Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy (1959)

Wow. It’s amazing what a different studio can do with an otherwise stale script. Hammer Film’s the Mummy has completely washed the taste of Universal’s Mummy out of my mind. Seeing the success of Hammer’s the the Curse of Frankenstein and the Horror of Dracula, Universal wisely decided to give Hammer films its old scripts for the remake treatment.

The movie’s only just begun and already we’ve had an archeologist, Stephen Banning, sacrifice his son, John, (Peter Cushing) to a lifetime spent with a gimp leg and angered a Egyptian cult! Egyptians who, thanks to an easing of racial discrimination, actually look Egyptian!

“Mr. Banning! You would do well to remember the ancient saying, ‘He who robs the graves of Egypt dies.”

Not to mention the sets and costumes! While I personally have no way of knowing if the set does, in fact, look like Egypt, I do know it does, in fact, look like the Egypt portrayed in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This same sort of comforting movie logic dwells behind the costumes too. As if Steven Spielberg bought all the extras from Revolt of the Zombies (pith helmets and all) and relocated them to his archeological fantasy.

Cosmetics aside, Hammer’s version of the Mummy’s tale is pretty similar to Universal’s. A tomb is desecrated, and Kharis is revived to reap revenge. Pacing is the biggest difference here, as Universal used numerous flashbacks to tell the backstory, where Hammer just has the head priest drop bits and pieces of it into his incantations.

Mummies rising from a watery grave = frightening. The same cannot be said, however, for when the Mummy breaks into a sanitarium to strangle his first victim. The padded room’s bright lights effectively mute all the menace out the Mummy; making him look like a clumsy, muddy ninja.

Of course, with Christopher Lee wearing the Mummy’s rags, it’s a 6 and a half foot tall muddy ninja! So tall when standing flat-footed that the Mummy’s one-armed chokehold is totally believable, just because he towers above the rest of the cast anyway.

(Lee’s stature playing a big (pun intended) part in his becoming Hammer’s iconic movie monster man. Lee’s transformation into Frankenstein’s “Creature” in the Curse of Frankenstein was believable because his natural height was already so unusual.)

Kharis kills off the two of his three archeological victims easily, but is seen by John while killing his father, Stephen. Leaving John of Princess Ananka’s tomb to wondering who the mystery, rag-wearing assailant was, and why was he impervious to bullets?

An interesting question considering the monster in this film. Normally a monster’s weakness is as common knowledge as their strengths. Vampires are vulnerable to stakes through the heart, sunlight, holy water, running water, garlic, and crucifixes. Frankenstein’s monster’s biggest weakness is its own piecemeal construction; with it usually being burnt or clumsily falling to its death.

Leaving viewers to wonder, how does one kill a mummy?

Every film should have a Mummy versus shotgun scene. Even if the shotgun is as ineffective on Kharis as the poker that next gets jabbed through him.

Luckily John’s wife, Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux), looks exactly like Ananka (surprising since one would think Ananka would look more Egyptian, having been a Egyptian princess, rather than European), and is able to fool Kharis into murdering his master and slowly walking into a swampland ambush.

Where John Banning’s lone shotgun failed, a police battalion of shotguns succeeds; sending Kharis back to his watery grave.

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Curse (1944)

Apparently the Mummy shambled farther than I thought. The third sequel’s sequel begins in what appears to be a Louisiana bar; full of swamp excavators who’re too scared to work. The government’s been draining the swamp, but now these men think that a mummy who was lost in the swamp 30 years ago has been loosed.

Then the archeologists show up searching for clues. I guess when a man murders another man, you send a detective. When a mummy murders a man, you send a team of archeologists.

The bride Ananka is eventually found, waking up in the drained swamp somehow. “Somehow” reigns supreme here: first, how was she separated from the mummy Kharis? I do believe they’re designated “swamps” because they don’t have swift currents tearing through them. Both he and she collapsed in the same spot; he was carrying her! Amon-Ra works in strange ways indeed.

Second, remember that Anankha was either the mummy’s beloved reincarnated, or a mortal inhabited by her spirit. I’m leaning towards the second (possession), because that’s what the last film (The Mummy’s Tomb) made it look like. So how did she survive in the marshes for 30 years? They’ve done jumped an entire genre here; no longer borrowing mechanics and shots from Frankenstein and Dracula, and have moved on into Rumplestiltskin-esque folklore!

Third, does the mummy not notice that while his beloved looks perfectly acceptable for the current age (with a Bettie Page haircut), she would surely look strange sorting such a hairdo in ancient Egypt? Obviously they didn’t have corrective lenses back then, but they did manage to build the pyramids. Hell, according to Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun the Africans were the first to perform surgery! Maybe there’s still a lot of “swamp juice” left in Kharis’ eyes.

