In the sub-Pantheon of classic movie monsters, the character of the Mummy is often overlooked.  This is likely because the two great monster movie actors--Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee--appeared as the linen- wrapped creature only once in their careers, after which the films were relegated to lowly second-string status.  But there are those two prime Mummy films and they do deserve closer scrutiny.  So grab an ancient scroll or two as we start...

By M. JORDAN CLARKE

(Note:  It is, once again, old Renfield's pleasure to introduce a new writer to HORROR-WOOD pit of pen- pushers.  M. J. Clarke is a film scholar and professor based in Culver City, California. Currently Clarke is working on both a forthcoming comic magazine and novel as well as researching the international relations of national film cultures. Please send all comments and queries to him here.).

Unlike its horror contemporaries The Mummy is a film that exists without a clearly defined primary source. Much different from Frankenstein or Dracula, The Mummy was born of an amalgamation of several varied sources.

On the one hand the films rely on actual, and hackneyed, versions of historical and cultural practices from ancient Egypt in terms of its use of custom and ritual, not to mention names. But just as much the films owe their genesis to instances of mass media and journalism that touted the idea of forbidden knowledge and curses, most specifically in the case of Howard Carter’s excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Likewise, each re-invigoration of the myth seems to heartily borrow elements from previously established horror legends, filling the gaps of the formula.

In light of this it should come to no surprise that while both Karl Friend and Terrance Fisher’s version of The Mummy bear many cosmetic as well as structural similarities, they are largely divergent in both tone and mood. The discrepancy between the two films can be most readily examined through the construction of the characters of the mummies themselves, who, significantly, do not even bear the same moniker (Boris Karloff plays Ardeth Bey, while Christopher Lee portrays Kharis).

Their roles are somewhat reversed as Ardeth is indisputable the master of himself, others, and even the very film itself, while Kharis is a mindless, violent juggernaut, a pawn to the whim of others. This idea of master/servant in the characterization of the Mummy extends down into the thematic and stylistic levels of each film and proposes highly divergent readings in terms of the nature of evil as well as examinations into the cultural contexts from which they were born.

Carl Laemmle, the producer behind the rebirth of the thirties horror film, was no fool. He realized that he could have an instant hit if he took the "star" of Frankenstein and gave him a part in a film comparable in presence to that of Lugosi’s Dracula. And although the The Mummy is a movie that stands alone and often times surpasses its predecessors in terms of quality, the film’s similarity with Dracula in particular is impossible to ignore.

Ardeth, like Dracula, has an unnatural sovereignty and hypnotic power over both people of his native land (the politically incorrect Nubian slaves) as well as sexually virile women. Yet the xenophobia that seems apparent in Dracula becomes much more problematic in The Mummy. For nothing else than this is because his love interest is half-Egyptian and that she truly is the re-incarnation of his beloved.

And like Dracula, Ardeth is the master of the film’s narrative action. He is the one that tells the archeologists where to dig to find the princess’s tomb. He is also the one that provides the catalyst for both the courtship and the complications for Helen and Frank’s budding romance.

But perhaps more interesting than the way that Ardeth controls the narrative is the way in which he, from within the film, can manipulate the filmic medium itself. Through his reflecting pond (a screen within a screen device) Ardeth is able to squash time and space. In this he can strangle the elder Whemple from miles away. Similarly Ardeth is able to conjure the image of a silent film within the film when as explains the past to Helen through the flashback, destroying the linearity of time.

Thus, film’s inherent ability to condense or retract time and space is squarely in Ardeth’s hands. This is also shown through the frequent use of intercut scenes with the movie. As Ardeth attempts to resurrect his lover for the first time, the scene continually shifts to Helen at a party. Thus, Ardeth’s passion and his power destroy the limitation of ordinary physical distance.

