Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb, 1971.
Directed by Seth Holt.
Starring Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, James Villiers, Mark Edwards, Aubrey Morris, James Cossins, Hugh Burden, Rosalie Crutchley.
SYNOPSIS:
After the coffin of an Egyptian queen is brought back to London, a young woman starts to learn the truth about who she is.
Loosely based on Bram Stoker’s novel The Jewel of Seven Stars, 1971’s Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb is a unique mummy movie in that it does not feature an actual mummy, at least not the bandaged kind. Having successfully brought the creature back to the public consciousness in 1959 with The Mummy and then making two sequels – 1964’s The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and 1967’s The Mummy’s Shroud – that saw diminishing returns along with diminishing star power in the cast (Hammer stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee starred in the 1959 movie, with André Morell and stuntman Eddie Powell in the equivalent roles in The Mummy’s Shroud), Hammer boss James Carrera decided there was still life in revisiting Egyptian mythology for a fourth movie, plus he needed a support feature to double-bill with Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
And after changing the title (allegedly using random words written on pieces of paper and shuffling them around until something grabbed him), Carreras came up with Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb, a title that promises more than it delivers, especially if you went into it expecting lumbering stuntmen wrapped in tatty bandages. Instead, we have Margaret Fuchs (Valerie Leon) who is being plagued with nightmares about Egypt as she approaches her birthday. Her father Julian (Andrew Keir) gives her an early present in the shape of a huge red jewelled ring which captures the attention of her boyfriend Tod Browning (Mark Edwards), but when he tries to get his old college professor Geoffrey Dandridge (Hugh Burden) to take a look at it, Dandridge suffers a heart attack.
It turns out the ring belonged to Queen Tera, the Egyptian queen of darkness, who is lying in a coffin in Fuchs’ basement and is the spitting image of Margaret. It turns out Fuchs, Dandridge and several other people were part of an expedition to Egypt many years previous, and upon discovering the perfectly preserved body of Queen Tera Fuchs brought her and her possessions back to London, recreating her tomb underneath his home. However, the sinister Corbeck (James Villiers) was also a part of the expedition and is in hiding in the house opposite Fuchs, waiting for the day when Queen Tera’s evil will reawaken, which seems to happening now the ring has reactivated Tera’s spirit and is making Margaret – who was born at the exact moment Tera’s tomb was discovered – act very strangely.
Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb is a notable movie in Hammer’s catalogue, mainly for having such a troubled production. Most notably, the part of Julian Fuchs was originally given to Peter Cushing, seeing the actor returning to a Mummy-related movie but in a different role, but Cushing left the shoot after a day’s filming to tend to his terminally ill wife, forcing Hammer to recast. Andrew Keir was a Hammer regular and a fine actor, but he lacks the warmth that Cushing brought to his more heroic roles, although the short notice probably didn’t help as he would have had to learn the script in under a few days.
The other big disaster was that director Seth Holt died before filming had finished, forcing Hammer executive Michael Carreras to step in and finish the shoot. Carreras had directing experience but the scenes he shot here are obviously different in style to what Holt filmed, his use of angles and zooms adding a quirky tone that wasn’t really befitting.
Nevertheless, the movie got finished and whilst the end result is less of a creature feature than The Mummy and doesn’t have the proto-slasher elements of its sequels, instead focusing on a spooky atmosphere with a pantomime villain performance from James Villiers, who steals the show as Corbeck, his aristocratic mannerisms, upper crust costumes and very natural handling of a cane – which rivals Peter Cushing and his well-known penchant for props – adding some much-needed charisma to a story that desperately needed a monster of some kind, albeit not the one of the title.
And being the star of the show when Valerie Leon is the lead takes some doing. This is the only Hammer movie Leon appeared in – although she does have the distinction of appearing in a Hammer film, two James Bond outings and several Carry On… movies, which officially makes her a British institution – but the camera loves her, especially when she is in her dreamlike states and wondering around the house in slow-motion, the wind blowing her hair like she was in a video for a 1980s power ballad. For some reason, she is dubbed throughout the film, which takes away from her performance a little, but as far as Hammer’s leading ladies go, Valerie Leon had one shot and she owned it, her bejewelled figure lying in a sarcophagus being the takeaway iconic image of the film.
Released by StudioCanal, this brand new 4K restoration gives the movie a total makeover, not dazzling like it could have been but the image feels very natural, the costumes and Egyptian props featuring lots of detail without any oversaturation of colours, most of which are worn by Valerie Leon in her dual role as Margaret and Queen Tera, being either bright pink nighties or jewel-encrusted chest pieces. Audibly the dialogue is crisp and clear, even against the many background sound effects, giving it a nice balance that means you don’t have to keep altering the volume.
Featuring all the extras ported over from the previous StudioCanal Blu-ray release, you also get a brand new interview with Valerie Leon and a look at the film by the ever-insightful Kim Newman, plus posters featuring the original theatrical artwork and the fantastic new box art for this release, a 64-page booklet, lobby cards and a rigid slipcase to hold it all in.
Overall, Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb isn’t a top-drawer Hammer movie but neither is it a bomb, sitting somewhere in the middle when it comes to the quality of their output. The script is convoluted to make events tie up for no real reason other than they should, and it is really down to the actors to make it work, which it sort of does but in a convenient movie language kind of way. In hindsight and armed with what we know about it, you can see that it is a movie cobbled together by bits and pieces of ideas, (vaguely) connecting it to a literary source to give it some credibility, and circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Nevertheless, this 4K UHD gives it some new life, but it is the packaging and extra features that make it something for collectors to cherish, rather than the movie itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
