Both early versions of THE MUMMY (1932 & 1959) Explained

The Mummy, a fully bandaged character whose limbs appear almost completely rigid, making even its sudden movements seem artificial, dictated by its lifelessness. Of course, cinema has presented us with various versions of this specter, originating mainly from ancient Egypt, but it is hard not to envision precisely this image when speaking of a mummy.
Despite this—or perhaps because of it—it is an uninteresting horror protagonist, more often serving as a secondary (and rather characterless) threat, a decorative element, or a subject of parodic play. It is no coincidence that the very popular series with Brendan Fraser (1999–2008) had little to do with genuine fear but instead thrived in an adventure setting, using the titular antagonist as a source of a constant presence of expensive special effects on the screen. The Mummy with Tom Cruise failed to change this situation too—the spectacle was marketed as the beginning of a monster universe, which was also supposed to include Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the mad Invisible Man, Frankenstein’s monster with his bride, and several other legends, but it turned out to be a modern action film with a supernatural threat. It is not surprising. The bandaged figure may be a canonical fright, but no one has feared it for a long time.
Its popularity also seems to be negligible today. Yes, the aforementioned films with Fraser were blockbusters, but—as I repeat—they are not horror films. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) is closer to the genre, though its uneven battle between a mummy and an elderly Elvis Presley is imbued with more tragicomedy than fear. As for those works that are horror films by definition, they are hard to consider successful—the cinematic remake of the famous TV series Belphegor: Phantom of the Louvre (2001), in which Sophie Marceau is possessed by an ancient specter, and The Awakening (1980), two decades earlier, featuring Charlton Heston trying to save his daughter from the vengeful spirit of an Egyptian queen, were both met with a cold reception. To find a good horror film about a mummy, we have to go back to the Hammer era when, in 1959, the famous monster was resurrected. Examining both the American original from 1932 and the aforementioned British version, one can see not only the secret to their success but also the reason for the painful fall of the titular character from the pantheon of cinematic horrors.
In the first film, an archaeological expedition in 1921 discovers the mummy of the priest Imhotep in Egypt, along with a chest buried with him, whose opening poses mortal danger. A curious young man on the team, ignoring the warning, breaks the seals and finds inside the chest a scroll with a secret spell, but moments later, the reanimated mummy takes the papyrus, leaving the man in great shock. Ten years pass. The son of one of the members of the previous expedition encounters a certain Ardath Bey (from the facial features of Boris Karloff, we recognize in him the titular character, though now appearing as an ordinary man), who points to the resting place of Princess Ankh-es-en-Amon. The enormously significant discovery soon ends up in a museum in Cairo, giving Bey the opportunity to resurrect his beloved from thousands of years ago. The spell summons the contemporary reincarnation of the princess, the American Helen Grosvenor, who from that moment becomes the target of the mummy’s sinister actions. Coming to her rescue are Frank, the archaeologist’s aforementioned son, and an eminent scholar of antiquity, Dr. Muller.
Karl Freund’s film, the directorial debut in the USA of the acclaimed German cinematographer (The Golem, The Last Laugh, Metropolis), was made on the wave of the enormous popularity of Frankenstein (1931) by James Whale and Dracula (1931) by Tod Browning, both produced by Universal. At that time, however, no one thought of them as part of a shared monster universe, as contemporary filmmakers would like us to believe. Instead, they sought to capitalize on the demand for cinematic horror, which, in the case of Freund’s work, was also fueled by the groundbreaking discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb a decade earlier. Such a find had to spark the imagination of filmmakers, although the idea for The Mummy’s plot was initially sought, as with the previous two horror films, in literature—unsuccessfully. The motif of the mummy and the contemporary craze for Egypt were enough incentive to create an entirely original story.
And here lies the problem, as the plot is not actually new, and at a certain point, it begins to resemble Dracula too much, with its theme of love stronger than death, the reincarnation of a beloved woman, and the duel between an undead monster and both a young hero and an elderly scholar. The attempt to subjugate a beautiful woman using dark forces also feels derivative, though in this case, it is surprising to watch, as Karloff, with or without makeup, lacks the charming presence that Bela Lugosi had as Dracula.
This did not prevent the film from achieving success (especially in Europe), as it remains, to this day, a stylish and entirely effective horror film. Freund’s The Mummy does not focus on physical monstrosity but rather the supernatural, building an atmosphere of silent and intimidating supremacy of the specter, still driven by human emotions. Karloff in the titular role is magnificent—just as with Frankenstein’s monster, he can evoke both fear and sympathy with a single facial expression, and the slowness of his movements suggests fragility, which contrasts sharply with his relentless, even murderous nature. However, when the film shifts into familiar vampiric territory, it quickly loses its strongest assets, sacrificing the originality of its initial concept and somewhat squandering the exotic setting.
