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En Büyük Şaban

The Greatest Shaban (En Büyük Şaban) (translated)

Movie · 1983 · 15 people

En Büyük Şaban, a 1983 Turkish comedy from director Kartal Tibet, was loosely spun out of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Cem Film handled the production, Cahit Oben composed the score, and the leads went to Kemal Sunal alongside Nilgün Bubikoğlu and Kamuran Usluer.

A countryside newcomer, Şaban arrives in Istanbul hoping to track down a relative's son, only to be swindled almost immediately by a stranger who pretends to sell him a bridge and pockets his cash. While chasing after the con man, he stops a stranger from hanging himself and the two grow close, though that stranger only remembers their friendship while drunk and forgets everything once sober, eventually having his servant throw Şaban out. Meanwhile, Şaban falls for a blind young flower seller on the street and sets out to rescue her from her difficult circumstances.

Suphi Tekniker wrote the screenplay, and many familiar faces of the era filled out the cast in small and large parts alike. The film stands among the comedies from Kemal Sunal's career that mine humor from a rural newcomer colliding with big-city life.

DirectorKartal Tibet
Production companyCem Film
The Greatest Shaban (En Büyük Şaban)

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Cast

Celal Yonat Celal Yonat Actor · 1922 – 1993 Arap Celal Kemal Sunal Kemal Sunal Film actor · died at 55 Nilgün Bubikoğlu Dinçer Çekmez Reha Yurdakul Ayten Erman Kamran Usluer Kamran Usluer Actor · died at 67 Cevdet Arıkan Ekrem Dümer Ekrem Dümer Actor · died at 71 Yadigar Ejder Actor · died at 43 Ziya Çelik Ekrem Gökkaya Sabahat İzgü Hikmet Karagöz Actor · died at 73 Hüseyin Kaşif

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Through different eyes

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

It takes some nerve to borrow from Charlie Chaplin's City Lights and move the story onto the streets of Istanbul; Kartal Tibet and Kemal Sunal take it on in the language of their own audience. The innocent man who falls for a blind flower seller is one of Chaplin's most touching motifs, and Şaban's guileless goodness suits it beautifully. To my mind the film's worth lies not in repeating the original but in telling the loneliness of a newcomer from the countryside in the big city with a warmth that feels our own. Lovers of Yeşilçam's adaptation tradition will enjoy tracing two masters through a single story.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

Kemal Sunal comedies are usually watched at home with the whole family, and this one is in the same spirit. A word of warning, though: the story includes a man who tries to hang himself and a character who only remembers his friend when drunk, so small children may need these explained. Jokes like the con man pretending to sell a bridge can make any age laugh. Fine to watch with children past early primary school and with the grandparents.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Suphi Tekniker's script keeps the two main veins of City Lights, the man who only knows his friend when drunk and the blind flower seller, almost intact, then adds a local frame of a con man and a relative's son to be found. That is where the trouble starts: three separate plot lines are more than a comedy can comfortably carry, and the story risks turning into a string of loosely linked sketches. In a structure like this, the job of holding it together inevitably falls to Sunal's comedy. It earns the word 'loose' as an adaptation, but it is less an original reading than a well-meaning localisation of a borrowed structure.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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