Movie Info
Movie Name: The Mummy
Studio: Hammer Films
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): August 1, 1959 (Japan)/September 25, 1959 (UK)/December 16, 1959 (US)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Can he uncover the secrets of the Mummy’s Tomb!?!?!
Archaeologists John Banning (Peter Cushing), his father Stephen (Felix Aylmer), and his uncle Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley) are on the trail of the legendary tomb of Princess Ananka. When they discover the hidden tomb and enter it, a warning from Mehemet Bey (George Pastell) is ignored…and the curse is unleashed! The mummy Kharis (Christopher Lee) has been awakened and Mehemet Bey is set to get revenge against the intruders that have raided the tombs of his people. The fury of the mummy cannot be stopped!
Directed by Terence Fisher, The Mummy is a Hammer horror movie. The film was released as a double billing with The Bat or Curse of the Undead in the United States.
Mummies were never my thing. I didn’t find them scary and they seemed rather unthreatening in their lurching and mysticism. That being said, The Mummy is one of the better mummy movies that has a monster worthy of being a threat.
I bet mummies have to worry about how to keep their whites white
The movie largely is an adaptation of The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb by Universal and it is a pretty traditional Mummy story. Archeologists enter an Egyptian tomb and are cursed…leading to death and madness at the hands of a mummy. Also like many of these type of movies, the mummy is being controlled by someone from Egypt and has found a doppelganger of the person that he loved in ancient Egypt. I will say there is an interesting discussion within the movie about the British Empire’s cultural appropriation of riches and artifacts from Egypt and other countries…something that is still being dealt with and argued about today.
The cast is good. You have the classic Hammer actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the prime roles. Lee is a good mummy that does lurch and stumble, but he also has some quicker and more dangerous movement (also aided by Lee’s 6’ 5” height). Cushing does the scientist well and that is why it so often fell to him. Yvonne Furneaux plays the love interest while George Pastell plays the Mummy’s controller Mehemet Bey.
Dammit…I’ll never get back to sleep
The thing that stands above a lot of the other mummy movies is the costume design. While I love the original Boris Karloff make-up for the Universal Mummy, we didn’t get to see the Mummy much in bandages. Here, the bandages never come off and he becomes this dark and dirty monster that feels threatening and dangerous…plus he has great piercing eyes.
The mummy is a pretty traditional horror monster and the film plays out in a traditional way…so don’t expect a lot of surprises from The Mummy. There is a bit more ferocity and danger in this mummy that I feel was lacking from the Universal pictures (ironically my favorite was one of the later pictures that this one closer adapts). With the success and acclaim of this version, I’m surprised Hammer didn’t spin it off into more sequels like their Dracula and Frankenstein films…the mummy almost has more reason to return.
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