Today we continue not only Blogtober, but also our four-day marathon of movies titled "The Mummy." I don't have much ado to go through today, though I will note that it's amazing I haven't seen this movie yet, since it stars my favorite horror actor, Peter Cushing, as well as his on-screen nemesis, Christopher Lee. But hey, that's part of the point of Blogtober, so let's get into it!
THE MUMMY (1959)
Blogtober Qualifications: Mummies, death, madness, Peter Cushing
Archaeologist John Banning (Cushing), his father Stephen (Felix Aylmer), and his uncle Joe (Raymond Huntley) have just uncovered the tomb of Ananka in the Egyptian desert. John is laid-up with a broken leg but, rather than leaving camp to have it seen to, he chooses to hang around and tells his father to explore the tomb without him. Before Stephen can do so, however, he receives a dire warning from an Egyptian man by the name of Mehemet Bey (George Pastell). Stephen dismisses his warnings and enters the tomb, beginning a cycle of death and madness.
There's also something about a mummy (Christopher Lee).
This 1959 attempt by Hammer to put their own spin on the mystery of the mummy continues the tradition begun by Universal nearly 30 years earlier. That is to say, The Mummy is a capable and enjoyable horror movie, but is ultimately overshadowed by the same studio's versions of Frankenstein and Dracula. A large part of that, I feel, comes down to the mummy itself.
I mentioned yesterday that I don't find the mummy as a monster to be scary, and that opinion unfortunately holds true here. It isn't that the monster isn't at all intimidating (he is played by Christopher Lee, after all), it's more that the mummy is no more intimidating than any regular man with his build would be. There's so much hullabaloo made about the fact that the mummy is in a state of living death, and is powered by the ancient Egyptian magics of a god, but at the end of the day he's just strangling people.
Now, that isn't to say that there's nothing good to see here, because there definitely is. To begin with, the sets are, to my admittedly untrained eye, amazing to look at. I get the feeling that a lot of money went into them, and during a couple of the "outside" scenes, I had to remind myself that the actors were on a soundstage.
As well, most of the actors do a great job in their roles. In the first half of the movie Cushing's character is somewhat bland and milquetoast, due to his lack of anything to do besides react to things. However, once the story switches perspective to focus on him and his attempts to thwart the villains, the Peter Cushing I know and love surfaced and wholeheartedly took control of the picture. There's a great scene in which he meets with Mehemet Bey. Bey has been trying to kill John Banning, Banning suspects him of this, but Bey is unaware of the suspicion. What follows is a game of mental chess where the two characters smile and make conversation, each trying not to give away too much information to the other. It's well-done, and you can feel the tension between the two characters.
Speaking of Mehemet Bey, George Pastell plays him quite well, and makes a good villain, except you get the feeling he isn't meant to be the main villain, even though he controls the mummy, and kills almost as many people as the mummy does. It's almost like the filmmakers couldn't decide whether they should be remaking the original Boris Karloff mummy movie, or the later, more formulaic series of mummy movies.
Christopher Lee takes the bullet Boris Karloff managed to dodge in his time. What I mean by that is that Karloff went from playing a simple, mindless brute to playing a cold, calculating villain, whereas Christopher Lee went from playing a simple, mindless brute to playing a simple, mindless brute. It's especially strange since he had already played Dracula by this point, so it should have been known he was capable of more than this. Still, he plays the role well, and I will say this of the way the mummy is portrayed: they take advantage of the fact that he's undead. He gets shot multiple times (and bears the battle damage for the rest of the film). There's also a great fight scene between Cushing and Lee in which the mummy gets run through with what may be a harpoon. It doesn't quite live up to their earlier fight in Dracula, but few things do.
At the end of the day, The Mummy is a movie I wish I could change. It's a very good movie, and would almost be great, if it weren't dragged down by the monster it's named after, as well as not knowing which of its main antagonists should be the more dangerous one. If I had my druthers, the bandaged mummy would have been excised from the story altogether, and we would have something closer to the original 1932 version, with Christopher Lee playing the role that Karloff brought to life.
And don't get me wrong, I love seeing Christopher Lee strangle Peter Cushing. It's just that I can get that other places.
Tomorrow we continue this Mummy-thon with the first movie with that title to be released in my lifetime, and oh boy, are you ready for a romp? I hope you are!
Until next time!
Current interests:
Listening - Rush: Fly By Night (1975)
Playing - Golf Story (2017)
Reading - Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 1 (2004+)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)
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