The Mummy’s Shroud *** (1967, André Morell, John Phillips, David Buck) – Classic Movie Review 3272

Eddie Powell plays the mummy of an Egyptian slave who is brought back to life in the England of 1920 in director John Gilling’s atmospheric 1967 Hammer horror – the third part of the series following The Mummy in 1959 and The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb in 1964.

John Phillips plays Stanley Preston, a tycoon who organises an expedition to Egypt to bring the mummy back to Britain to show in a gallery. But of course the mummy soon breaks free and goes on the rampage. It also stars André Morell as Sir Basil Walden, David Buck as Paul Preston and Elizabeth Sellars as Barbara Preston.

Hammer Films try to resurrect the mummy series by abandoning fantasy and giving the film an interesting air of realism that was lacking in the earlier movies, but otherwise they are short of new ideas. They have a cast of solid actors, but otherwise they are short of big name stars. However, Gilling writes a sturdy screenplay from an original story by Anthony Hinds (billed as John Elder) and directs the movie imaginatively and robustly enough.

Also in the cast are Catherine Lacey, Maggie Kimberley, Michael Ripper, Roger Delgado, Tim Barrett, Richard Warner and Dickie Owen.

The Mummy genre was more successfully revived by Hammer in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972) before its eventual flourishing in the age of CGI with The Mummy (1999). Tom Cruise fights the monster in The Mummy (2017).

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3272

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