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The Mummy (1959)

Dir: Terence Fisher

4000 years ago, Egypt.
Kharis (Christopher Lee) was the high priest at Princess Ananka’s (Yvonne Furneaux) funeral , whom he secretly loved.
Kharis tries to raise Ananka from the dead using the ’Scroll of Life’ but he is discovered before he completes the blasphemous rite.
Kharis' tongue is cut out, he is wrapped in bandages and he is cursed to guard Ananka's tomb and punish any intruders who disturb Ananka's rest.

In the 1890’s an archaeological team, led by Stephen Banning (Felix Aylmer, a nice performance), his son John (Peter Cushing) and John‘s uncle, Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley), opens Ananka's tomb despite the warnings and threats from the mysterious Mehemet Bey (George Pastell).
While searching the tomb alone Stephen Banning is heard to scream and then found to have lost his mind.
After the relics are removed the team seals the tomb and heads back to England, but Mehemet Bey has been watching them.

3 years later Stephen, now in an asylum, suddenly becomes lucid again and John and his wife Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux, again) go to see him.
Upon meeting his father, a sceptical John is shocked to hear that Stephen believes the ‘guardian Mummy’ Kharis (that John never even knew existed) is going to kill all those who desecrated Ananka’s tomb…..

 

A huge improvement over the original 'Universal' snooze-fest (remove the first - and only- Mummy scene, and Karloff, and you have empty air) 'Hammers' version of the tale actually owes more to ‘Universals’ less thought-of ’Mummy’ sequels in the fact that you actually have a Mummy rampaging around, that he's called Kharis (not Im-ho-tep) and we have the inclusion of Princess Ananka.

But as the 3rd in the big 'classic monster' trilogy that got 'Hammer' truly off and running as a renowned horror movie producer, it's been doomed to stand in the shadows of the other two films.
"Curse of Frankenstein" got the spotlight for being the first, "Dracula" got to be the most iconic and so "The Mummy" was fated to be the one bringing up the rear, while the ball was now already rolling anyway.
But it’s. faults aside, a film deserving of a higher profile.

Christopher Lee makes for perhaps the best looking (make-up by the great Roy Ashton of course) and physically effective Mummy ever put on screen ('Hammers' underrated "The Mummy's Shroud" is a better film, but its Mummy is pretty goofy and tubby looking, and a lot of the 'Universal' sequel Mummy's were too bulky/short and had silly looking slicked down hair) and he is given a lot of rampaging to do...the way Lee's Kharis smashes through doors and windows is groovy in the extreme.

Cushing has a bland role as John but adds his own, ever present, charm to the character and he has a couple of impressive action/stunt scenes while fighting Kharis, resulting in one of 'Hammers' most famous stills, that of Cushing ramming a metal arrow through the Mummy.

Talking of action in fact it was nice to actually see more (unlike the ‘Universal’ films) than just a blank firing gun when people shot at the Mummy, as here we also have the bullet hits as big, dusty, holes are blown in Kharis as he powers on regardless towards his prey.
There's also some great use of Kharis just as a visual prop, Kharis rising from the swamp is a superb sight and highly memorable...in fact the only reason he was dropped in the swamp was so they could do this scene!

But the film is padded out with a too long flashback (nice vocal work though by pre-banged Lee, the most dialogue he has in any of the ‘trilogy‘) where director Terence Fisher covers almost every step taken by every extra as they plod along to the tomb and that, when added to Cushing's overly dry narration, seems more like a university lecture than anything else.
The ancient Egyptian props look pretty awful as well, in fact the entire flashback looks like a ridiculously well-funded school play.

The whole 'my wife just happens to look like the Princess' sub-plot was badly handled too by screenwriter Jimmy Sangster.
It's an old Mummy movie plot device, but here it was shoe-horned into the plot purely to stop Kharis throttling Cushing's character (which is tediously repeated in fact, as the exact same thing, in the exact same circumstances, in the exact same room happens twice) and the sheer, farcical, coincidence that the completely random person involved in opening the tomb just so happens to have randomly married a woman who looks like the Princess of whose tomb they found…beggars belief.

Luckily we have some choice support characters though (a nice drunken poacher performance by good old Michael Ripper, a fun turn by Eddie “Island of Terror" Byrne as a Police Inspector and George Patell is effectively sinister but never over the top as the driven Mehemet Bey) and along with the effective looking Mummy, the good solid action plus the nice cinematography help to compensate for the less than interesting (and sometimes sloppy) screenplay and the padding.

So overall we have a rather good Mummy film, but only an average Hammer film overall. But one still well worth watching.