Welcome to the Hammer Factory. This month we dissect The Mummy’s Shroud (1967).
While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 1955 and 1979 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. Spanning a library housing over 300 films, Hammer Studios is a key part of horror history that until recently has been far too difficult to track down.
In late 2018, Shout Factory’s Scream Factory line began to focus on bringing Hammer’s titles to disc in the US, finally making many of the studio’s underseen gems available in packages that offered great visuals as well as insightful accompanying features. Over the course of this column, I will focus on these releases, gauging the films in context of the Hammer Studio story as well as analyzing the merits of the release. It’s time to highlight the power, impact and influence of Hammer Studios and ignite new conversation surrounding some forgotten classics.
The Context
From the moment Universal opened their back catalogue of famous monsters to Hammer in the late 1950s, the studio was keen on getting into the business of the bandaged undead. Along with Count Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein, the heavy-footed automaton struck studio head James Carreras as an ideal candidate to headline one of Hammer’s burgeoning horror franchises and a star was reborn.
Launching with a prestige, robustly budgeted Terence Fisher helmed outing, The Mummy (1959) received the same production treatment as The Curse of Frankenstein (1597) and Dracula (1958). Unlike its beastly brethren, The Mummy did not receive a follow up until Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) this time directed by Michael Carreras himself. However, despite the excitement that Baron Victor von Frankenstein and the fanged, blood-thirsty fiends were able to drum up at the box office, the dried-up sarcophagus dwelling mummy continued to land with a financial and critical thud for Hammer.
In 1965, James Carreras struck the most lucrative deal that Hammer had ever seen. Partnering with 20th Century Fox, Carreras secured the production of 11 films, among them new entries in their key franchises: Dracula, Frankenstein and, of course, the Mummy. The deal marked a massive shift in Hammer’s production and financial pursuits, adjusting their sights to larger pictures, more exotic locales and an expanded scope when it came to their typical cast and crew. The final film in the run of 11 was The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) and it would also be the last produced at Bray Studios, a place that had been home to Hammer since 1951.
Bringing back writer and director John Gilling for what would be his final Hammer effort, The Mummy’s Shroud was a fast-paced production from the start, filming beginning only six days after Gilling turned in his script for the picture. Looking to escape the monotony and factory-like assembly line of working in television, Gilling approached the film with a creative eye. Together with cinematographer Arthur Grant, the filmmakers worked to infuse what might have otherwise been a straightforward tale about a killer walking husk of sunken flesh and yellowing gauze with artistry and visual panache, crafting an entertaining monster movie that feels more akin to an early slasher than it does a classic mummy adventure.
Sent out as the secondary picture with Terence Fisher’s Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), The Mummy’s Shroud is a simple, at times uneven tale of those haunted, stalked and destroyed by a curse they wrought upon themselves. Still, with its robust cast of superb performers, inventive lighting and photography and strikingly haunting effects by the inimitable Les Bowie, it’s a film that defies its ascribed mundanity and works as a predecessor to the kind of stalk-and-slash fare that would go on to dominate the genre landscape in the decades to come.
The Film
“‘He says that death awaits all who disturb the resting place of Kah-to-Bey.”
Don Banks’ eclectic score roars and hieroglyphics pass by the frame as a narrator tells the tale of Kah-To-Bey, the son of a Pharaoh whose very existence challenged his uncle’s potential reign. The narrator continues as the Pharaoh’s brother attacks and slaughters the Pharaoh’s guard, young Kah-To-Bey escaping with his life due to the help of his servant Prem. After a long, treacherous trek through the desert, Kah-To-Bey succumbs to hunger and exhaustion and Prem wraps him in a sacred shroud. With care, Prem chisels the date and time into stone, recording the boy’s untimely death.
The Mummy’s Shroud begins much the same way as the other two mummy films, although with far less effective design and execution. It’s an unfortunate precedent and one the film struggles to recover from as it generally adheres to the tropes, trials and tribulations that mummy movies are best known for. Instead of combating it, John Gilling embraces this notion, stripping the story down to its most basic elements and focusing on the tension and kills given the inevitable tread of the mummy’s vengeful stride.
Centuries pass and the narrator, voiced by Tim Turner, informs the viewer that the year is 1920. Drawing from fears and speculation surrounding the real-life excavation of the Tomb of Tutankhamun as the original Universal mummy movies once did, the story picks up after an expedition to locate the resting place of Kah-to-Bey goes missing. Wealthy industrialist, archaeologist and financier Stanley Preston arrives with his wife Barbara to investigate as their son Paul is amongst those lost in the desert.
