Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb ***½ (1971, Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, James Villiers, Hugh Burden, George Coulouris) – Classic Movie Review 3,298

The 1971 British chiller Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb is an imaginative, intelligent, menacing, above-average late Hammer horror movie, based by on a lesser-known Bram Stoker novel.

Director Seth Holt’s 1971 British chiller Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb is an imaginatively handled, intelligently written, menacing, above-average late Hammer horror movie, based by talented screen-writer Christopher Wicking on a lesser-known Bram Stoker novel, Jewel of the Seven Stars. The Seven Stars, aka the Big Dipper, is seen throughout the film, in crystal balls, ruby rings etc.

Andrew Kier gives a stalwart lead performance as Professor Fuchs, who leads an archaeological expedition to Egypt and makes the usual rookie error of bringing back to London the coffin of a mummified Egyptian queen with magical powers.

Luscious Valerie Leon does impressively too as both the evil queen Tera and Professor Fuchs’s daughter Margaret, who is enchanted when dad puts Tera’s ring on her finger. Thus Fuchs reawakens the spirit of the mummified Egyptian queen and the mayhem starts.

If you make allowances for Hammer’s usual cost-cutting production and some ripely camp performances, it is a very satisfying Mummy movie. In an era often going for sex and violence, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb is really rather mild and subtle. As the title suggests, there is some violence and gore in the movie, with lacerations and a severed hand and a fairly high body count, but they are staged in a Gothic rather than realist way.

A woman’s hand is cut off and man picks up the severed hand and throws it to some wild dogs. And that’s about it.

Valerie Leon wears a collection of low-cut frocks and displays much cleavage, but there is no sex or nudity to speak of, well almost. She sleeps naked with a man and gets out of bed in a darkened room. Her breasts are in shadow and her buttocks are seen as she slips on her underwear. She lays alluringly and suggestively in a sarcophagus wearing only necklaces over her bare breasts. And that’s about it. It’s all quite sexy but still subtle. 

Talking camp performances, James Villiers is outstanding as unscrupulous scientist Corbeck. Mark Edwards plays a character called Tod Browning in homage to the horror director.

Also in the cast are Hugh Burden as Dandridge, George Coulouris as Berrigan, Rosalie Crutchley as Helen Dickerson, Aubrey Morris as Doctor Putnum, David Markham as Doctor Burgess, James Cossins, Tamara Ustinov, Penelope Holt, Joan Young, David Jackson, Jonathan Burn, and Graham James.

When Holt died of a heart attack at the start of the last week of shooting, the direction was completed by an uncredited Michael Carreras, who shot for five days, including the asylum scenes. Original star Peter Cushing, the star of the 1959 The Mummy, quit after a day’s filming to care for his sick wife and was replaced by Andrew Keir.

It is the only Hammer Mummy film without Michael Ripper. Corbeck’s house has a to-let sign by Neame and Skeggs, the film’s production manager and production supervisor, Christopher Neame and Roy Skeggs. Weirdly, Ingmar Bergman had a VHS of this movie at his home on Faro Island. More weirdly, the BBFC cut a shot of George Coulouris being struck across the face by male nurse James Cossins because of public concern about the treatment of mental patients.

It was remade in 1980 as The Awakening, starring Charlton Heston as Corbeck. Ahmed Osman (Priest) appeared in both versions.

Andrew Keir starred in a number of Hammer Films, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

Aubrey Morris

Aubrey Morris died on July 15 2015, aged 89.

The Mummy movies

Hammer series: The Mummy (1959), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Shroud, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb.

Universal series: The Mummy (1932), The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, The Mummy’s Curse, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), The Mummy (2017), Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026).

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,298

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