Full Description
The Mummy is one of the most recognizable figures in horror and is as established in the popular imagination as virtually any other monster, yet the Mummy on screen has until now remained a largely overlooked figure in critical analysis of the cinema. In this compelling new study, Basil Glynn explores the history of the Mummy film, uncovering lost and half-forgotten movies along the way, revealing the cinematic Mummy to be an astonishingly diverse and protean figure with a myriad of on-screen incarnations. In the course of investigating the enduring appeal of this most 'Oriental' of monsters, Glynn traces the Mummy's development on screen from its roots in popular culture and silent cinema, through Universal Studios' Mummy movies of the 1930s and 40s, to Hammer Horror's re-imagining of the figure in the 1950s, and beyond.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Author's Notes
Introduction:
Death is Only the Beginning: Unravelling the Mummy on Screen
Section 1: The Mummy in the West and Western Cinema
1. The Creature's Features: Moulding the Mummy and the Mummy Movie
The Oriental Mummy as Western Projection
The Mummy Genre: Interest and Disinterest
2.The Mutating Mummy: From Ancient Artefact to Modern Attraction
Mummy Medicine: An Egyptian Prescription
The Mummy as Memento: A Collectible Corpse
The Mummy as Public Attraction: Exhumed, Examined and Exhibited
Section II: The Mummy in Literature, on Stage and the Silent Screen
3.On the Page and Stage: The Mummy Movie's Literary and Theatrical Influences
The Mummy's Tome: A Body of Literature
The Rediscovery of Ancient Egypt: A Pharaoh to Remember
The Mummy's Literary Life: Electrifying Tales!
Romance and the Mummy: Amorous Archaeologists and Comely Corpses
Literature's Monstrous Mummies: Dread, Despair and Doyle
The Empire Strikes Back: Stoker's Au Revoir to the Voyeur Archaeologist
Playing Dead: The Mummy in the Theatre
4. Preserved on Film: The Silent Mummy of Early Cinema
Egypt and the Cinema: Monoliths, Mesmerism and Mummies
The 'Mummy Complex' and the Preservative Nature of Film
The First On-Screen Mummies: Short-lived Moments of Horror in the
Trick Film
Winding People Up: Pretend Mummies and Mummy Mix-ups in Silent Comedies
Mummy Dearest: The Mummy as Romantic Character
Tomb Raiders: Egypt and Early Horror
Teutonic Terrors: The First Mummy Horror Movies
Grave Danger: Tutmania, the Curse and the Death of the Silent Mummy
Section III: Universal Studios and the Mummy of the 1930s and 1940s
5. The Mummy (1932): Overcoming the Silent Treatment
'The Mummy:' Art Horror or Production Line Horror?
The Delicate Horror of 'The Mummy:' A Shudder not a Shriek!
A Dichotomized Damsel: A 1920s/1930s Eastern/Western Woman
A Real Lady-Killer: "The Mummy" as Gothic Romance
The Mummy and the Nubian: Yellow Peril and Black Brute
6. The 1940s Mummy Film: A Decade of Decay
The Mummy Returns: The 1940s Mummy as Cadaverous Copy
More than the Sum of Its Parts: Innovation and the 1940s Mummy
'The Mummy's Hand' (1940): Reinventing the Mummy
'The Mummy's Tomb' (1942): A Memorably Murderous Mummy
Lon Chaney Jr.: Cursing the Mummy!
The Mummy in America: Fear and Roaming in New England
"The Mummy's Ghost (1944):" Escaping Bandaged Bondage
"The Mummy's Curse (1944):" The Female Mummy Returns
The Demise and Rise of the Mummy: To Buffoon and Back Again
Section IV. Hammer Studios and Beyond: The Mummy of the 1950s-Present
7. Hammer's Resurrection of the Mummy: Sex and Digs and Wrap and Roll
Show Me the Mummy: Realism with Restraint in 'The Mummy'
Culture Clash: The Mummy's Case and the Aftermath of Suez
8. Wrapping up the Mummy: The Last 60 Years
Bibliography
