In histories of the ‘golden age’ of Malay cinema, which lasted from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Hussain Haniff is often cast as the period's second most important filmmaker, after P. Ramlee, whose phenomenal popularity, both during his career and in the present day, makes him a largely uncontested figure at the top of the Malay filmmaking pantheon. Ramlee and Hussain worked for opposing studios in Singapore: Malay Film Productions, which was owned by the Shaw Brothers and was where Ramlee worked before he moved to Merdeka Studios in Kuala Lumpur in 1964, and Cathay-Keris, where Hussain spent his whole career. These were vertically integrated studios, complete with their own production facilities, including contracted personnel and stars, and their own distribution networks and cinema chains. The two studios also shaped the identities of the two directors, with Ramlee working for the more financially successful of the two, and thus adopting a more central place in the period's film culture, and Hussain belonging to the less prominent studio, which contributed to his adoption of an ‘outsider’ status. While the Malay cinema of the late 1940s to the early 1970s is viewed as a ‘golden age’ because of the high quality of films produced and the sheer volume of production (over 400 films were made), it was also a golden age in terms of cinema attendance, something both the Singaporean and Malaysian cinemas have struggled to attain ever since.