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| The Mummy | 
 enlarge | Director: Terence Fisher
Actors: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne, Felix Aylmer
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $5.81
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Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 10789
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 88
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.5
MPN: D22034D
ISBN: 0790764342
UPC: 085392203420
EAN: 9780790764344
ASIN: B00005NSXY
Theatrical Release Date: December 16, 1959
Release Date: October 9, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Hammer Studios' greatest nemeses, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, once again square off in this reworking of Universal's The Mummy (with elements of The Mummy's Tomb and The Mummy's Ghost thrown in for good measure). Cushing stars as archeologist John Banning, whose dig for a lost tomb results in untold treasures but leaves his father a mumbling madman and marks the rest of the company for death. Lee is Kharis, a former high priest turned gauze-wrapped guardian of the tomb, a veritable Golem sent on a mission of vengeance by Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), a disciple of the ancient Egyptian god Osiris. The scenes at the archeological dig and the flashbacks to the ancient burial are stagebound and cheap looking, but Terence Fisher is back in familiar territory when the action relocates to the misty swamps and Victorian mansions of rural England. The towering, 6-foot-3-inch-tall Lee makes the most terrifying mummy to date. He covers ground in giant strides, smashes his way into rooms with heavy Frankensteinlike swipes of his arm, and takes shotgun blasts with barely a twitch--yet he melts from rage to calm at the sight of Banning's wife, Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux), a dead ringer for his dead Queen. The film is still most famous for it's tongue-removal scene, discreetly hidden from the camera but nevertheless shiver inducing. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Three archaeologists searching for the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka among the ruins in Egypt are warned of grave consequences if they violate her tomb. Madness strikes one and as the others return to England with a mummy a series of murders take place as the mummy destroys those who desecrated the secret tomb.DVD Features:
Full Screen Version
Other:Digital Mono in English and French Trailer on Side A
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE KARLOFF ORIGINAL! 2 1/1/2 STARS! January 14, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have to wonder if the people reviewing this Hammer interpretation of the Mummy watched the same film I did. I found this to be one of the lesser Hammer productions. Hammer began making some good looking horror films because the genre was getting tired and Universal was churning out low budget horror flicks for a quick buck. This version of the Mummy is not even on par with the 1940's Universal Mummy films which spanned four serial type horror sequels. Forget about the original film starring Karloff, it doesn't hold a candle to that moody,somber masterpiece! Karloff's performance is creepy and Jack Pierce's make-up is absolutely incredible! Christopher Lee may have size but, he does nothing with the role of the undead protector of the tomb. Even though he does walk faster then the laughable Mummies from the 40's, it's not so fast that he could catch anyone. As slow as the Mummies were in those Universal 40's films there was a sense of relentless pursuit, normal people get tired mummies don't. I guess with thousands of years of sleep they can go for a long time! LOL! The brilliance of the 1932 classic with Karloff was that he was supernatural and he killed his enemies with curses! You can't run from that and it makes it all the scarier that there is no place to hide. I rate this film 2 1/2/ stars for some effort and seeing the Mummy in color. I hope the sequels are better than this one. It's just didn't add much new to the character.
A Lot of Fun November 5, 2007
This movie is a lot of fun. As with all Hammer movies, it has good production values and excellent color cinematography. Although a fairly standard "mummy" plot is in play, this movie stands out for the excellent background sequence set in ancient Egypt. Lee and Cushing are both masters of the genre and always fun to watch. Four stars instead of five only because the ending seems a little abrupt and weak, but it's not enough to detract greatly from the overall pleasure of the flick.
 Atomospheric, brilliant, horror film-art! October 23, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This may be the very best Hammer Horror Film of all time!
Beautifully produced, this well-known (and much beaten) story of Egyptian tomb desecration has never been better done than right here. This one IS the definitive version of The Mummy as far as I'm concerned.
The sets and cinematography will just blow you away. Yes, when the archaeologists first walk into Princess Ankara's inner sanctum, it SHOULD be as dark as the inside of a cow -- I know that! BUT, the beauty of that soft green lighting on all those ultra cool artifacts just really makes it for me. I'm sick and tired of dark footage where you can't discern a damn thing. Hell, it's a movie! I want to see it and enjoy it! And Hammer subtly makes us sort of forget that the inside of 2,500 year-old tombs were not well-lighted.
Peter Cushing looked GREAT in this film and Christopher Lee was an astounding Mummy.
So, for the benefit of those who want THE SCOOP ON THE STORY: Circa 1898, English archaeologists enter the Egyptian lost tomb of Princess Ankara and, right off, one of the archaeologists is rendered mad -- The Mummy almost got him!