Stanley Preston is played by John Phillips, a pompous prattler with complete disregard to those around him, focused solely on his own betterment and personal agenda. Opposite Stanley is his wife Barbara, performed by Elizabeth Sellars. The only person to have appeared in the first (Cloudburst (1951)) and the last film shot at Bray studios, Sellars crafts a nuanced and understated character. Treated like a prop by her husband, she observes his every misdeed and condemns his arrogance with weaponized elegance, serving as an enigmatic juxtaposition to Stanley’s blunt hubris.
While Preston shouts orders at his assistant Longbarrow, handles press releases and makes search party arrangements, the party of archeologists, including Paul and ancient linguist Claire, hold up in a tent during a sandstorm. Lead by the levelheaded Sir Basil Warden, the group waits out the storm and soon uncovers the sacred tomb. After Basil is incapacitated by a snake bite, the group is located by Preston and his search party. Shortly thereafter they excavate the tomb and discover the shroud, despite Claire’s objections given the cursed words written upon it.
The cast is a full one and purposefully avoids anointing a protagonist. This both works to the movie’s advantage and its detriment, holding the viewer at arm’s length emotionally while providing an entertaining slew of personalities to run through and bodies to pile up when the time for mummy mayhem arrives.
Stanley’s son Paul is played by BBC television heartthrob David Buck who plays the young, handsome hero well, albeit without much to distinguish him from others of that ilk. André Morell plays Sir Basil Walden, returning to Hammer after his turn in John Gilling’s The Plague of the Zombies (1966). As before, his screen presence is incredibly strong, carrying a paternal understanding and respect for the unknown that flies in direct contrast to the senior Preston’s unfeeling greed. Perhaps the person who should have headlined the film, Morell’s biggest sin in The Mummy’s Shroud is how quickly he exits its runtime.
Filling out the cast is Maggie Kimberly as Claire and Michael Ripper as Longbarrow. Kimberly is stoic and sharp, her brilliance and cleverness only matched by her seemingly preternatural ability to read the future. Although a much-celebrated model, Maggie Kimberly is not handled like the typical Hammer Glamour girl, dressed conservatively throughout and rarely, if ever, sexualized, leading to one of Hammer’s more forward thinking and progressive pictures when it comes to the female perspective. Michael Ripper’s Longbarrow is a standout as well, infusing what might have otherwise been a sniveling lackey with a genuine sense of poignant piteousness. As such, Ripper plays the pliable peon amidst a cloud of tragic empathy.
The movie picks up once the expedition is complete and the group is back in their hotel. While Stanley has Basil committed in an effort to take credit for the discovery, a protector of the shroud named Hasmid, played with gleeful malice by Roger Delgado, chants a sacred oath to resurrect Prem’s mummy. With the assistance of a crazed oracle named Haiti, played with over-the-top, drooling, glaring insanity by the unforgettable Catherine Lacey, the two orchestrate the systematic killings of those who disturbed the tomb and claimed the shroud.
Director John Gilling and cinematographer Arthur Grant distinguish themselves amongst the creatives that had ventured into the mummy laden tombs of Hammer in the past by way of these murderous sequences. Rather than focus the film’s attentions on the blunt force of the lumbering brute, the mummy is often obfuscated in the eyes of its intended victims, misting the threat into a dense mystical fog that renders those affected defenseless against the approaching peril. Seen through the reflection of a crystal ball, in a tray of development fluid, masked in glaring red light and blurred through the poor vision of Longbarrow’s eyes, the mummy’s path to destruction is enhanced and emphasized by striking visual prowess.
Characters perish, loyalties are won and lost and Preston does his damndest to escape with his life at the expense of everyone he supposedly cares about as The Mummy’s Shroud unfolds. While most of the deaths and moral consequences come and go with little emotional reaction, Michael Ripper’s exit is affectingly memorable. The meek Longbarrow, his glasses cracked with tears in his eyes, whimpers as the mummy wraps him tightly in sheets not all that dissimilar from the thing’s own swathed garb, heaving Longbarrow out of the window. Even Preston’s own brutal demise feels anticlimactic in its efficiency given the strength of the moments which saw those before him perish.
The finale finds Paul and Claire pitted against the token threat. While the local Inspector, played by Richard Warner in racially insensitive makeup that was all too common at the time, immobilizes Hasmid, it’s Claire, not Paul, who saves the day, using her linguistic skills to read the passage that takes the mummy out of action. Les Bowie’s effects work in the finale are second to none, the mummy’s disintegration into dust as its hands claw away at its ever-exposing skull standing as one of the most impressive visual feats that Hammer studios ever put to screen.
From the prologue set in Ancient Egypt to the deathly decaying conclusion, The Mummy’s Shroud is well planted in the classic and contemporary conceits that so pepper the entombed subgenre of the hulking mummy. Even still, with its idiosyncratic ensemble cast, hyper-stylized attack sequences and innovative effects work, there is enough creative license on display to count the film a success, despite its many shortcomings. More than its uninspired prologue, The Mummy’s Shroud may take some time to finally crumble open its soulless, crusty eyes, but once it does the film treads ever forward with heavy-footed purpose, providing genre fans with a mummy proto-slasher worth excavating.
