Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Uriah43 This movie begins with an archaeological expedition headed by a man named "Stephen Banning" (Felix Aylmer) who is looking for the tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess by the name of "Ananka" (played by Yvonne Furneaux). To his great delight they end up finding it and while his associate, "Joseph Whimple" (Raymond Huntley) leaves the tomb to tell Stephen's son "John Banning" (Peter Cushing) the news Stephen continues searching for other items of interest. It's during this search that he finds an ancient manuscript known as "the Scroll of Life" and upon reading it aloud wakes up the mummified body of the high-priest of Karnak named "Kharis" (Christopher Lee) who has been placed there to guard the sanctity of the tomb. Kharis immediately attacks Stephen but is stopped by an Egyptian devotee of Karnak named "Mehemet Bey" (George Pastell) who has appeared out of nowhere and immediately orders Kharis back into his hidden chamber. Needless to say, Stephen is severely traumatized by these events and suffers from a stroke which leaves him in a comatose state as a result. The film then fast-forwards to three years later in England with the sarcophagus of Ananka being put on display in the British Museum of London and Stephen being confined to a nursing home due to the effects of the stroke. What none of the archaeologists know is that Mehemet Bey has recently arrived in London with a crate containing the mummy of Kharis with the intention of killing all three of the people responsible for desecrating the tomb of Ananka. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film is not a remake of the movie produced in 1932 known as "The Mummy". Instead, this movie incorporates bits and pieces from the original 1932 movie and combines scenes from several sequels that followed it ("The Mummy's Hand", "The Mummy's Tomb" and "The Mummy's Ghost"). As a result, there really is no comparison between the 1932 film and this particular picture. At least I don't think so. Be that as it may, this movie is certainly entertaining enough and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Leofwine_draca Here's another colourful classic from those chaps at Hammer, made at the peak of their popularity in the late '50s. From here on they were on their way down, forced into lower and lower budgets in the '60s (forced to shoot two lots of films back-to-back in 1965 in order to utilise sets), remaking the same types of film again and again, and desperately trying to cling on to the last remaining viewers in the early '70s with added gore and sex. THE MUMMY is a faithful retelling of previous entries in the genre, only this time with different names and lots of colour. Hammer made their mummy (played by Christopher Lee) a frightening, towering figure of evil, and scenes of it striding across the countryside, caked in mud and slime after rising from a bog, manage to be very frightening indeed.It's also a surprisingly tame film, at least in the version I saw, tame enough to get a PG rating in the UK. The only grisly moment comes when Lee gets his tongue cut out in flashback, but MARK OF THE DEVIL this isn't! We witness the event from behind Lee's head instead. Supposedly, racier/gorier versions were shot for foreign markets, and I'd love to see a print of one of these one day - it would certainly make interesting viewing.Anyway, in the tradition of their previous hits THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and Dracula, this film has a great score from James Bernard, good photography and lots of nice scenery/sets and costumes. Full use is made of the colour film available to Hammer, making it a very nice picture to look at. My only real complaint with this film would be the running time, which feels very short (although it isn't really). A fair quarter of an hour is taken up with a lengthy flashback scene explaining how Lee came to be buried in the princess' tomb. Therefore the film feels very short, and there's not a lot of opportunity to build up atmosphere. Instead what we get is a surprising amount of action and lots of shots of Lee coming out of his tomb and prowling the countryside while menacing music plays on. What more could you want from Hammer? Of course the third pairing of Cushing and Lee is the factor that really makes this film unmissable (just about any film starring the pair is a classic, with perhaps the exceptions of THE GORGON, I, MONSTER, and NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT). Lee plays the monster once more, using only his eyes to convey loneliness and sadness as the titular character. Indeed he puts in a sympathetic performance, yet still manages to be frightening when we first meet up with him. Cushing, on the other hand, does what he does best, i.e. be the hero and fight evil. He does get a couple of excellent fight scenes with Lee set in a library, where he rolls over desks in a display of sudden agility and even spears the mummy with a poker (an idea of his own). Cushing's character is typically noble and intelligent, yet not as interesting as his Doctor Frankenstein or Van Helsing - in fact, John Banning is quite a bland role, but Cushing breathes life into it with his typical skill and makes all of the scenes in which he appears professional and worthy.An excellent supporting cast flesh out the ranks, including Yvonne Furneaux as the glamorous damsel in distress (given shamefully little to do, though, aside from be carried by the mummy). Felix Aylmer is the fussy, selfish elder Banning, who probably deserves the strangling that he gets, when the mummy breaks through the bars of his padded cell and attacks him (again a great moment). Further down the cast list, Michael Ripper puts in a comic bit part as a drunk poacher who can't believe his eyes, George Pastell is suitably evil as a suspicious foreigner, and old-time performers like George Woodbridge (a staple for Hammer) lend solid support.The special effects are limited, but there are some excellent scenes involving the mummy getting shot where huge holes are blown in his chest - very convincing too. The ending sees the mummy taking Banning's wife and walking back into the bog, before putting her down and getting gunned to death by surrounding policemen (KING KONG anybody?), which manages to be quite tragic and fitting. The Egyptian scenes and flashbacks look convincingly done on a low budget, and the mummy kills a string of people to keep the horror content flowing. In all, this is another well-made classic from Hammer, with all the correct elements, and the best mummy movie I've seen so far.