The story is different in the British The Mummy. Here, too, we start with the discovery of a tomb and the reanimated, bandage-covered body of the priest Kharis (this time played under heavy makeup by Christopher Lee), but the action, set in the late 19th century, quickly moves to England, where the expedition’s members are killed off one by one by the mummy. It turns out that the creature is controlled by an Egyptian man who seeks to punish the infidels for entering the temple, thus fulfilling the will of his god, Karnak.
The titular character here is not, as in the original, a conscious, magic-wielding villain but rather a mindless killer, brought to life by his compatriot. Moreover, he brings destruction upon those who pose a cultural threat—enlightened barbarians ready to desecrate any sanctity in the name of science and knowledge. This emphasis makes Terence Fisher’s horror film very different from the American original, even when considering the common elements of both plots. Again, the main protagonist is the son of a renowned scholar (Peter Cushing as the limping young man), and the reincarnation of a beloved woman appears once more, but the rest is largely based on Universal’s second film in the series, The Mummy’s Hand (1940), from which comes the subplot of a man controlling the Egyptian specter to eliminate foreign tomb raiders.
The Hammer studio began its horror campaign in the same way as the American film studio, with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958), since—due to the original novels—it was able to acquire the rights to these characters. The production of The Mummy, incorporating some plot elements and proper names, was only possible after signing an agreement with Universal. However, just like in Freund’s film, it is difficult to speak of originality here, not only because of similarities to earlier black-and-white installments of the series (aside from the original and The Mummy’s Hand, there were also The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse, both from 1944). In Fisher’s film, when the titular character first appears in all its glory on screen, it emerges from a swamp, covered in mud from head to toe—it is hard not to notice at this moment that Christopher Lee’s portrayal is closer to the famous Golem, a figure from Jewish folklore. A mute avenger, molded from clay, created to protect his people from persecution, yet soon becoming a threat to everyone; in the same way, one could describe the titular character of Hammer’s horror film.
However, The Mummy remains highly entertaining, especially since the film boasts a magnificent Gothic atmosphere (quite unusual for this character), vivid set designs and costumes, and surprising ferocity in the monster’s attack scenes. But if I were to point out the best scene, it would not coincidentally be a moment without the mummy, but rather one featuring the actual protagonists of the story—John Banning, played by Cushing, and the vengeful Egyptian, Mehemet Bey, portrayed by George Pastell. Their encounter takes the form of a polite yet tension-filled debate about ideological and cultural differences that have become the foundation for bloodshed. One character pricks the other with the dignity of the greatest gentleman, while the mummy remains locked in the next room. Clearly, Lee’s secondary role was expanded with an endlessly long flashback revealing his once-human side, but this was not enough to conceal the fact that the film could very well do without the bandaged character. But then it would have had to be called something else.
The titular mummy in both films struggles with its own identity. In the American version from the 1930s, it resembles the famous vampire, while over a quarter of a century later in England, it could easily be mistaken for a Jewish clay monster. Of course, over the eighty-five years since Freund’s film premiered, other cinematic variations on the bandaged figure have been created. However, the fact that people still primarily remember this simplest, one-word title in its various versions, borrowing elements from all over, indicates that cinema does not quite know what to do with the mummy. Should it attempt to give it human traits and appearance, as Karloff did, or should it depict it as a mindless force of destruction, which worked in the case of Lee’s version? The director of the 1999 spectacle, Stephen Sommers, unlike his predecessors, focused on fantasy and visual spectacle, relying more on computer effects than on a carefully developed narrative and the acting skills of Arnold Vosloo. He succeeded because cinema constantly evolves, and apparently, that was the kind of mummy we wanted to see at the time. But even he did not invent anything new, utilizing the appeal of adventure cinema (in 1999, when such films were no longer being made) to tell not a horror story, but a swashbuckling romance with a heavy dose of humor. Fear gave way to excitement; the mummy once again adopted a new identity.
I like mummy films, but the mummy itself seems to me a sluggish and uninteresting horror protagonist. It speaks little, moves awkwardly, usually longs for its long-buried beloved, and punishes infidels—that, in short, summarizes its career so far. At best, it seems to express fears of foreign invasion, the attempt to appropriate cultural treasures, and the imposition of an alien identity. Ironically, Western mentality, whether American or British, permeates these film narratives so deeply that the titular figure is brutally dragged from its grave and placed into very familiar storytelling patterns; in other words, from the very beginning, it is stripped of all its exoticism and uniqueness. In the past, filmmakers sought a solution in literature, but that yielded no compelling answers. Cinema, too, has no idea how to make the mummy more than just a soulless fright. Perhaps it is worth considering what truly sets it apart from other big-screen monsters, rather than focusing solely on its bandages.