The Mummy (1959 film)
Encyclopedia
The Mummy is a 1959
1959 in film
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....

 Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 British Hammer Horror film starring Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

 and Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

.

Though the title suggests Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

' 1932 film of the same name
The Mummy (1932 film)
The Mummy is a 1932 horror film from Universal Studios directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff as a revived ancient Egyptian priest. The movie also features Zita Johann, David Manners and Edward Van Sloan...

, the film actually derives its plot and characters entirely from two later Universal films, The Mummy's Hand
The Mummy's Hand
The Mummy's Hand is a black-and-white horror film, produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. Although it is sometimes claimed by fans as a sequel or follow-up to the 1932 film The Mummy, it does not continue the 1932 film's storyline, or feature any of the same characters, and its plot...

and The Mummy's Tomb
The Mummy's Tomb
The Mummy's Tomb is the 1942 sequel to The Mummy's Hand .Lon Chaney, Jr. disliked the role of Kharis the mummy. Make-up artist Jack Pierce spent up to eight hours to wrap Lon Chaney. A rubber mask was used for long shots...

. The character name "Joseph Whemple" is the only connection with the 1932 version. In 1987, the film was acquired by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...


Story

In Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 in 1895, a team of archaeologists, including John Banning (Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

), his father Stephen Banning (Felix Aylmer
Felix Aylmer
Sir Felix Edward Aylmer Jones, OBE was an English stage actor who also appeared in the cinema and on television.-Early life and career:...

) and his uncle Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley
Raymond Huntley
Raymond Huntley was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s through to the 1970s...

), are searching for the tomb of Princess
Princess
Princess is the feminine form of prince . Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or his daughters....

 Ananka, the princess of Karnak
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex—usually called Karnak—comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amun and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II . Sacred Lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some...

. John is held up by an injured leg while his father and uncle open the tomb. Before they enter, an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian man named Mehemet Bey (George Pastell
George Pastell
George Pastell was a Cypriot character actor in British films and television programmes. His real name was George Pastellides....

) appears and warns them not to go in, lest they face dire consequences. Stephen and Joseph ignore him, and within find the sarcophogus of Ananka. When Joseph leaves to tell John the good news, Stephen finds the mythical Scroll of Life
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 and reads from it. He then sees something that drives him into a catatonic state. John and Joseph continue excavating the tomb but cannot find the Scroll of Life, little suspecting it is now in the hands of Mehemet Bey.

Three years later in Engerfield, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1898, Stephen Banning comes out of his catatonic state at the Engerfield Nursing Home for the Mentally Disordered, and sends for his son. He tells him that when he read from the Scroll of Life, he accidentally brought to life Kharis
Kharis
Kharis is a fictional character featured in Universal Studios's Mummy series in the 1940s following their original 1932 film The Mummy, which starred Boris Karloff as a different mummy character, Imhotep...

 (Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

), the mummified priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 of Karnak and the eternal guardian of Princess Ananka's tomb, who was sentenced to eternal living death as punishment for his forbidden love for the princess. Now, Stephen says, Kharis will hunt down and kill all those who desecrated Ananka's tomb. John does not believe his father.

Meanwhile, Mehemet Bey, revealed as a devoted worshipper of Karnak, has come to Engerfield under the alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 of Mehemet Akir to track down the Bannings. He hires a pair of drunken carters, Pat and Mike, to bring the slumbering Kharis in a crate to his rented home, but the two men foul up and Kharis' crate ends up falling into a bog. However using the Scroll of Life, Mehemet exhorts Kharis to break free of the crate and rise from the water, then sends him to murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 Stephen Banning at the Engerfield Nursing Home. Soon after, Kharis is also sent to murder Joseph Whemple, doing so right before the eyes of John Banning, who shoots Kharis twice at close range with a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...

 to no effect.

Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

 Inspector
Inspector
Inspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...

 Mulrooney is sent from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to solve the murders, but because he is skeptical
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...

 and deals only in "cold, hard facts", he refuses to believe John's wild story about a killer mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

, even when John figures out that he is to be Kharis' third and final victim. While Mulrooney attempts to build his investigation by interviewing people who have seen Kharis, including the two carters, John notices that his wife, Isobel Banning, bears an uncanny resemblance to Princess Ananka. Mulrooney meanwhile slowly begins to come to the conclusion that John is right, and that there is indeed a mummy in Engerfield. Together he and John try to figure out who is controlling Kharis.

Mehemet Bey sends the dreaded mummy to the Bannings' home to slay his final victim. However, upon seeing Isobel, Kharis stops his attack on John and leaves. Mehemet mistakenly believes that Kharis has slain John, and is surprised when John turns up alive at his house, suspecting him of being the one controlling the mummy.

After John leaves, Mehemet leads Kharis in a second attempt on John's life. The mummy easily eliminates Mulrooney and another policemen guarding the house and enters the house, where he again chokes John. Alarmed by shots, Isobel appears and again causes Kharis to stop. When Mehemet orders Kharis to kill her, he refuses and kills Mehemet instead. The mummy carries an unconscious Isobel into the swamp, followed by John, Mulrooney and other policemen. John yells to Isobel and when she wakes up she tells Kharis to put her down. The mummy reluctantly obeys and when Isobel has moved away from him, the policemen open fire, causing the mummy to sink into a mire and drown, taking the Scroll of Life with him.

Cast

Actor/Actress Role
Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

 
John Banning
Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

 
Kharis
Kharis
Kharis is a fictional character featured in Universal Studios's Mummy series in the 1940s following their original 1932 film The Mummy, which starred Boris Karloff as a different mummy character, Imhotep...

Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux is a French film actress.-Personal life:Yvonne Furneax started her acting career in England in 1952. At first she started with a few minor productions...

 
Isobel Banning / Princess Ananka
Eddie Byrne
Eddie Byrne
Eddie Byrne was an Irish actor. Outside Ireland he is probably best known for his minor role as General Vanden Willard in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but fans of cult sci-fi might also remember him as the skeptical Inspector Mulrooney in The Mummy and as the kindly Dr. Reginald Landers in...

 
Inspector Mulrooney
Felix Aylmer
Felix Aylmer
Sir Felix Edward Aylmer Jones, OBE was an English stage actor who also appeared in the cinema and on television.-Early life and career:...

 
Stephen Banning
Raymond Huntley
Raymond Huntley
Raymond Huntley was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s through to the 1970s...

 
Joseph Whemple
George Pastell
George Pastell
George Pastell was a Cypriot character actor in British films and television programmes. His real name was George Pastellides....

 
Mehemet Bey
George Woodbridge
George Woodbridge (actor)
George Woodbridge was an English character actor in films and television from the 1930s to the 1970s...

 
P.C. Blake
Harold Goodwin
Harold Goodwin (English actor)
Harold Goodwin was an English actor born in Wombwell, Yorkshire, England.Goodwin trained at RADA and was a stage actor at Liverpool repertory theatre for 3 years...

 
Pat
Denis Shaw
Denis Shaw
Denis Shaw was a British character actor specialising in slimy villains. Born in Dulwich, he was a rotund man, with dark, wavy hair, and slanty eyes...

 
Mike
Willoughby Gray
Willoughby Gray
Willoughby Gray was an English actor of stage and screen born in London ....

 
Dr. Reilly
Michael Ripper
Michael Ripper
Michael Ripper was an English character actor born in Portsmouth.He began his film career in quota quickies in the 1930s and until the late 1950s was virtually unknown; he was seldom credited. He played one of the two murderers in Richard III. Ripper became a mainstay in Hammer Film Productions...

Poacher
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