Rainey Dawn A pretty good mummy movie about John Banning (Peter Cushing) and Kharis (Christopher Lee) - fun to watch.This is NOT a remake of Universal's The Mummy 1932 with Boris Karloff. Karloff's mummy was Imhotep NOT Kharis. There was bits and pieces of this film that were reminiscent of the Karloff classic but NOT a remake of it. This film is NOT a remake of Universal's Mummy Kharis series either. Tom Tyler played Kharis in The Mummy's Hand followed by Lon Chaney Jr. in 3 of the Universal Mummy films (Tomb, Ghost, Curse). The film is almost a mixture of all of the Universal mummy movie stories rolled into one - not exactly but almost.I would have rated this one higher if the ending made more since. John Banning shot Kharis in shoulder and looked like close to the stomach but the mummy Kharis survived. The ending Kharis was shot and went down in swampy waters. I'm guessing Banning didn't hit a vital organ but the other shooters at the end did hit a vital organ. Also the movie ended abruptly - seems like just a bit more at the end with John Banning and the other guys "summing things up" would have really been nice.7/10

classicsoncall With a recent spate of Hammer Horror Films under my belt, ("Dracula: Prince of Darkness", "Frankenstein Created Woman", "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed") I'm quickly becoming a fan of the British studio, but maybe not for all the expected reasons. For starters, a lot of the sets they use are very brightly lit and display richly saturated colors that don't particularly lend themselves to a horror venue. This intrigues me a lot, but sometimes this works against the story as in the flashback funeral sequence of Princess Ananka. Every prop used in that scene looks like it was brand new, in other words, made specifically for the movie thus making it look out of place and time.Additionally, with the stories generally taking place during Victorian times, the homes on display contain furnishings of elegant refinement and sophistication such as we see here in both the Banning home and that of his neighbor Mehemet Bey (George Pastell). In my case, this sometimes proves to be a distraction because I'm busy admiring the pictures hanging on a wall or gazing at a well stocked library book case, thereby losing concentration on the main story. Thankfully we have pause and rewind buttons which I use quite freely for films like this.With this version of "The Mummy", I'm having the same reaction to a casting decision made by the studio as I had with the Mummy sequels from Universal. Of course you wanted Christopher Lee in the lineup for his appeal as a draw for your picture, but just as with Lon Chaney under wraps in his appearances for Universal, did it ultimately make any difference knowing who the bandaged one was? You could have anyone disguised as The Mummy performing the same stilted walk and no one would have been any the wiser. On the flip side however, Lee's eyes as The Mummy were quite expressive for each situation he found himself in, so maybe there's something to be said for his inclusion in this project.While watching I think I picked up on a couple of goofs in story continuity. When John Banning (Peter Cushing) relates the story of Ananka to Police Inspector Mulrooney (Eddie Byrne ), he states that she died four thousand years ago. However in the depiction of her burial scene I mentioned earlier, it was stated that it took place two thousand years ago. Also, in an early scene of the British pub in the story, the camera reveals that it's The Gardener Arms Pub, but later on in the story, Inspector Mulrooney called it The Red Lion.