The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema

Description

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 Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgements Author’s notes Introduction: Death is only the beginning – Unravelling the Mummy on Screen Part 1: The Mummy in the West and in Western cinema Chapter 1: The creature’s features: Moulding the Mummy and the Mummy movie The Mummy genre: Interest and Disinterest Chapter 2: The Mutating Mummy: From ancient artefact to modern attraction Mummy medicine: An Egyptian prescription The Mummy as memento: A collectable corpse The Mummy as public attraction: Exhumed, examined and exhibited Part 2: The Mummy in literature, on stage and onthe silent screen Chapter 3: On the page and stage: The Mummy movie’s literary and theatrical influences The rediscovery of ancient Egypt: A pharaoh to remember The Mummy’s literary life: Electrifying tales! Romance and the Mummy: Amorous archaeologists and comely corpses Literature’s monstrous Mummies: Dread, despair and Doyle The empire strikes back: Stoker’s Au Revoir to the voyeur archaeologist Playing dead: The Mummy in the theatre Chapter 4: Preserved on film: The silent Mummy of early cinema Egypt and the cinema: Monoliths, mesmerism and Mummies The ‘Mummy Complex’ and the preservative nature of film The first on-screen Mummies: Short-lived moments of horror in the trick film Winding people up: Pretend Mummies and Mummy mix-ups in silent comedies Mummy dearest: The Mummy as romantic character Tomb raiders: Egypt and early horror Teutonic terrors: The first Mummy horror movies Grave danger: Tutmania, the curse and the death of the silent Mummy Part 3: Universal studiosand the Mummy of the1930s and 1940s Chapter 5: The Mummy (1932): Overcoming the silent treatment The Mummy: Art horror or production line horror? The delicate horror of The Mummy: A shudder not a shriek! A dichotomized damsel: A 1920s/1930s Eastern/Western woman A real lady-killer: The Mummy as Gothic romance The Mummy and the Nubian: Yellow peril and black brute Chapter 6: The 1940s Mummy film: A decade of decay The Mummy returns: The 1940s Mummy as cadaverous copy More than the sum of its parts: Innovation and the 1940s Mummy The Mummy’s Hand (1940): Reinventing the Mummy The Mummy’s Tomb (1942): A memorably murderous Mummy Lon Chaney Jr.: Cursing the Mummy! The Mummy in America: Fear and roaming in New England The Mummy’s Ghost (1944): Escaping bandaged bondage The Mummy’s Curse (1944): The female Mummy returns The demise and rise of the Mummy: To buffoon and back again Part 4: Hammer Film Productions and beyond:The Mummy of the1950s–present Chapter 7: Hammer’s resurrection of the Mummy: Sex and digs and wrap and roll Show me the Mummy: Realism with restraint in The Mummy Culture clash: The Mummy’s case and the aftermath of Suez Chapter 8: Wrapping up the Mummy: The last sixty years Bibliography Index