# The Mummy (1959 film)
**The Mummy** is a 1959 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Film Productions, released by [Universal Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/universal-pictures), in which the reanimated mummy Kharis, played by [Christopher Lee](https://www.edgepedia.org/christopher-lee), hunts the British archaeologists who desecrated the tomb of Princess Ananka. It was the first Hammer film made under a 1958 agreement in which Universal granted the British studio remake rights to its classic monster properties, and the first of Hammer's largely unrelated series of mummy films.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959) • [2](https://eofftv.com/the-mummy-1959/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer / producer | Terence Fisher; screenplay Jimmy Sangster; producer Michael Carreras[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) |
| Leads | Peter Cushing as John Banning, Christopher Lee as Kharis the Mummy, Yvonne Furneaux as Isobel Banning / Princess Ananka[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959) |
| Filming | 23 February to 16 April 1959 at Bray Studios, Berkshire; Ananka's funeral scenes at Shepperton Studios[4](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/) |
| Release | US world premiere Atlanta, Georgia, 2 July 1959; UK release 25 September 1959[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) • [4](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/) |
| Format | Eastmancolor processed by Technicolor, widescreen up to 2:1; BBFC certificate X on 17 June 1959[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) • [5](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-mummy-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynty0mda) |
| Runtime | 88 minutes per AFI and TCM; the BBFC classification record lists 85m 36s[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) • [5](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-mummy-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynty0mda) |
| Critical standing | 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 15 reviews; 64% Popcornmeter from more than 5,000 audience ratings[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mummy_1959) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story opens in Egypt in 1895, where Dr. Stephen Banning (Felix Aylmer) leads an archaeological dig with his son John (Cushing) and brother-in-law Joseph Whemple (Raymond Huntley) to uncover the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka, the culmination of twenty years of work. John, confined to camp with a broken leg, cannot enter the tomb; Banning and Whemple breach it despite the arcane warnings of the Egyptian Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), and Banning is found driven to gibbering lunacy.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959) • [4](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/)
Three years later in rural England, the institutionalized Banning recovers enough to warn his son of a curse on the expedition. Mehemet Bey, who has sworn vengeance on the desecrators, settles nearby, transports the mummy of Kharis, the high priest who had been entombed alive alongside Ananka, in a crate of "relics", and revives him with an incantation from the Scroll of Life after the crate sinks in a bog. A flashback explains that Kharis was condemned for attempting to revive the mortally ill Ananka with the scroll's power, and John and Whemple notice that a rendering of Ananka strongly resembles John's wife Isobel (Furneaux), a resemblance that becomes central when Mehemet sends the mummy after the expedition members.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959)
## Production background
Hammer's successes with *The Curse of Frankenstein* (1957) and *Dracula* (1958) prompted a 1958 agreement with Universal under which the American studio granted remake rights to its stable of monster properties. *The Mummy* was the first production made under that deal, and the TCM history describes it as one of the most crisply crafted shockers to emerge from Hammer's heyday.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959) The film carried the same core production team as those two predecessors: Fisher directing, Sangster writing, and Jack Asher photographing, with Bernard Robinson as production designer.[7](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/) • [3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) The working title was *Terror of the Mummy*.[2](https://eofftv.com/the-mummy-1959/)
Christopher Lee and [Peter Cushing](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-cushing) were already established as a monster-and-foil tandem through *The Curse of Frankenstein* and *[Dracula](https://www.edgepedia.org/dracula-1958-film)* (in which Lee played the creature and the vampire and Cushing played the creator and Van Helsing), and they were cast here as the mummy and his primary target.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959) • [8](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/streaming/5-best-mummy-movies-to-stream-right-now) One detail of the finished film, the scene in which Cushing's character plunges a spear through the body of the mummy, was not present in Sangster's original screenplay.[4](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/)
Filming ran at Bray Studios in [Berkshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/berkshire) from 23 February to 16 April 1959, with Princess Ananka's funeral scenes shot at [Shepperton Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/shepperton-studios) in Surrey; AFI notes that modern sources add further swamp scenes at [Shepperton](https://www.edgepedia.org/shepperton).[4](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/) • [3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography) AFI dates the production span slightly differently, as 27 February to late April 1959.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography)
