The Mummy (1959)

The Mummy (1959)

Directed by Terence Fisher ; written by Jimmy Sangster

 Hammer dipped back into the Universal back-catalogue to find the subject for the follow-up feature to their box office success with Dracula and Frankenstein and the result is a small but perfectly delivered example of maximising your limited resources to the best effect.

The plot (the very thin plot, if we're being honest) revolves around Peter Cushing, an archaeologist who is searching for the lost tomb of an ancient Egyptian queen in the company of his father (Felix Aylmer) and uncle (Raymond Huntley).

When they discover the burial site Cushing is unable to explore it due to an injured leg ; the other two enter the site, despite dire warnings from local George Pastell - during the exploration Aylmer releases the mummified (yet still living) high priest Kharis (Christopher Lee) who had been entombed with his Queen.

The action then shifts forward three years and to England : the father is in an asylum, driven to the brink of insanity by the sight of the re-activated mummy in the tomb and Pastell and his undead chum are looking for revenge upon those who defiled the sacred site.

And that's it : a simple story with a predictable plot, an easily guessed conclusion and no hidden surprises lurking along the way.

And yet.....  there's a lot of skill and care that's gone into delivering the film. For a start there's Peter Cushing ; very few screen actors have been as adept at delivering preposterous lines of dialogue with a straight face, perfect diction and in such a convincing manner.

There's Lee's Mummy - not the usual lumbering, groaning, stumbling zombie in bandages but an agile, adept creature that retains the eyes of it's human origin and uses these to express emotion when required.

Aylmer and Huntley are perfectly convincing in their roles and Pastell's Egyptian is slightly better drawn than is usual for non-British villains in films of the era.

There's an extended flashback scene with a Cushing voice-over narration which explains the entire backstory of the Mummy's origins which is very well done and neatly directed by Fisher.

Yes, the studio sets doubling for Egypt or the English countryside are very obvious but the scenes are lit and photographed in such a way as to allow the viewer to suspend their disbelief just long enough so as not to jar.

For a film made on a restricted budget and shot very quickly it achieves everything that it sets out to do and certainly stands up to comparison to the Hollywood mega-budget spectacular from 1999 that shares it's name.