I’ve long held there are no good filmic Dracula adaptations. I’m now going to say there aren’t any good Mummy pictures after the Karloff one. This Hammer production was an officially licensed remake of the Universal production… only not the Karloff title, instead the inferior Universal follow-ups, The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb. These films are awful, so, in making their first official remake of a Universal horror picture, Hammer chose to remake two awful ones (combining them into a single picture).
I didn’t grow up on Hammer horror films. I knew about them, mostly through their excellent poster art and the Maltin Movie Guide, but I didn’t really see them until I was in college. And then I discovered they’re truly awful, ineptly written wastes of time. The Mummy is, shockingly, one of their better efforts, mostly because it’s a fruit of a poison tree so it’s not Fisher’s fault. Who knows if he’d have directed it well–Jack Asher’s lighting makes the sets look as big as shoe boxes.
Peter Cushing’s a weak lead, but he’s not terrible. Christopher Lee’s okay as the mummy, I guess. Hard to mess it up. Yvonne Furneaux can’t act, but the movie doesn’t really expect anyone to act, so who cares… Only Eddie Bryne, as a police detective, and Felix Aylmer give good performances. They’re very out of place in the picture.
The Mummy‘s a dreadful waste of time and I recommend everyone avoid. But there are worse Mummy pictures.
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CREDITS
Directed by Terence Fisher; written by Jimmy Sangster; director of photography, Jack Asher; edited by Alfred Cox and James Needs; music by Franz Reizenstein; production designer, Bernard Robinson; produced by Michael Carreras; released by Universal Pictures.
Starring Peter Cushing (John Banning), Christopher Lee (Kharis, the Mummy), Yvonne Furneaux (Isobel Banning / Princess Ananka), Eddie Byrne (Inspector Mulrooney), Felix Aylmer (Stephen Banning), Raymond Huntley (Joseph Whemple) and George Pastell (Mehemet Bey, Alias Mehemet Akir).
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