The Mummy’s Curse? More like the Mummy’s Sham! When he does catch up and capture the ancient Bettie Page, he uses both hands to carry her. Completely forgetting the injured arm he’s been sporting since he was shot in the misleadingly titled [the] Mummy’s Hand! It’s all a hoax!

Maybe it was because the budget was so low that they couldn’t afford a fight choreographer, but the ending fight scene is ultra-realistic. One straight punch to the jaw puts the corrupt, evil priest down; just as one would in real life! (Though that factor is surely do to the lack of time left in the film.

Obscenely, especially for being the last film in the franchise, the archeological crew decides, at the end, to dig the mummy out of the rubble which collapsed on him! Thus restarting the madness all over again!

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

You have to respect, if not love, the unabashed audacity the Mummy franchise displays in all its films. This one starts on a college campus, in an archeology class. A class with a professor who has no problem talking about the live mummies found roaming the landscape.

These films inhabit a reality that looks just as ours does, only where the dead come back to life and no one questions it. It just becomes another occupational hazard.

“There’s traces of a foreign substance around his throat. It’s the mummy.”

See? Everyone knows about the Mummy, and no one fears him anymore. Going so far as to break into smaller militia-squads to protect the town when a mummy is sighted.

This is important since all the characters from the Mummy’s Hand were murdered in the Mummy’s Tomb, the filmmakers had to focus this film upon the Mummy, Kharis himself. Specifically the Order of Amon-Ra, the (ever-growing) cult that keeps the mummy around to carry out any needed assassinations.

Now I swore the Order would be running out of priests after the last film. The Mummy’s Tomb having that ending where the high priest tries to take the protagonist’s love interest as his bride. To “make the next high priest of Kharis.” Here, however, the Order has no trouble finding aged replacements.

Finding Egyptians who look as if they’re from Africa, on the other hand, was quite tough for the filmmakers. These “Egyptians” are whiter than Charlton Heston. They probably mistook Cairo, Egypt for Cairo, Georgia.

Even stranger, we’re then treated to many extended “chase” scenes through what looks like mid-western thickets. Years before Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan we had this: the Mummy’s Ghost: Kharis Takes Missoula!

“I’m going to take you to New York to be among my people” (emphasis mine). If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone in the film is clearly white, I’d say there are serious racial undertones running through this production. Unless undergrad wanna-be archeologists are an ethnicity all their own.

What? The “Egyptian” girlfriend dies in the end? The Mummy’s ghost finally gets his bride, after waiting 4,000 years? After a chase through the Missoula cornfields straight into Missoula’s treacherous marsh? Move over Sixth Sense, this this is a conclusion you’d never expect: the Mummy wins!

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Tomb (1942)

More dirt on the grave of the Mummy. The source film is completely forgotten here, with the introductory flashback referencing only (the superior) the Mummy’s Hand. Staged thirty years later, the former heartthrob tells his family his tale of how he came to international renown in the archeological community. (Fighting a real-life mummy will do that for you.) An early sign of greatness? Some of the man’s flashbacks are of scenes he wasn’t in! Memories in the third person!

It turns out the Egyptian high priest who keeps the Mummy running on magic oil wasn’t killed when he was shot three or four times at the end of The Mummy’s Hand. The bullets, fired at point blank range, only ruined his left arm. (Apparently the backwards fall down a mountain’s-worth of stairs didn’t break or hurt his neck either.)

Thirty years later, and the priest has recovered enough to enact his revenge. A revenge that sounds suspiciously similar to his original plan. I.e. waking up the Mummy, and set it loose on his enemies. The majority of whom had died in the three intervening decades! (All except the The Mummy’s Hand‘s protagonist, who doesn’t look or act thirty years older.)

You have to love the short transitory scene with a wolf howling at the full moon. Mid-howl, the wolf turns its head down, ruining the effect along with the syncing. Gotta love that “roll with it” attitude!

Then the mummy shambles past two teenagers necking at lover’s lane! It’s as if they took their horror character and just gave him free reign through Universal’s backlot! Now he’s slowly walking through a Western! This might be the most inspired Mummy movie yet!

Babe Hanson, the spry, wise-cracking, magic-practicing Brooklynite from the Mummy’s Hand shows up next. 30 years has done a job on the man’s brain though, as he seems to have trouble accepting the police’s less than favorable reaction to him telling them there’s a mummy running around town. I know that we are still 40-50 years from when Wes Craven broached the idea of character’s noting that they’re characters in New Nightmare and finalized it in Scream, but still. Couldn’t have at least have had Hanson admit to the police that he knows the truth sounds crazy.

