The biggest surprise about this film is the presence in a Hammer production (it's actually shot at Elstree) of Hollywood veteran Fred Clark playing a vulgar huckster who anachronistically refers to ragtime and (it says here) came up with the name for Turkish Delight and (SPOILER COMING:) perversely falls foul of the mummy having just performed his one good deed.
Five years had elapsed since they first explored the legend of the Mummy. Hammer's mummy films were never terribly good and by the time they resumed the franchise with this well-dressed but poky little potboiler they were obviously serving pretty thin gruel; with Michael Carreras plainly taking on the direction because he came cheap.
The mummy's asthmatic wheezing is seriously scary, Ronald Howard brings a certain grace and good humour to the role of the head of the expedition but despite the terrific title that this was a highly inferior piece of work is demonstrated by default by the fleeting use on a couple occasions of Franz Reizenstein's superb score from Hammer's original.
Five years had elapsed since they first explored the legend of the Mummy. Hammer's mummy films were never terribly good and by the time they resumed the franchise with this well-dressed but poky little potboiler they were obviously serving pretty thin gruel; with Michael Carreras plainly taking on the direction because he came cheap.
The mummy's asthmatic wheezing is seriously scary, Ronald Howard brings a certain grace and good humour to the role of the head of the expedition but despite the terrific title that this was a highly inferior piece of work is demonstrated by default by the fleeting use on a couple occasions of Franz Reizenstein's superb score from Hammer's original.