## Sources and influences
Unlike Hammer's *Dracula* and *The Curse of Frankenstein*, which had source novels, *The Mummy* had no single literary original.[7](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/) Sangster instead devised a story from elements of Universal's whole mummy series: the resurrected mummy, the forbidden love between mummy and princess, punishment of tomb violators, the curse laid on the mummy, the modern cult that commands it, and a heroine linked to the mummy's lost love, though in this film the resemblance to Ananka is only physical, not a reincarnation.[9](https://moriareviews.com/horror/mummy-1959.htm) The BFI notes that the film is not so much a straight remake of the 1932 [Boris Karloff](https://www.edgepedia.org/boris-karloff) version as a counterpart to Universal's 1940 sequel *The Mummy's Hand*, in which a mummy is revived to kill the members of an archaeological expedition, and that the script was also influenced by the 1923 Tutankhamen expedition of Lord Carnarvon and [Howard Carter](https://www.edgepedia.org/howard-carter), which ended with Carnarvon's death.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/resources-events-teachers/resources-teachers/gothic-classroom/film-9-mummy-1959) A contemporary *Hollywood Reporter* review likewise noted the film seemed inspired by the curse of Tutankhamen.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography)
Critics have noted the synthesis as a strength: a Slant Magazine review on Metacritic calls the film one of Hammer's classics, fusing the human pathos of the original Universal film with the creature-centric physicality of its sequels.[11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053085/criticreviews/)
## Hammer style and reception
Scholarship on the film situates it in the distinctive approach Hammer took to the material: unlike Universal, which had produced the earlier mummy cycle, Hammer placed its horrors in period settings, filmed them in color, and took a more naturalistic as well as more graphically sexual and violent approach, in which monsters could be shown in a believable Victorian world rather than mythic, expressionistic ones.[7](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/) The Leeds Trinity paper describes the film as part horror and part exotic adventure, reflecting British colonial concerns of the late 1950s alongside a debt to earlier American renditions of the mummy.[7](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/)
Contemporary and modern reviews have been largely favorable. The New York Times' review, quoted by Metacritic with a score of 50, preferred the 1932 Karloff version and found the new one lumbering; The Guardian scored it 60 and found it alternately corny and magical, but always stylish and atmospheric, observing that Cushing and Lee became enduring world stars from the film.[11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053085/criticreviews/) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds 93% from 15 critics, with reviewers singling out Lee's performance as the soul of the film and noting that the 6-foot-3-inch Lee makes the most terrifying mummy to date.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mummy_1959) The BFI Player blurb describes Lee's Kharis, emerging from a fetid swamp, as more monstrous than Karloff's 1930s original, with his eyes telling a tale of torment.[12](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-the-mummy-1959-online)
## Legacy
The film's success launched a Hammer series: the character was reused and reinvented in three of Hammer's later mummy films, beginning with *The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb* (1964).[7](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/) • [2](https://eofftv.com/the-mummy-1959/) More broadly, the Hammer reboots of the late 1950s, *The Curse of Frankenstein*, *Dracula*, and *The Mummy*, are credited with restoring the chill to gothic horror by reworking Universal's classic monsters as Victorian melodramas for a new age.[13](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7349672/) The film has remained in circulation through home video and streaming, classified for home entertainment releases by the BBFC in 1997, 2003, and 2013, the last at 84m 39s.[5](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-mummy-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynty0mda)
## References
1. [The Mummy (1959), Turner Classic Movies article by Jay S. Steinberg](https://www.tcm.com/articles/35362/the-mummy-1959)
2. [The Mummy (1959), EOFFTV, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television](https://eofftv.com/the-mummy-1959/)
3. [The Mummy (1959), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/52966-THE-MUMMY?cxt=filmography)
4. [The Mummy, The Hammer Graveyard](https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/cinema-releases-1950s/the-mummy/)
5. [The Mummy, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-mummy-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynty0mda)
6. [The Mummy (1959), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mummy_1959)
7. [Basil Glynn (2015), The clash of past, present and cultures in Hammer's The Mummy (1959), Leeds Trinity University](https://research.leedstrinity.ac.uk/en/publications/the-clash-of-past-present-and-cultures-in-hammers-the-mummy-1959/)
8. [5 best mummy movies to stream right now, Tom's Guide](https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/streaming/5-best-mummy-movies-to-stream-right-now)
9. [The Mummy (1959), Moria, The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review](https://moriareviews.com/horror/mummy-1959.htm)
10. [Film 9: The Mummy (1959), BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/resources-events-teachers/resources-teachers/gothic-classroom/film-9-mummy-1959)
11. [The Mummy (1959), Metacritic reviews via IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053085/criticreviews/)
12. [Watch The Mummy online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-the-mummy-1959-online)
13. [Introduction to the Gothic Handbook Series: Welcome to Hell, PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7349672/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Gothic horror films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license