Review: The Mummy

In ancient Egypt, Kharis (Christopher Lee) is distraught over the death of his lover, Princess Ananka (Yvonne Furneaux), and he finds his way into her tomb and begins reading from the Scroll of Life, to try and bring her back from the grave. He gets caught, has his tongue cut out, and is mummified whilst still alive. Cut to 1895 and Peter Cushing and Felix Aylmer play John Banning and his archaeologist father Stephen who have just uncovered the tomb of Ananka. Whilst John is nursing a leg injury, Stephen enters the tomb of Ananka, but what he finds in there renders him in such a state of shock that he is catatonic. A few years later, Egyptian servant George Pastell uses the Scroll of Life to resurrect Kharis, who in his mummified state stalks those who dared uncover the tomb of his beloved.

 

I like Universal’s 1932 version of “The Mummy” just fine (it’s better than Lugosi’s “Dracula” for one thing), but we all know it would be a lot harder to sit through (especially today) if the great Boris Karloff weren’t in it. He turned it into something else by his sheer presence alone. For me though, this 1959 Hammer version directed by Terence Fisher (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”) and written by Jimmy Sangster (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”) stands out as the best version. The differences for me are that not only does this still look handsome (in that modestly budgeted Hammer way), but the characters are more interesting and the performances far more professional across the board.

 

Christopher Lee gets more to do here in the title role than he ever did as Frankenstein’s Monster, if not Dracula. He certainly cuts an impressive, imposing figure, whether in Egyptian garb or covered in bandages and muck. In the Egyptian flashback, he gets a bit of dialogue in easily the best (and most colourful) scene in the entire film. His ‘Give life!’ speech is wonderful, and he even has a subtle showing of tenderness towards the princess. He’s a villain motivated mostly by love. And then he gets his tongue cut out. Oh, well. He has such a commanding voice, you wish he had gotten more dialogue, not just in this but his entire career. Lee gives the role everything he’s got, and considering for the most part he only has his eyes to work with, that’s awfully impressive. It really can’t be undersold just how easily accepted Lee was playing a whole slew of nationalities. He may not always have been deadly accurate- His Fu Manchu is probably an offensive stereotype- but I can’t think of any time he was miscast, ethnically. The makeup is surprisingly good, I like that he looks very tightly wrapped and the bandages look believably ancient and manky. Sure, it borders on “Swamp Thing” a bit, but it’s a pretty good job from Hammer. In fact, the whole film at times plays like Hammer’s attempt at “The Creature From the Black Lagoon”, with some of the imagery and also the relationship between the girl and the Mummy.

 

Peter Cushing is nothing less than perfect as always, it never ceases to amaze me just how comfortably he could play archaeologists (here), scientists (“The Curse of Frankenstein”), and vampire-hunters (“The Horror of Dracula”) in the Big Three for Hammer. They are somewhat similar roles, but not quite and you can add his Sherlock Holmes to the mix too. In all of those roles, he seems the perfect and only suitable choice. If there’s any issue with him it’s that his character here is less interesting than in the “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” franchises. Yvonne Furneaux looks absolutely gorgeous in the dual role of Princess Ananka and Cushing’s lookalike wife Isobel, but she unfortunately isn’t in the film a whole lot. I also enjoyed the performances of Sir Felix Aylmer as Cushing’s father, and Cyprus-born George Pastell as the resident duplicitous fez-wearing Egyptian servant of Lee’s Kharis, the Mummy. Never trust a guy in a movie who wears a fez. Ever. I mean, didn’t Sidney Greenstreet have one in “Casablanca”? ‘nuff said, right? Aylmer, one of the best and longest-serving Brit character actors, probably doesn’t look old enough here to be Cushing’s dad, but actually there really was a 24 year age gap between the two. Nice cameo by Hammer regular Michael Ripper as a drunk poacher, too.

 

Hammer music scores are usually top-notch and that’s definitely the case here with the score by Franz Reizenstein (“Circus of Horrors”) here. It’s fantastic and rather majestic. As is typical of Hammer, the film looks wonderful and more expensive than it likely was. I know it’s only dry ice or smoke, but I always like that look of fog just slightly above the ground, slowly creeping along as though it were a living being. I also think either Fisher or cinematographer Jack Asher (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”) must’ve seen “Vertigo” prior to making this because there are many scenes lit with a similar green hue. There’s some really interesting interiors here as well. The film also provides a most valuable lesson: When you come across an Egyptian scroll of ancient origin, wait until you’re at least back above ground before reciting anything on the scroll. Overall, this is a solid film and good fun.

 

Rating: B