Obsessive archeologist John Banning (Peter Cushing), and his even more obsessive father, ignore the standard “all who open this site will die” warning and enter an obscure Egyptian tomb. Banning Sr. is found babbling soon thereafter, and it is not long before Kharis (Christopher Lee), an ancient high priest turned mummy, is strolling the streets of England, eliminating all who desecrated the tomb. The police won’t believe a word of Banning’s superstitious–though calmly delivered–drivel. Good thing his wife happens to look like an ancient Egyptian princess.
In the late ‘50s, Hammer studios struck gold with their re-imaginings of Frankenstein and Dracula. A deal with Universal allowed them to go for remakes of the 1930s and ‘40s classics, adding in their own lush color and semi-eroticism. They chose not the original 1932 Mummy to recreate, but its two semi-sequels: The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb, combining those films, and removing the romance and comedy. The result is passable entertainment, improving on its source material, but still a bit stale and low rent in 1959, and now as moldy as Kharis’s rags.
Fans of Hammer films will be pleased to see both Cushing and Lee together once again. They had already been adversaries as Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster, and as Van Helsing and Dracula, and here they face off once again, and once again, Cushing gets most of the lines. Lee does the best he can as the most un-Egyptian of Egyptian high priests (he doesn’t even attempt a faux accent, speaking with his normal, regal, and very very British inflections in flashbacks, and not at all once covered with bandages). The make-up is not his friend, making his mummy far from frightening or believable—less a terrifying monster, and more a gangly actor shambling about in a mid-range Halloween costume.
Cushing has a lot more to do and comes off better, rising above mundane material. His portrayal of a faux-Victorian scientist is as believable as anything can be, or should be, in this fluffy horror flick. Though he has a reasonable number of lines, he doesn’t really do a whole lot since Banning merely reacts to situations.
The film is aided by the always good character actor, Raymond Huntley (The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery, The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s, Make Mine Mink, The Green Man) as an uncle, doctor, and dead-man-walking. The rest of the cast do their bit, and draw little attention, good or bad.
The Mummy, like all early Hammer Horror films, has its fanatical supporters, but anyone younger than 50 is not going to be impressed by the fact that once upon a time it was remarkable to have vivid color in a horror film. It is an attractive enough movie, though those same colors do accentuate how fake the Egyptian scenes are. Casting away its historic importance (which isn’t that great as it came after Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula), you are left with a standard mummy flick, carried out with middling skill, lacking in scares, but supplying a few smiles. When compared against other mummy films, it comes off well, but that’s not overwhelming competition.
Hammer’s “Mummy cycle” included The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967), and Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).