The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Hammer movies have always been a tad hokey and that's forgivable, some sloppy writing however isn't.This is the second Hammer Horror movie from "The Mummy" franchise and this time the star power has taken quite a dip. No longer did they have the presence of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and that really showed.It tells the story of a rich American who plans on making the opening of a mummy's sarcophagus a tourist event in order to make money but oddly enough things don't go quite as planned.The film looks great, the performances though spotty are mostly passable and the Hammer Horror brand of musical score is present. It's all very colour by numbers stuff, but that's okay.Sadly the writing is inconsistent, some is poor and some is baffling especially when it comes to character development.Passable stuff but again this underlines why though I appreciate Hammer Horror I've never exactly been blown away by it.The Good:Looks greatThe Bad:The absence of the likes of Cushing/Lee is very damagingThe bulletproof bandages have returned!Mummy actually looks worseNo character consistencyAwful cover artThings I Learnt From This Movie:Belly dancing is sexy or awkward, never anything inbetween

All four Mummy films by Hammer I like. Curse with atmospheric scenes does give a quality to it. You have fog bound London to add atmosphere. Sets on film re Egyptian biz are quite good.Story so-so various characters who crop up. Then we have the Mummy itself which looks quite impressive, with scenes with Mummy in like in fog top of steps near embankment etc, scene in study where curtains are concealing it. Another scene in house where Mummy ascending stairs, menacing and quite gripping. Odd comical relief in film re certain characters. Overall film has some merit to it!

Produced and directed by Hammer executive Michael Carreras, this film opens up in classic low-budget style: footage of camels tearing across a real desert fade into close-ups of blacked-up actors in a studio set, where the elderly father of drippy, fickle-hearted heroine Annette Dubois (Jeanne Roland) is killed and has his hand removed by ruffians. Carreras also wrote this under the pseudonym Henry Younger.'The Curse…' has not found a huge amount of favour from fans over the years, but I really like it. Apart from the opening sequence, it looks to be an expensive production, features a first rate cast, features some gruesome moments – and features Michael Ripper as a wonderful (if unlikely) wide-eyed Arab called Achmed.George Pastell makes an appearance, the second cast member from Hammer's original Mummy film to appear here. Fred Clarke, renowned American comic actor, plays the larger than life Alexander King (who, it seems, invented the term Turkish Delight in this film) arrogantly determined to milk as much money from the Mummy as possible, but lives (or dies) to regret it. Jack Gwillim is very good as pickled, deflated Sir Giles Dalrymple (whose demise is the film's highpoint in my view), whilst underrated actor Terence Morgan excels as villainous and debonair Adam Beauchamp, who is more interesting than stuffy square jawed hero John Bray (Ronald Howard).The Mummy (Dickie Owen) is a curio. He seems slight compared with the usual culprits, and has a clay-like face, giving him a Golem-like aspect. But he is directed very well, and his kills are often accompanied by nothing but the sound of his deep, rhythmical breathing, which makes up for his less than intimidating bearing.It is true to say that the story takes a while to get going, but is a solid telling of typical Mummy revenge, and certainly livens up once the resurrected Ra-Antef begins his killing spree, and remains compelling until the exciting sewer-based finale, in which Beauchamp is also relieved of his hand.

In my review of the Hammer version of THE MUMMY from 1959 I stated that it's a very political horror film centering around the Anglo-Franco debacle in the Suez three years before . CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB the first sequel continues the political subtext right from the opening scene where a hostage is cruelly slaughtered by backward violent Arabs . It's no coincidence that the heroine from the film speaks with a French accent or that we have a brash , dumb , philistine American portrayed in a rather bad light and the first half of the film holds the concentration due to its political subtext Of course no one watches a horror film due to politics and once the eponymous title creature makes its appearance things stop being intelligent and becomes clichéd . As in most horror movies there's a complete lack of credibility involved . Having a monster stalking the streets of London gives the impression that it can teleport a few feet away from its victim then materalise back to its lair . Doesn't any passerby notice an eight feet bandaged monster walking about ? Likewise the monster meets with a contrived fate This is a relatively poorly regarded movie from Hammer and shares many of the problems with the next sequel THE MUMMY'S SHROUD in that the Mummy takes too long to make an appearance . But unlike THE MUMMY'S SHROUD this film has a cerebral subtext to hold a thinking audiences interest