Review by Ben Bussey
On those rare occasions that someone might feel inclined to defend the flood of horror remakes that we’ve seen over the past ten years, one precedent we might easily measure it against is that of Hammer Horror. For the most part we tend to class them simply as time honoured classics now; the silver age of the Gothic horror movie, following on from Universal’s golden age. But really, if we take a step back and reconsider, we might very well say that what Hammer did wasn’t all that different from what the likes of Platinum Dunes have been doing this past decade; picking out the best known, most marketable genre titles of years gone by, giving them a cursory dusting over, and churning out new interpretations as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Some readers may be crying blasphemy at that comparison, and I don’t blame them. Honestly though, the more I think about it and the more I read about it, the more Hammer’s success in the horror genre really does seem like sheer, blind luck. As the extras on this DVD emphasise, their noted screenwriter Jimmy Sangster pretty much fell into doing the scripts, having previously done other behind the scenes roles. Nor was he alone in being shoehorned into so key a position. By all accounts, the bulk of the actors who accepted roles in the films did so begrudgingly; Yvonne Furneaux went from this to La Dolce Vita, and it’s not hard to imagine which she would prefer talking about afterwards.
But of course, Hammer did have the loyal services of those two great gents in need of no introduction; Christopher Lee, and the sainted Peter Cushing, whose praises we sang loudly back in May on the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Through their dedication, skill and immeasurable screen presence, those two men were able to lend an air of real dignity and drama to material which might very easily have seemed crummy. And my, were they tested in that regard. Very often the crumminess of the material threatened to overwhelm the gravitas of the performers.
I sadly fear that The Mummy may have been one instance where the crumminess came up trumps.
As again is remarked in the extras, The Mummy must have seemed the natural follow-up to The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula; it was Universal’s third monster hit, so it might as well have been the same for Hammer, right? Hm. Same reasoning that led to Platinum bloody Dunes following The Texas bleeding Chainsaw Massacre with Friday the flipping 13th, then A Nightmare on buggering Elm Street… and we all know how well those turned out. (Yes, I’m opting for milder, more British swear words; seems appropriate, given we’re talking about Hammer.) From the first seconds of The Mummy alone, it becomes immediately apparent that swapping a gloomy European setting for a sweaty Egyptian one might not have been the best move. Hammer’s use of sets was always readily apparent, but their attempts to convince us their cast are on an archaeological dig in the desert heat are so unconvincing it’s beyond a joke. There doesn’t even appear to be anything resembling sand for one thing. And how impeccably clean the never-before-opened tomb is, without a speck of dust in sight; not to mention that warm green glow within, where no natural light can presumably get in…
Okay, so perhaps this is nit-picking. Verisimilitude was never too high on Hammer’s list of priorities, and that’s part of their charm. But consider also how higgledy-piggledy the script is, following its extended Egyptian intro with a long stint in Blighty, before heading back to Egypt midway for an overlong, awkwardly placed flashback sequence; and all the while, a love story element which is seemingly pivotal remains underemphasised in the narrative. Take all that into account and The Mummy comes to radiate outright shoddiness, as opposed to the homely cut-price charm we know and love Hammer for.
Certainly, there are consolations. As we’ve remarked before, Cushing and Lee can make pretty much anything watchable between them, and given this was their fourth collaboration with director Terence Fisher, naturally this is always going to be a film of some interest. But I for one can’t shake a feeling that they were all just going through the motions a bit here. And who could blame them, given how prolific they were? Dracula was only a year earlier, Curse of Frankenstein the year before that, and they’d all done other films in between, including The Hound of the Baskervilles earlier in 1959.
It’s funny, but to me it feels like the mirror reverse of how things were for Universal: their version of The Mummy, directed by Dracula’s cinematographer Karl Freund, followed essentially the same parameters as their celebrated but ultimately lacklustre breakthrough horror with Todd Browning and Lugosi, and to my mind Freund’s film does it all better than Browning’s by a long shot. Here, pretty much the exact opposite is true. With their Dracula, Hammer pretty well knocked it out of the park (feels so wrong using such an American turn of phrase given the circumstances, but sod it), whilst their follow-up take on The Mummy aims to repeat that success but just can’t manage the same level of appeal. The comparative lack of further Mummy films from Hammer, as opposed to the deluge of Frankensteins and Draculas to come, pretty well tells you all you need to know (though I suspect I’m not alone in my affection for the later Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Valerie Leon’s dainty bejewelled get-up obviously playing no small part in that…)
But hey, that’s just me. It’s still Hammer, so it’s pretty well impossible to hate it – and should you be a fan of the film, there’s little doubt you’ll be perfectly happy with the treatment it’s received here. I’ve only seen the DVD (it comes in a combo pack with a Blu-ray edition), but the sound and picture quality are excellent. The extras are also plentiful, with bonus features devoted to the making of the film, some more covering memories of working in Hammer in general (though the comparative stiffness and formality of the interview subjects may jar somewhat with those of us accustomed to the more casual approach of modern filmmakers), and a few other curiosities such as an ITV clips show on Cushing narrated by Oliver Reed (which I vividly recall seeing in my teens). However, the most value for money is provided in the form of an additional full-length film, a 1952 effort from Fisher entitled Stolen Face. A world away from the gaudy, fantastical world of Kensington gore that Fisher would end up best known for, Stolen Face is a slightly more down-to-earth melodrama, a British film noir with heavily Hitchcockian overtones; indeed, I gather it’s not inconceivable that Hitchcock may have taken some inspiration from it, but I’ll avoid saying more so as not to spoil anything.
Whilst The Mummy may well be one of the lesser entries in Hammer’s back catalogue, it’s still great to see it preserved in this way, and I can’t wait to see more of their titles given this treatment.
The Mummy is released in Region 2/B Blu-ray and DVD combo pack on 14th October 2013, from Icon Entertainment/Hammer.