Tonight I watched a spooky little Mummy Movie called "Pharaoh's Curse"(1957), directed by Lee Sholem, who also made the excellent "Tobor the Great", reviewed about a month ago. I found it on yet another Youtube list - thank goodness for all the fans who compile them.
A riot breaks out in Cairo, not today but in 1902. Citizens are upset that an archaeological expedition has dug up the tomb of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. The rioters attack and kill members of the team (in gruesome detail according to the script), so a rescue squad is sent in, consisting of "Captain Storm" (Mark Dana) and two soldiers. As they cross the desert, they are approached one night by a Strange Figure - a lone woman, wrapped in a shawl. She is Simira (Ziva Rodann, a Kardashian lookalike), who has walked hundreds of miles, over mountains and sand dunes, in search of her brother Numar, a guide on the doomed excavation. Simira is mysterious, or maybe weird is more like it. She stares straight ahead, as if in a trance, and makes Prophetic Announcements. "All who enter the tomb shall be cursed". And she knows this because.......?
We'll just have to find out.
When they arrive at the site, the Pharaoh's sarcophagus has already been opened. Simira's brother Numar is the first one to set eyes on the long dead King. By the next day, his skin is wrinkled as if he has aged. "Robert Quentin" (George N. Neise), the leader of the expedition, is informed by Captain Storm that he has to abandon the dig and return to Cairo. Quentin agrees, but only as long as he is allowed to bring back the Pharaoh for exhibition, which will make him a lot of money. Storm forbids this. "Are you mad"?, he asks Quentin. "This is why we were sent here, to prevent it! You'll be lucky to return alive as it is". Complicating matters is a subplot involving Quentin's wife, who has tagged along to inform him she's leaving. Quentin thinks it's Captain Storm who's come between them. This sets up a rivalry between the two men. Quentin now refuses to leave the site. He enlists his crew in a covert plan to help him retrieve the Pharaoh.
But now, when they sneak back into the tomb, he's gone! The only clue are some cat tracks, leading away from the coffin. But they disappear in the sand, just outside the tomb. The thing is, they didn't belong to just any old cat. No, these tracks are bigger, like they might've been made by one of those Egyptian Cats, the kind that walk upright and have human bodies. Holy smokes, right? Well, the Captain and Robert Quentin now have to put their personal differences aside for the time being, because they've got a big problem on their hands. If word gets out that the 3000 year old Pharaoh has gone missing, they'll all be killed. Simira is even predicting it. And the killing has already begun. That night, Quentin's veddy Brrittissh assistant, Mr. Gromley, is found dead in one of the catacombs. And just like last night in "The Vampire", he's been drained of all his blood. But......you can't blame it on Dr. Beecher this time, because he's not in this movie. In addition, not only is all of Gromley's blood gone, but his body's gone flat, as if desiccated. How weird is that?
Meanwhile, Numar is also missing. When he turns up later in Mrs. Quentin's tent, Captain Storm intervenes. He tries to grab Numar, but only manages to pull off his arm, which is dry as dust! When questioned about her brother, Simira has that "I told ya so" look on her face, except it's no different than the expression she always wears - one of blank inscrutability. Quentin and Storm quickly surmise they have unleashed some kind of Curse, but now it's too late. Numar's getting older by the minute, and he's plenty capable of strangling people with only one arm, thank you very much.
Storm pleads with Simira to help stop the killings. "He's your brother! There must be something you can do"!
"The only way to stop him is by leaving", she replies. "All of you must leave this place right away".
Meanwhile, Quentin's translator has deciphered the writing on a stone tablet found inside the tomb. It describes a Curse that will befall anyone who enters. It turns out that Numar is not a reincarnation of the long dead Pharaoh, but rather the Pharaoh's High Priest, who in 3000 BC was sworn to protect the tomb forever after. It is he who has inhabited Numar's body, which is why he's turning to dust! You know Mummies though - they may be old and slow but they've got the strength of ten men. That's Numar for ya.
But what about the Pharaoh? Where'd he go? And who made those cat tracks? We'll find out soon enough, if we continue to hang around. Are we really that stupid? Me, I personally think we should get the heck outta there, so we don't run into Numar. But......what's that? You say if we leave, we won't see the end of the movie? Yeah, I suppose you're right. We'll stay.
There isn't a ton of plot in this tight little 66 minute film, but there is a fair amount of action. Expository dialogue helps fill in the blanks as far as the Pharaoh's history is concerned. The set containing the Tomb is excellent, and the location photography in Death Valley is great, especially the nighttime shots. The makeup job on Numar is plenty scary. I wouldn't wanna run into him in a dark catacomb, lemme tell ya. Overall, "Pharaoh's Curse" is a nice addition to the mummy genre. I give it Two Solid Thumbs Up. An extra bonus is that the Youtube print is razor sharp, so don't miss it. /////
That's all for the moment. I've also been watching episodes of "Tales of Tomorrow" here at Pearl's, and last night we saw a great one called "The Window", in which the fabled "fourth wall" of television may have been broken for the first time. The show aired in November 1952 and was broadcast live, so the actors and technicians had to pull it off in one take, as it was happening. It begins as a normal "T of T" episode called "The Lost Planet", but within a couple of minutes, the studio monitors at ABC show something else on their screens. A domestic dispute between two men and a woman is somehow being broadcast from an unknown apartment, but how is this possible? ABC has no camera crews at large. How is this apparently real scene overlapping the "Tales of Tomorrow" feed? And where's it coming from? Could it be another planet? That's what I thought for a while. Anyhow, it's one of the weirdest half hours of television that I've ever seen. Rod Steiger plays the interloping male in the apartment, and an actor named Frank Maxwell plays the drunken husband in a portrayal that's about as off the wall as you can get. That's why I thought they were broadcasting from another planet, because Maxwell's so weird. Well anyhow, I was so enthused about the episode that I had to mention it. Never seen the "fourth wall" broken in such an original way.
See you in a little while at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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