BEFORE: So here's how Turner Classic Movies screwed me up once again - they went and made "The Mummy" their Monster of the Month for October 2018, and I was already scheduled to watch three movies named "The Mummy" - so this meant that maybe I should replace the plan I had in place with one that would incorporate more mummy movies into it, only I couldn't do that, because they don't start airing them until October 7, and some won't air until October 21 or 28. And I couldn't abandon my mummy films completely, because they were my link back to old-time classic horror films - so now I have to watch two of them now before moving on to werewolves and vampires, and I'll have to tape the rest and try to work them in next year.
I suppose I should look at the bright side, this frees me up to continue with my linking, and I've got enough time to knock off the Hammer Films they aired last year, including a big Dracula-themed chain, before I go off on vacation. But I'm always playing catch-up, which makes me feel like I'll never catch up. I realize they have to pick a Monster that has enough films made about it to fill up four weekends of programming, so might I suggest Godzilla for next year? Maybe then I can record all those films I watched on "Creature Feature" on local Boston TV when I was a kid. That might be worthwhile.
As it stands, I had to drop one of my planned Mummy films, the original one from 1932, with Boris Karloff as the mummy, but that worked out well because I recently recorded "The Comedy of Terrors" with Karloff in it, so I'm keeping some linking possibilities open by pushing that mummy film into October 2019. I've already changed the rules by allowing myself to link between characters in addition to actors, but I think linking between mummy films even stretches that rule a bit - I mean, each mummy has a different name, or at least they did when they were alive, I maybe shouldn't treat all mummies like they're the same character, even if they all sort of act the same, shuffling around slowly and sneaking up behind living people to choke them. I almost feel like I'm objectifying mummies by thinking that they're all the same, but that's crazy, right?
THE PLOT: In 1895, British archaeologists find and open the tomb of Egyptian Princess Ananka with nefarious consequences.
AFTER: This is the first of eight horror films on my list from Hammer Films, a company that set out in the 1950's to update the monsters from the classic Universal films, which was possible since the old horror novels were in the public domain, but they were still wary of lawsuits from Universal, but of course, that doesn't quite explain why many of the plot elements in the Hammer movies resemble the ones from those older films. Hey, I guess they were all just pulling from the same playbook - in the 1950's there was apparently only so much you could do with a vampire or a mummy film, if you pushed the story elements too far in a weird new direction, then the public wouldn't know what was going on. These days you can make Dracula run a hotel or make Frankenstein's monster a secret agent, or even put Henry Jekyll in charge of paranormal investigations, like that's not a HUGE conflict of interest...
But in 1958, fans just wanted your basic Mummy movie, it seems. Archaeologists find a tomb, they read a scroll out loud, as if heiroglyphics were some kind of ancient rebus or something, and pretty soon there's a tall guy in 4,000-year old bandages stalking the countryside. Really, is the Tom Cruise movie all that different from this one, at the end of the day? OK, so the special effects got MUCH better in the last 60 years, but that's just window dressing. Get the main character into the tomb, get the sarcophagus out, and don't bother to explain how burying someone alive can allow them to live after 4 millennia with no food, water or air. Jesus, it's a plot hole so big you could drive a truck through it.
Or in this case, a carriage - because this is set back in 1895, when a horse-drawn carriage is used to bring the Mummy in a box from place to place. And the carriage-driver makes the mistake of driving RIGHT past the asylum, where the old archaeologist, Stephen Banning, has been recovering for the last umpteen years. But when the Mummy's carriage rolls by his window, he breaks the window and yells at the carriage-drivers, but this only causes them to drive FASTER past the asylum. This gives the carriage just enough speed so that when it hits a bump, the box with the Mummy bounces right off into the swamp. It's a very unlikely series of events, and it's hard to say what caused what to happen - it's like if a cop pulled a guy over for speeding, and his excuse was that he had to get home quickly, to avoid all the police speed traps. And before the beer made him too drunk.