The Special Features
This release comes equipped with an updated scan of the transfer completed by Studiocanal in 2012. Shout! Factory presents the film in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio, offering a nearly identical picture. Colors are bright and detail is sharp, amplifying contrast where necessary. The DTS-HD Master Mono track is clean, offering crisp dialogue and Don Banks’ atmospheric score in pristine condition.
Audio Commentary, by Author/Film Historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck
(New: 2020, produced by Shout Factory)
Bruce G. Hallenbeck lends his extensive expertise to this commentary track, chronicling the history, release and various players that went into The Mummy’s Shroud. Labeling the movie an underrated gem, Hallenbeck offers an in-depth analysis of the film while walking through the careers and histories of most every actor who graces the screen. He discusses the influence of King Tut’s Tomb, Hammer’s decision to leave Bray studios and gives special recognition to Michael Ripper’s performance, even dedicating the track to Ripper in a heartfelt conclusion. It’s an informative listen that is well worth the time.
The Beat Goes On: The Making of the Mummy’s Shroud (22:59)
(2012, produced by Studio Canal)
A making of segment that was ported over from the 2012 UK blu-ray release of the film, the segment features a series of interviews with Hammer historians and players that combine to tell the abridged story of The Mummy’s Shroud. Denis Meikle, John Johnston and Jonathan Rigby are amongst those who turn up to discuss the trope laden mummy film that defies expectations under the creative guidance of John Gilling. It’s a fun, albeit slight look at the film and, as usual, offers a condensed version of what the commentary has to offer.
Remembering David Buck (5:54)
(2012, produced by Studio Canal)
Actress Madeline Smith, known for Hammer films Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974), reflects on her long term relationship and short-lived marriage with David Buck who played Paul Preston inThe Mummy’s Shroud. The segment is brief but immensely affecting, providing a window into a romance which ended tragically but bore heartwarming, lifelong memories and an everlasting love.
World of Hammer Episode: “Mummies, Werewolves & The Living Dead” (24:54)
A standard definition episode of the short-lived Hammer series exploring their catalogue of films. Narrated by Oliver Reed this episode features clips from Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb (1971), Captain Clegg (1962), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967), The Mummy (1959) and The Plague of the Zombies (1965).
Trailers & TV Spots (6:11)
A collection of advertisements featuring the crusty eyes of a “nightmare from beyond the tomb”, the segments warn again and again that audiences should “beware the beat of the cloth wrapped feet”. Additional spots pair the film with Frankenstein Created Woman in a double shock feature that pairs the “ultimate in evil” with the “absolute in terror”.
Still Gallery (6:16)
A collection of on-set photos, lobby cards, production stills, theatrical one sheets, original artwork, double feature posters, international posters and advertising stills for The Mummy’s Shroud.
Final Thoughts
When Hammer first embarked on making the Universal classic monsters into beasts of their own design, there was no way of knowing the immense impact that the studio’s interpretations would go on to have on the horror genre long term. But while Christopher Lee’s Dracula and Peter Cushing’s Dr. Frankenstein grew to become ubiquitous in the public eye, Hammer failed to make that same connection with the monstrous mummy, although it was not for lack of trying.
While writer and director John Gilling did not seek out the assignment, his work on The Mummy’s Shroud speaks to the grander issue. Seeing little ability for a refreshed approach, he applied his innovative spirit to the existing components. As a result, the movie is not unique amongst mummy outings, but its characters, style and effects very much are. While those at the time of release may have been put off by its lack of narrative inventiveness, especially considering its pairing with Terence Fisher’s brilliant Frankenstein Created Woman, it’s these striking qualities that make the film worth revisiting, rediscovering and reappraising so many years removed.
Shout! Factory brings the film to the US with a high-quality presentation, preserving the picture and features from its corresponding release in the UK. Its only new addition is the Bruce G Hallenbeck commentary which again is a highlight of the features listed. Also of note is the ported “Remembering David Buck” featuring Madeline Smith, a lovely remembrance and a heartwarming handful of minutes more than worth your time.
Uninterested in reinventing the subgenre, The Mummy’s Shroud takes advantage of Hammer’s stable of creatives both on and off camera to deliver an entertaining and visually engaging mummy adventure that toes the line of the expected in unexpected ways. While John Gilling never returned to Hammer after making the film and had nothing but disparaging remarks to say about it, The Mummy’s Shroud remains a strong example of what the director could bring to a project. It may not surpass Terence Fisher’s work in 1959, but it stands as a precursor to the type of horror entertainment that would soon dominate the genre landscape and makes for a mummy experience that is anything but archaic.
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