Kazım Dede, plus Aysel Tanju and Necdet Tosun; Saydam himself appears in a small role as a doctor.

Orphaned as a boy, Ömer is taken in at the mansion of the wealthy merchant Şevket Bey, where his late father's friend Kazım Dede works as a steward. He befriends the merchant's daughter Gül, but the jealous Turgut and his father Rıza have him falsely branded a thief and driven from the house. Years later Ömer scrapes by driving a battered old Ford as a shared taxi, and his bond with Gül, now a conservatory student, rekindles — until Rıza, who has bought up her father's promissory notes, forces her into marriage with Turgut to stave off Şevket Bey's ruin.

Tragedy then piles up: Şevket Bey dies of a heart attack when bankruptcy arrives anyway, the gambling-addicted Turgut takes his own life, and Gül, left destitute and selling flowers in nightclubs to pay for Kazım Dede's medicine, falls ill with tuberculosis. The lovers are reunited only for Ömer to die soon after, and the picture closes on a graveside scene mirroring its opening. Its soundtrack draws on a wealth of Turkish music, from Hafız Burhan to Neyzen Tevfik, while the Italian honeymoon footage was borrowed from the 1953 film Hıçkırık, on which Saydam had worked as assistant director.