The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema (International Library of the Moving Image)

This book explores the history of the Mummy movie, a genre hitherto largely overlooked, marginalised or maligned in critical work on horror cinema. As prolific in screen appearances and as established in the public consciousness as virtually any other screen monster, whilst additionally having a longer history than any of them, the Mummy has nevertheless been dismissed again and again in books on horror as the star of a repetitive and derivative genre, making the Mummy as misrepresented and misunderstood as any figure in the history of horror and cinema itself. This book reveals that the Mummy, far from being maddeningly repetitive, has instead been a refreshingly diverse figure and the Mummy's myriad on-screen incarnations have evidenced continued novelty and inventiveness. With a focus on the Mummy’s development from the silent screen, through Universal Studio’s iconic presentation of the monster, to Hammer Horror’s reimagining of the figure, the book offers a developmental analysis which uncovers that the Mummy genre needs to be understood in terms of changing discourses of race (in particular Orientalism), trangressive romance and monstrosity in order to appreciate its continued appeal to global industries and audiences in the face of critical hostility or indifference Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 8 Figures 10 Acknowledgements 12 Author’s notes 13 Introduction: Death is only the beginning – Unravelling the Mummy on Screen 14 Part 1: The Mummy in the West and in Western cinema 36 Chapter 1: The creature’s features: Moulding the Mummy and the Mummy movie 38 The Mummy genre: Interest and Disinterest 41 Chapter 2: The Mutating Mummy: From ancient artefact to modern attraction 45 Mummy medicine: An Egyptian prescription 47 The Mummy as memento: A collectable corpse 47 The Mummy as public attraction: Exhumed, examined and exhibited 49 Part 2: The Mummy in literature, on stage and onthe silent screen 52 Chapter 3: On the page and stage: The Mummy movie’s literary and theatrical influences 54 The rediscovery of ancient Egypt: A pharaoh to remember 55 The Mummy’s literary life: Electrifying tales! 56 Romance and the Mummy: Amorous archaeologists and comely corpses 59 Literature’s monstrous Mummies: Dread, despair and Doyle 60 The empire strikes back: Stoker’s Au Revoir to the voyeur archaeologist 63 Playing dead: The Mummy in the theatre 65 Chapter 4: Preserved on film: The silent Mummy of early cinema 73 Egypt and the cinema: Monoliths, mesmerism and Mummies 74 The ‘Mummy Complex’ and the preservative nature of film 76 The first on-screen Mummies: Short-lived moments of horror in the trick film 76 Winding people up: Pretend Mummies and Mummy mix-ups in silent comedies 77 Mummy dearest: The Mummy as romantic character 82 Tomb raiders: Egypt and early horror 91 Teutonic terrors: The first Mummy horror movies 93 Grave danger: Tutmania, the curse and the death of the silent Mummy 97 Part 3: Universal studiosand the Mummy of the1930s and 1940s 108 Chapter 5: The Mummy (1932): Overcoming the silent treatment 110 The Mummy: Art horror or production line horror? 112 The delicate horror of The Mummy: A shudder not a shriek! 115 A dichotomized damsel: A 1920s/1930s Eastern/Western woman 119 A real lady-killer: The Mummy as Gothic romance 124 The Mummy and the Nubian: Yellow peril and black brute 127 Chapter 6: The 1940s Mummy film: A decade of decay 132 The Mummy returns: The 1940s Mummy as cadaverous copy 134 More than the sum of its parts: Innovation and the 1940s Mummy 135 The Mummy’s Hand (1940): Reinventing the Mummy 137 The Mummy’s Tomb (1942): A memorably murderous Mummy 139 Lon Chaney Jr.: Cursing the Mummy! 141 The Mummy in America: Fear and roaming in New England 144 The Mummy’s Ghost (1944): Escaping bandaged bondage 146 The Mummy’s Curse (1944): The female Mummy returns 148 The demise and rise of the Mummy: To buffoon and back again 150 Part 4: Hammer Film Productions and beyond:The Mummy of the1950s–present 154 Chapter 7: Hammer’s resurrection of the Mummy: Sex and digs and wrap and roll 156 Show me the Mummy: Realism with restraint in The Mummy 160 Culture clash: The Mummy’s case and the aftermath of Suez 165 Chapter 8: Wrapping up the Mummy: The last sixty years 171 Bibliography 176 Index 196 "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."-- Provided by publisher