One last fascinating example of this resides in a device that repeats itself through the movie is the frequent use of a certain extreme close-up on Ardeth’s face starring directly into the frame. In a pragmatic sense the repetition of the single shot speaks to Ardeth’s hypnotic powers also remembering that trances are often achieved by the continual repetition of mantras. But more importantly this shot serves to freeze time and provide a sense of pause, or poetic caesura.

This shot reveals Ardeth’s power, which resides in the ability to make past present or make the present a ceaseless past. And, of course this is precisely what movies do to their viewers. They make past circumstance as continual present. Ardeth’s compulsion then becomes his source of power.

This sense of timelessness and constancy also creeps its way into the film’s very stylistic content. Sergei Eisenstein in his film work called his "close-ups" "large scale," claiming that this semantic difference showed that Americans think in terms of distance, while Russians think in terms of significance. It appears that The Mummy is a film with many "large scale" shots.

Freund’s close-ups approximate hieroglyphics in, if not articulation, then at least feeling (in fact the film has many close-ups of "actual" hieroglyphics). The initial archeological dig uncovers a sealed casket, a forbidden box. The frame rests on a close shot of the unbroken seal itself, which arguably becomes imbued with a sense of timeless meaning. The seal becomes the symbol of dangerous secrets and hidden knowledge.

Also Ardeth’s ring becomes a symbol of his sovereignty and his power despite his feeble physical frame. His power isn’t physical; it is supernatural. These images, of course, do not denote meaning, yet there is a certain connotative power to the image that may just be a result of indoctrination in Western visual culture, but nonetheless hold a certain, undeniable, "eternal" value.

A savvy critic will assert that all these suggestions are merely as a result of social construction and conditioning. Yet an even savvier critic would add that all language, written, spoken, visual, or otherwise begins with metaphor (is the sun rose factual or poetic?). Thus, the true basic unit of knowledge is arguable the image itself.

In the end The Mummy’s take on what is evil is precisely in line with previous observations made about the movie. Evil is singular, it is its own master, and it is timeless. This attitude is seemingly reflected in the harsh use of chiaroscuro lighting that emphasizes a didactic relationship between light and dark, good and evil. It is easy to see how this could be a comforting prospect to the victims of the American Depression.

What is evil is then an unstoppable outsider who can only be defeated in the face of an even higher power, in this case Isis, herself. Thus, the reason for financial strife would be the faceless men of the upper class that couldn’t necessarily be punished in any real way except precariously through the experience of fiction film. Ardeth is undeniably of aristocratic airs if not for his cool demeanor and his formal garb, then at least for his fantastic temple.

In this the man who thought that he was a master is defeated when he is shown to be subject to an even higher, divine master. The idea of comeuppance is a very Christian ideal, or as a Nietzche would term it, a "slave morality." These types of notions are furthered by the idea of the curse. Failure isn’t nearly as gloomy a prospect if one were doomed all along.

Yet even this is an over-simplifies the character of Ardeth. Despite his sociopathic leanings, at heart, he is merely a man that has suffered because of an intense unrequited love. He struck out against the gods themselves for the woman that he loved. As in Frankenstein the "villain" of The Mummy is arguably the most sympathetic of characters.

In many ways Fisher’s version of The Mummy was made under very similar circumstances to the 1932 version. Hammer Studios in 1959 was in the midst of a horror revival, much like Universal had been in the thirties. And like Universal, Hammer had a repertoire of stock players (a move also mirrored in the wonderful horror films of Roger Corman with AIP).

Fisher’s Mummy borrows from previous mummy- themed films, but even more from the tradition of horror films that started with German Expressionist works such as The Golem and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In these films a man gains control of a monster, which he then uses to do his bidding. Yet, as the formula became established, the monster inevitably turns against its master and runs amuck. In this the monsters are the pawns of the real villains, the method through which they realize their motives.