Another Frankenstein theft! The mummy kidnaps the Mummy’s Hand‘s (now deceased) protagonist’s son’s fiance. In a scene stolen straight out of Frankenstein. Though I guess if you’re going to steal, you’d want to steal from the best; i.e. James Whale.

They even have the townspeople (read: villagers) chase him with torches! Leaving him trapped on the second floor of a burning mansion! Three movies in, and we have the finest Mummy death/immolation scene yet. Lon Chaney earns his reputation as an actor. I think I just fell in love with this film!

Halloween Endurance Test: The Mummy’s Hand (1940)

I’m feeling rather vindicated now. Ten minutes into the Mummy‘s sequel, and we’re treated to a flashback that mocks the original with its brevity. Seriously, the flashbacking Egyptian paraphrases Dracula‘s famous “children of the night…” line. If you were making a sequel, wouldn’t you quote the source?

Followed by a “He’s alive! ALIVE!” Frankenstein quote! This movie is a goldmine of B-movie goodness. I guess the filmmakers realized that their franchise wasn’t on the same level as the other two, and went the exploitation route. A wise choice.

Scrying pools, indeed! Someone prophesied my future complaints about the Mummy, and took rectifying measures in its successor! Comic relief is introduced, along with some interesting, non-terminally bored characters. [17 minutes in, and someone says, “coochie dancer!”] Add in two magicians and this movie’s keeps getting better!

Act 2: picture the digging scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark with Egyptians instead of Nazis. Less snakes and more mummified corpses.

While they obviously spent less time on the mummy’s costume this time around, he also kills people with his hands. Not by making grasping motions meant to indicate an upcoming heart attack, but by wrapping its dry fingers around archeologists’ necks. Horror movie fans don’t generally care much for historical accuracy. Nor for insightful looks into ancient Egyptian burial customs. (The Mummy was a heretic for trying to resurrect his beloved. So they didn’t remove his organs, though they still went through the trouble of mummifying him. Huh? Riddle me that, Amon Ra.)

There’s only one caveat with this film: the filmmakers seem to have confused the Mummy with the Wizard of Oz‘s Tin Man. The Mummy needs constant Tannon(?) oil to complete his murderous deeds. Without it, he slows down to a crawl, much like the Tin Man without his lubricating oil.

A speed which allowed the otherwise hapless heros to set him ablaze; naturally after they waste all their ammo shooting him.

Halloween Endurance Test: The Mummy (1932)

WARNING: It does NOT come to life.

These reviews are called “the Halloween Endurance Test” for a review, for which I offer exhibit A: Universal’s the Mummy. History fans (ha! A pun!) will note that when Hammer films built their empire off of relaunching the famed Universal franchises, the Mummy was one that was left alone. Upon watching the original film, one can see why.

For every one of these…

With Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal had established horror properties with which to work with. With the Mummy, they had the opportunity to create their own monster. So what did they come up with? An old man made-up as an older monster (sorry Karloff!) who spends his afterlife staring into a pool of water; waiting for people to have heart attacks. Seriously, that’s his power. Watching people choke and/or have heart attacks (i.e. succumb to old age).

…there’s three of these.

Now I also know why this franchise was ignored by Universal when they were making their uneven yet comically interesting grab-bag House of… monster flicks. I guess when the subject of your story changes every five minutes (from vampires, to Frankenstein, to Wolf Men, to mad scientists, etc.) you don’t have time to watch people have heart attacks.

If I seem to be stuck on a trifling detail, please forgive me. I’m just trying to bring across the film’s meandering pace. Not even the writer could figure out what to do with it. At one point, when the Mummy decides to murder the woman he’s spent 3700 years waiting for, he has his servant grab her. Then, before either he or the servant can stab her to death, the Mummy instead decides to hypnotize her with his ring.

Saving her for another five minutes as the Mummy continues talking about the past. Christ, Tutankhamun’s literal curse killed people faster than this fictitious one! Then, thankfully, the film just ends. One of the Egyptian statues decides this crap has gone on long enough and (slowly) raises its hand and zaps the Mummy. All the talk about the curse and eternal love and ancient scrolls that you’d be hearing hack actors drone on for the past hour straight down the drain.

If Universal’s Spanish-version Dracula is 2010’s reigning top find, then this film has staked out its spot at the bottom of the pile. Possibly worse than I Dismember Mama!