This guy gets lodged in a rest home while his son (Peter Cushing) continues the family study of archaeology from his den in his English manor house, limping as he walks with a cane due to a broken leg that was badly set back in Egypt.
And so, the story is picked up a few years later when an Egyptian devotee of Princess Ankara takes The Mummy to England in an effort to avenge said princess by murdering the three archaeologists who were involved in the tomb desecration, one of which was Cushing.
Cushing's half-crazed father, locked away in the rest home regains a day of coherence, sensing the danger, and warns his son, but doesn't survive long enough to warn him a second time -- The Mummy gets him right away.
The local Police Inspector, an astute and credible non-buffoon, has trouble getting a handle on this murder because he doesn't believe in walking mummies. But eventually he comes around a bit on that issue. Pretty much everyone gets armed with cool old rifles, revolvers, and shotguns, but when they shoot holes in The Mummy, he just keeps on coming!
The final caveat is that Cushing's wife is the spit and image of Princess Ankara and that REALLY throws a monkey wrench into the works. I'll stop there to avoid a spoiler.
What one thing is missing from this mummy film? NO TANNA LEAVES! They use 'The Scroll of Life' in this case to arouse the old boy. I sort of missed the tanna leaf boiling thing but we get to see the scroll several times and it is a very nicely-done artifact.
Again, the quality of this film is the very Hallmark of what we have come to expect from the Hammer Films folks. Just superb -- don't miss it!
Visually Beautiful, Tremendously Moody, and a Lot of Fun October 17, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
England's Hammer Studios existed primarily as a distributor--until the low budget 1955 THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT suddenly put the studio on the map. Sensing an untapped market, Hammer began to develop similar titles and by the early 1960s developed a style that mixed Victorian sets and costumes with bouffant hairstyles, bared breasts, and lots of blood. The films were largely responsible for jolting the horror genre back to life on both sides of the Atlantic, as popular in the United States as they were in England.
Released in 1959, THE MUMMY was among Hammer's earliest color films and helped lay out the visual style that come to dominate "Hammer Horror" for more than a decade. Drawing from Universal's 1932 THE MUMMY and 1940 THE MUMMY'S HAND, it opens with a band of Victorian-era archeologists in Egypt, where they discover the lost tomb of Princess Ananka--and in the process unleash a mummy cursed to guard her throughout eternity. It is a curse that follows the men back to England, where they are stalked to their deaths one by one.
Director Terence Fisher and cinematographer Jack Asher worked a number of Hammer films, including the earlier HORROR OF DRACULA and REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Although some of the lighting may give you pause--judging from all the backlighting and colored filters it would seem the ancient Egyptians had mood lighting installed in their tombs--their efforts result in a series of truly arresting visuals; in their hands, bright color is no obsticle to moodiness. The cast plays it out extremely well, with the lovely Yvonne Furneaux a classic Hammer beauty, Peter Cushing as her archeologist husband, and (yes, the posture and bearing really is unmistakeable) Christopher Lee under wraps for the title role.
The DVD contains no extras beyond the original trailer, and although the transfer is not pristine it is nonetheless very good indeed. Hammer Horror may not save the world, but it is often a lot of fun--and THE MUMMY is easily among the studio's best. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Still laughing at the negative voter.
Tomb raiders take note May 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
this was the first version of The Mummy legend that I ever saw, and until the last version with Brendan Fraser, it was the best. In fact, I would place it as a very close second. The newer version wins because of its outstanding special effects, but let's face it, it's really a spoof. Rather than an update of "The mummy", it's more like an update of "Abbot and Costello Meet the mummy".
The hammer "Mummy" is basically serious. Of course the whole Mummy legend is based on the bizzare death of Lord Carnavon after the opening of the tomb of Pharoah Tutankahmen. (a mosquito bite bcame infected and killed him)
It is well to remember that there are no big special effects in the Hammer film except for the mummy makeup and the simulated shotgun blasts that do not destroy Christopher Lee. The movie achieves true horror through the acting abilities of a truly outstanding cast of actors. Christopher Lee deserves special mention for his ability to express the complex feelings of Kharis even through heavy makeup.
There are some comments that the Egyptian scenes are stagy and unreal. Have you ever taken a good look at the surviving relics of Egyptian civilization? To the modern eye, they do seem stagy and unreal. That is part of our fascination with ancient Egypt.
This movie belongs in every collection of sixties melodrama as an example of what can be done with a simple plot, great actors, and a competent director.
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