Just then, Mehemet turns up at the scene - he's the guy who warned the archaeologists three years before to NOT disturb the tomb of Princess Ananka, because all those who disturb the tomb will die. Umm, dude, everyone's going to die, someday, so this threat sounds not very threatening. But then it's revealed that he was shipping the Mummy to his house up on the hill (seems he's done all right in the last three years, moved out of Egypt, bought some real estate, good for him!) and he would have had the Mummy up and working by now, if only some idiots hadn't driven too fast and dropped him in the swamp. Oh, well, no matter, he reads from the Scroll of Life and Kharis, the Mummy, rises from the swamp, only now his white bandages are all muddy and grey. Great, now in addition to being undead, he's got to worry about getting a bacterial infection from the swamp water. I'm guessing mummies don't smell too good in the first place, but some kind of infection or malaria is probably going to make that worse.
It's bad enough that he approaches his victims at the speed of about 1 mile an hour, and now they'll be able to smell him coming, too. So it's a wonder that he ever catches up with anybody in time to strangle them to death, but he manages. Mehemet intends to use mummy Kharis to get revenge on everyone who broke into the tomb earlier in the film, which kind of makes his threat a self-fulfilling prophecy. Either he doesn't realize that these really old archaeologists are pretty close to dying of natural causes anyway (these guys just aren't buying any green bananas), or he just doesn't want to wait that long.
John Banning, the son of the archaeologist who conveniently had a broken leg back when his father broke into the tomb (look, if you don't want to go in the family archaeology business, just TELL your father, maybe he'll understand...) then notices that his wife, Isobel, somehow bears an uncanny resemblance to Princess Ananka from 4,000 years ago. (It's like they're played by the same actress, or something, to save money...) How he stumbles upon this fact, I'm not sure - it's not like there are photos of Princess Ananka. Did he get this from the hieroglyphics? Either way, when she lets her hair hang down, she finds that she's got enough of a resemblance to an Egyptian princess to control the mummy, and get him to switch sides, sort of. But still he wants to drag her back to the swamp with him, so he must have taken love advice from the old Gill-Man. Dude, that's not cool - even monsters need to get consent these days, and carrying off unconscious women is a big no-no.
NITPICK POINT: When they first enter the tomb of Ananka, you might think that the place would be very dark, after all there's no light source in a 4,000-year old tomb that would still be burning. Logically their lanterns should be the only thing providing any light in that room, but because it's a film set, the place is all lit up, so we can conveniently see the beautiful Egyptian relics, the sarcophagus and all of the hieroglyphs. Come on, now...
NITPICK POINT #2: Kharis got into trouble for trying to bring Ananka back to life, because eternal life was apparently something the Egyptians could accomplish, but still it was forbidden. Why spend so much time learning how to accomplish this, only to forbid it? And if was forbidden magic, why spend time learning about it in the first place. Then, they punish the guy who tried to grant eternal life by giving him eternal life? But I thought that was forbidden. This system of punishment is even more ironic than the one we have today, when in some states murder is punished by execution. Or did someone in ancient Egypt just have a sense for the ultra-ironic?
Starring Peter Cushing (last seen in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed"), Christopher Lee (last seen in "The Curse of Frankenstein"), Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne (last seen in "The Scapegoat"), Felix Aylmer (last seen in "Henry V"), Raymond Huntley, George Pastell (last seen in "From Russia With Love"), Michael Ripper (last seen in "The Revenge of Frankenstein"), George Woodbridge (ditto), Gerald Lawson (ditto), John Stuart (ditto), Harold Goodwin (also last seen in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed"), Denis Shaw, Willoughby Gray (last seen in "A View to a Kill"), David Browning, Frank Sieman, Stanley Meadows (last seen in "The Ipcress File"), Frank Singuineau (last seen in "Dr. No").
RATING: 4 out of 10 broken windows
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