The Mummy Blu-ray review

Throughout the 1950s and1970s, Hammer Pictures set out to produce remakes of the Universal monster movies. With Frankenstein and Dracula, under their belt, the company tackled The Mummy in 1959. 

On a production level, there are admirable aspects to the movie. The color palette is full of striking uses of bright reds, greens and blues, there are some opulent sets and it is well photographed. The plot is where things go awry.

When a group of English archeologists desecrate the tomb of an Egyptian princess, the titular creature, a high priest who was in love with the princess, is unleashed to seek murderous vengeance. Sounds simple enough, but you’d be wrong. The real villain (George Pastell), a religious zealot who controls the mummy, interrupts the mummy from killing his first victim only to bring him to England three years later to finish the job. That is just poor time management.

Speaking of poor time management, there is a lengthy flashback set in ancient Egypt that brings the film to a halt. To add insult to injury, an additional flashback repeats a whole scene from the beginning of the movie.

The film’s biggest sin is wasting Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Cushing, as the protagonist, is a bore, stuck with monologues full of exposition. He gets one delicious scene though where he tells Pastell his God is third rate. More of that sort of caustic wit, would’ve enlivened what is a very dry film.

Lee, as the mummy, has a thankless role of, essentially, a lumbering zombie. Left with only his eyes to do all the emoting, he does, at times, evoke, empathy. Mostly though, Lee is required to do little more than smash through doors and windows.

The female lead (Yvonne Furneaux) is only asked to do one thing: pull her hair down. When her hair is down she bears a remarkable likeness to the princess allowing her to control the mummy. She saves Cushing, but nothing truly interesting is done with the character or this ability.

Alec Kerr