Reeling Backward: The Mummy (1959)

Hammer horror mainstays Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing team up for this lurid and surprisingly sympathetic take on the moldy-dude-in-bandanges icon.

Despite having grown up on schlocky 1970s and ‘80s horror, and later seeking out early stuff from the 1920s through ‘40s to pad out my film education, I don’t have a ton of experience with classic mid-century scareflicks.

That’s typified by Hammer Film Productions, noted for its low-budget but vivid horror that pushed the boundaries of the day, sort of the equivalent of Blumhouse now. Their M.O. was to take classic gothic characters like Frankenstein and Dracula and put their own lurid, garish spin on it in vivid colors that made the Lugosi films et al seem tame in comparison.

I was not even aware there was a version of “The Mummy” starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, both Hammer mainstays. With their rawbone, almost skeletal faces, piercing eyes and widow’s peaks, they seemed born to play in these sorts of flickershows, either as the monster or the guy fighting it.

Here Lee plays the mummy, a high priest resurrected after 4,000 years of slumbering damnation to take vengeance on the British archeologists who desecrated the tomb of his beloved. Cushing is John Banning, the son of the lead man on the dig, who becomes the last fellow standing after his father and uncle are messily killed by the bandaged killer.

From the mummy’s perspective, the story is amazingly similar to that seen in the 1999 version starring Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz.

Kharis (Lee) is the high priest to the god Karnak, and secretly is the lover of his counterpart, Princess Ananka. While traveling through Egypt she dies of some mysterious ailment, and he attempts to use the forbidden powers of the Scroll of Life to resurrect her. Discovered and foiled, he has his tongue cut out and is mummified alive as punishment, cursed to act as the living dead protector of Ananka’s tomb.

As a result, while the character is undeniably malevolent, we can’t help but harbor some sympathy for him as a creature who ultimately acts out of love rather than hatred or a lust for power. I was surprised by the many close-ups of Lee’s eyes beneath the mummy’s bandages — the only part of him you can see — and rather than the standard ‘evil gaze’ thing Lee projects sadness and even vulnerability.

The mummy kills, but his heart — or whatever fossilized remnant there is of it — doesn’t see to be in it.

He is also controlled by a human puppetmaster, Mehemet Bey, a modern-day worshiper of Karnak who isn’t content to warn the British interlopers to leave Ananka’s tomb untouched by acts as the chief agent of vengeance, with Kharis as his deadly tool. While it’s never overtly stated, it appears that whoever physically possesses the Scroll of Life controls the mummy, or at least directs him.

Bey is played by George Pastell, who like Lee isn’t an Egyptian but at least was closer as a native of Cyprus. Neither is Yvonne Furneaux, who plays Banning’s wife Isobel, also standing in as Princess Ananka for the flashback scenes. Hey, it was 1959 and having Westerners stand in as Middle Easterners with the help of a little dusky makeup was pro forma.

Set in 1895, the movie’s views on antiquities also reflected the mores of the time, with John’s father, Stephen (Felix Aylmer), and uncle Joe (Raymond Huntley), seeing nothing wrong with raiding Ananka’s tomb, so long as they have the proper permits from the Egyptian government, and removing the coffin and all accompany treasures back to England for display in a British museum.

For good measure, they even blow up the dig to seal it in when they’re done. I’m still trying to figure out the scientific reasoning behind that one.

I’ve often wondered if the legend of the mummy initially arose as a warning to foreign interlopers to discourage them from making off with native cultural artifacts.

Stephen encounters the reanimated Kharis during the initial dig and has a stroke or other fit that renders him catatonic. Three years later Bey, having finally dug the mummy out of the ruins, transports it to England to take their revenge on the Bannings. There’s some comedic relief with the local working-class stiffs, whose are constantly drunk and lose Kharis’ body into the swampy muck outside town.

Bey revives him with the scroll and sets about their task. Stephen is an easy kill as he’s incarcerated in a mental institution, having recovered his wits. Uncle Joe gets it next, breaking into the Banning mansion the next night. John tries to fight him off, firing a couple of pistol shots into the mummy’s back and shoulder.

By this time the authorities are alerted, but local Inspector Mulrooney (Eddie Byrne) pooh-poohs the notion of the mummy, despite John’s eyewitness account.

The next night Kharis crashes into the Banning house again. John pumps two shotgun blasts into the mummy’s chest, to little avail. He even pierces its chest with an old spear. John’s strangulation — the mummy’s go-to M.O. — is interrupted when Isobel enters the room and Kharis mistakes her for Ananka, obeying her shouts to stop and leave.

This sets up the final showdown, where the mummy wades through a small army of police and protectors before nearly killing John who, despite two previous encounters, hasn’t seemed to figure out that gunfire won’t help him.

(Pitch and flame, man, pitch and flame.)

Bey provides his own undoing when he orders Kharis to kill Isobel, which seems to break the spell the scroll had over him. The mummy winds up kidnapping her and sinking into the swamp, the scroll still clutched in his hand. This would seem to set up an obvious sequel, but as far as I can tell Hammer did not attempt one.

For a 1959 British film, “The Mummy” is fairly violent and daring. Furneaux appears briefly nude during Ananka’s embalming scene, a carefully placed piece of the set keeping things in good order. The mummy murders are grisly, the victims screaming and choking as the death grasp encircles their throat. Only Bey’s death, his back broken over the mummy’s knee, earns a camera cutaway.

Lee’s mummy costume is quite good, more a muddy gray than white, reflective of his travels over land and under swamp. It shifts from criss-crosses of bandage over his limbs and torso to more of a general zombified decay on his head, which I think allows his eyes to hold our attention.

Director Terence Fisher had previously directed Lee and Cushing in 1958’s “Horror of Dracula,” which posited them as the vampire and Van Helsing, respectively. Script man Jimmy Sangster was another holdover, as the Hammer flicks often used the same crews as well as casts.

“The Mummy” is a thoroughly enjoyable bit of low-budget horror, undeniably schlocky but with an old-world penchant for the theatrical.