The Awakening ** (1980, Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist) – Classic Movie Review 7506

Mike Newell makes his debut as cinema director for the 1980 British horror movie The Awakening, a remake of the 1971 Hammer favourite Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, and also another version of the 1903 Bram Stoker novel The Jewel of Seven Stars. It was filmed in the studio at Lee International Film Studios, Wembley, Middlesex, England, and on location in Egypt, London and Cambridge.

Charlton Heston stars in his only horror film as Matthew Corbeck, an Egyptologist who discovers the tomb of wicked Queen Kara, whose evil spirit escapes and is reincarnated in the body of his newborn daughter, who grows up to be the possessed Margaret Corbeck (Stephanie Zimbalist).

Sadly, this is a run-of-the-mill occult horror thriller, with good players struggling against a tepid screenplay based on Bram Stoker’s novel The Jewel of Seven Stars, but the production is first rate, with lovely Technicolor cinematography Jack Cardiff, real Egypt locations, attractive set designs by Michael Stringer and an excellent score by Claude Bolling.

Also in the cast are Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Patrick Drury, Bruce Myers, Nadim Sawalha, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Mellinger and Miriam Margolyes. Ahmed Osman appears in both films, here as as Yussef, in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, as Priest. They were his first and last film credits.

The Awakening is directed by Mike Newell, runs 104 minutes, is made by Solofilm, British Lion, EMI and Orion, is distributed by Columbia-EMI-Warner, is written by Allan Scott, Chris Bryant and Clive Exton, based on Bram Stoker’s novel The Jewel of Seven Stars, is shot by Jack Cardiff, is produced by Robert Sol, Andrew Scheinman, Martin Shafer and Harry Benn, is scored by Claude Bolling and is designed by Michael Stringer.

It is loosely remade as The Tomb (1986), Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy (1998) and in part The Mummy (2017).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7506

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