In this story a fantastical creature from Egypt, “born neither of God nor man,” with supernatural and hypnotic powers (like Karloff in the 1932 film), stalks a British politician who had earlier opened a sacred tomb. In his 1897 novel The Beetle, Richard Marsh introduced the theme of vengeance for defiling a tomb. He apparently dreams that the ancient Kings and Queens of Egypt come to life to discuss the desecration of their tombs. In his Smith and the Pharaohs, Haggard uses a similar device, when an Egyptologist is locked in the Cairo Museum overnight. Again the mummy here was not a threatening force, or a role model for future films (Craig and Smith 174).
The mummy movie poster 1932 how to#
She and he then travel back to ancient Egypt where her father denies them permission to marry as the storyteller does “not know how to preserve” himself. After buying the preserved foot of an Egyptian princess to use as a paperweight, the narrator dreams that the princess comes to reclaim her lost appendage. In 1863 Gautier wrote The Mummy’s Foot, which is the first with supernatural overtones. An ancient Queen’s remains are transported to England by an archaeologist, who has read the sad tale of her life, and he falls in love with the memory of her. In 1858 Théophile Gautier published The Romance of the Mummy, which is historically accurate about Egypt, and also introduces the idea of love across the ages.
![the mummy movie poster 1932 the mummy movie poster 1932](https://ctl.s6img.com/society6/img/VRnXutNd3mGIKM-9gVuN-k_3Y7o/w_700/framed-prints/10x12/conservation-pecan/~artwork/s6-original-art-uploads/society6/uploads/misc/53410d3ba5714d8b97915932ce1e6ed0/~~/the-mummy-boris-karloff-1932-cult-horror-movie-poster-vintage-affiche-framed-prints.jpg)
![the mummy movie poster 1932 the mummy movie poster 1932](https://uncrate.com/p/2018/10/mummy-poster.jpg)
Other than a revived mummy, this novel has no other connection with films, nor does Edgar Allan Poe’s Some Words with a Mummy, 1845, which also revives a mummy through electricity. It shares with Frankenstein the theme of a re-animated being, but rather than being brought to life by chemical means as Mary Shelley had employed, here it is through electricity, an idea that the filmmakers would adopt for the Frankenstein story. This thread, of offending the ancient gods, is one of many that have found their way, consciously or unconsciously, into the scripts of the films.ģThe first story in the English language to feature a revived mummy was published in 1827, written by Jane Webb, called The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century. In this story a high priest called Harmachis, the main protagonist of the story, is buried alive by his priests for failing to remain pure to Isis (Pearson 230). The idea of being buried alive appears in Cleopatra (1889), a novel by H.
![the mummy movie poster 1932 the mummy movie poster 1932](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/56/2d/b1/562db127e6b2337a1223252c4ca18745.jpg)
In the Universal horror films, and the Hammer remake in 1959, the mummy is buried alive, this punishment making the removal of vital organs unnecessary. This was because the process involved the removal of vital organs, including the brain and the eyes, the loss of which would have made a revived mummy somewhat ineffective. Due to the mummification process, it was also unlikely that a re-animated mummy would be able to function. The mummified body was for use in the after-life, not for re-use on this earth it served as the link between the physical self and the ka, the spirit. There are no records in archaeology that the ancient Egyptians ever considered such a possibility.
![the mummy movie poster 1932 the mummy movie poster 1932](https://www.iceposter.com/thumbs/MOV_f02cf406_b.jpg)
The other famous monsters either have a literary source beginning with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and ending with Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera in 1911, or they have a mythical origin such as the vampire or werewolf.ĢMythology regarding re-animated mummies is also a nineteenth-century invention. 1One reason why mummy films suffer in comparison to other films of the classic horror genre is that they have, as Kim Newman describes it, no “foundation text” (Newman 225).