This interpretation of the Mummy (Kharis) could not be further removed from the very Dracula-like Ardeth Bey. Kharis is largely a mindless creature of action. Indeed, if Freund’s work is concerned with look in terms of mood, then Fisher’s work is concerned with look in terms of action. This is shown in the way that Kharis is allowed to move through the frame, unbridled, giving him a sense of raw physical power.

For example as Kharis goes to kill the elder Banning he has to force his way through a barred window. This action occurs in one shot, uninterrupted, as the old man runs panicked in the foreground. Likewise, before he kills Uncle Joe, Kharis breaks through a set of doors and grasps the man’s throat all in one take (a move that apparently resulted in a separated shoulder for Lee).

Compounding this kineticism in Kharis’s character is the way that he, himself, is continually in a state of flux, never appearing the same. This is unlike Ardeth whose very point is that there is an eternal past, eternal life, and an eternal love. Kharis is incomplete. He appears in several stages of rot throughout the course of the narrative. Gunshot wounds, spear impalings, and swamp water compound his very visage.

This uncertainty in his appearance is re-doubled in his personality that at first seems blank, but in the end takes a profound shift. He is a character in process. Kharis’s swamp dwelling seems to fortify the point as the bog is neither solid nor liquid, but something in between, undefined.

As suggested earlier, Kharis is subject to the motives of Mehemet Bey, a priest of Karnak who seeks revenge on the archeologists who dug out the princess’s tomb. In the end Kharis turns against his master, but only to become the servant to another, Banning’s wife, Isabel, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to his ancient lover.

Like Freund’s work, Fisher’s film comes at a very distinct time in history, notably the beginning of colonial conflicts such as the Algerian War and later Vietnam. Fisher’s film plays off of Europe’s anxiety over insurrection whereas in Freund’s film the issue of white sovereignty is only present as a latent subtext. In Fisher’s work the mitigating force behind the Mummy’s rampage is exactly nationalist revenge for the exploitation by Western powers.

Mehemet like many other nationalist dissenters since and previous uses a vision of the idealized past to have an impact on the issues of the present. Colonized nations are often forced into the throes of modernity within the course of a single generation and thus, the gut reaction of the resistance is often to hold onto a sense of tradition and genuine culture. This results in the frequent instances of "conservative-minded" revolutions, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mehemet is obviously a hyperbole of this same type of motion as he is a priest of a religion dead for thousands of years.

Yet this is not to assert that Fisher was in any way sympathetic to the plight of the colonized nations, he merely exploits people’s fears. His real view on the issue is clouded at best. This is best witnessed in the sequence wherein Banning and Vehement Bey square off, intellectually. Both make perfect sense, yet they also both appear hypocritical. Banning claims that his work preserves the knowledge of the past for all people, but Vehement claims that he is merely robbing graves for the sake of money (tourism).

Banning then points to the cruelty of Mehemet’s idealized past citing instances of mass human sacrifice. Vehement counters this by claiming that Banning merely disavows what he can never experience for himself. Both men make intelligent and cohesive points making it difficult to side with one or the other. Yet in the end Mehemet is shown to be the aberrant one as he, himself, begins to kill others for the sake of a revenge plot that often seems unfounded and perhaps even ludicrous.

Kharis, as a personification of evil, then would come to stand for the mindless hordes of minions that follow a charismatic, foreign leader. This, of course, could be counted as a uniquely British trope beginning with the country’s mythologized battle against Nazi Germany. Yet, the way out of the predicament resides in a sort-of-vanity of racial purity, as the idealized, Western beauty of Isabel is enough to arrest any transgressor.

Thanks, Michael.   You've done much to illuminate the similarities and differences in the pathological paths taken by Karloff's and Lee's version of the eternal movie Mummy.  As for the similarities, may we add that both Karloff and Lee brought a true dignity and a certain sympathy to what can only be described as an otherwise monstrous role and both did so without the benefit of a single pixel of computer generated graphics.  By viewing both Mummy films, one can once again appreciate that fine acting is, as always, mightier than the software program.

Article copyright © M. Jordan Clarke

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