For those hording toilet paper

I was thinking about a comment I made about Curse of Frankenstein, and I think it can be applied to The Mummy as well. It seems like Hammer's version of The Mummy is a set up for other films made about the undead Egyptian in wraps, used as a weapon to kill. It essentially distills the basics of the Universal's mummy movies into a homage of sorts. Not really a remake, as much as, an accumulation of characters and plot elements from many of the Universal mummy movies, because it more or less follows the details closely.



British archeologists find the tomb of Princess Ananka, break the forbidden seal (thinking about it, this does seem to be just as inspired by The Mummy's Hand as it was The Mummy) to her burial chamber, and face the consequences as high priest, Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), warns the foreigners from raiding her tomb, and as a punishment face his wrath through the use of the titanic mummified corpse of the buried-alive Kharis (Christopher Lee). When John Banning's (Cushing) father, Stephen (Felix Aylmer) doesn't heed Bey's warning--he just takes these for a grain of salt, forwarding ahead with his colleague, Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley), paying a price with his life for doing so.

You know, come to think of it, movies like Horror of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein, and The Mummy all are like launching pads for Hammer, setting up popular Universal characters and going in other directions once the first movies were made and released. The Mummy isn't overly complex or that different than what we have seen in the Universal Mummy series, particular the Kharis films. Wisely, Hammer focused more on The Mummy's Hand and the Karloff Mummy film rather than the other entries. And Lee certainly provokes a visual power of menace that puts Lon Chaney Jr. to shame. I love Chaney, don't get me wrong, but his Kharis is just not a particularly impressive monster. Lee has the imposing presence and, although he never returned to the role, left a definite mark with his mummy Kharis.

Cushing brings the usual A-game, as the quick-thinking, cerebral, open-minded Dr. Banning, taking serious the threat of the mummy even as others have a hard believing he could even contemplate such a creature existing. I absolutely loved the addition of the swamp (that brought to mind House of Frankenstein to me; just a great moment when Kharis rises from the swamp as if a dead zombie rising from a grave). The muck and mud drenching Lee makes him even more imposing when he goes on the attack for the first time. A face-less automaton used by Bey (as Kharis in the Universal Studios movies was to the various high priests who commanded him to their bidding), exacting a vengeance on those who have desecrated the graves of the Egyptian ancestry, plundered the riches and artifacts entombed with those buried away for museums to be studied, ogled, and viewed by scientists and tourists alike.

Lee does look mighty and intimidating ripping out that grate to Mr. Banning's "nursing home" padded cell, all covered in swamp mud, those bandages stained dirty dark brown, his figure long and his arms outstretched at length as he grabs a hold of the old man, nothing but a brute force of seconds, killing as ordered by his master (with the scroll containing written commands).

While this uses Kharis, it follows Imhotep's descent into mummification for trying to return his beloved Ananka to life after her death torments him due to his love for her (it follows as Universal's The Mummy did: the funeral and buriel of Ananka, led by her man, Kharis, the customs and procedures before he commits his no-no sin against his god Karnak). Breaking the seal of Ananka, Kharis was punished. The expedition doing so means they are to be punished just the same. Of course, even in the Universal movies featuring mummy Kharis, a lady always winds up either the object of affection of the high priest or of interest to the mummy. Yvonne Furneaux of Polanski's Repulsion looks almost identical to Ananka so this will obviously come up in the film when Cushing's Banning needs some leverage against Kharis, the ending quite cool as the mummy carries her into the swamp as law enforcement descends upon him.