"Never met a mummy like that before"
And Ralph Norton probably hadn't but he doesn't know what the future holds does he?
Some thoughts from a New Millenium girl about
film making then, now and in the future.
I must say I have had very little experience of working with old black and white films apart from the one which Metropolis the Musical was based on and I became very familiar with during my time involved with that show. It has been an interesting task to compare this with The Mummy. The original film Metropolis was made in 1926 (when the 1999 Mummy film is set interestingly) and directed by Fritz Lang. At that time it was a still a silent film world, although there had been developmental trials since 1902 The Jazz Singer the first commercial "talkie" didn't turn up until 1927. Of course by 1932 everything in the film world was well involved in this new medium of sound and wouldn't have any really big upsets until colour arrived, but things learnt during the silent age hadn't been forgotten. We now have Dolby stereo surround sound, CGI (computer-generated) effects and more to contend with. This is the coat that the 1999 film arrived wearing but as I will explain in this little essay it has a number of interesting references to the past, both filmed and otherwise stuffed into its pockets.
1932 and all that...
The 1932 film The Mummy was set in the then present day and represented, apart from the exotic location it was set in, (and the strange subject matter it covered) life as it was lived there and then. Fashions in speech, behaviour and dress reflected what was going on around the filmmakers as they made the film and the public as they viewed it. Its strange subject matter was also an interest of the present day as it was then. In 1922 King Tut-ankh-amen's tomb was dug up in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and for many years after that it fired the imagination of the people. The influences on fashion, fiction (think of Agatha Christie's books set in Egypt) and even Art Nouveau are still visible today when we look back at what this time is remembered for. Of course there was also the famous King Tut curse which when I started getting interested in Egyptology scared me so much that as a five year old with a vivid imagination I couldn't even sleep in the same room as a large poster of his mask. I recently felt pressed to remove and throw out a book jacket which had the same picture on it so old habits die hard! It is this curse no doubt, which sparked some of the ideas for this film and from the way poor Tut was treated after he was dug up even I wouldn't blame him for going on the rampage. The dead princess who Imhotep is trying to bring back from the dead in this film bears exactly the same name as King Tut's wife. As I have said in the synopsis I gave on the page 'You Know Your History' the opening of the tomb in this film is almost a dramatised event for event report from the opening which Howard Carter and Lord Canharvan were involved in at that famous tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
There is also something else to remember too - 1932 was not so long after what they in the 1930s called 'The Great War' and this has an influence on it. Dr Muller the man treating Helen for psychiatric problems caused by her many incarnations (these parts were cut from version of the film we see now) and is interesting to look the film with a modern eye understanding social history. Dr Muller is also probably an effect of his time - Freud and Jung were very active then and psychoanalysis very fashionable - but the way his name is pronounced is very interesting. Dr Muller, although presumably Austrian or even Swiss like all good shrinks, has a German name. The point I'm making is it is pronounced 'Miller',totally disregarding the proper way it should be said, even if his wife is called Frau Muller on the cast list!. If we are to remember this is the time the British Royal family changed their surname to something less German sounding and similar things were happening all over Britain we can see the sociological importance of this in the film and why this happens.
Why nice girls didn't invite mummies into their bedrooms ...
The first thing which hit me when I say the 1932 film was the accents everyone was speaking in - cut glass Queen's English which you don't hear much now. Did we really speak like this or is it a film affectation? I must admit however I have met some people alive at that time, who are alive now and who still speak in very much the same way - take our dear Century old British Queen Mother for instance. While the men in the original film behave in a very much stiff-upper-lip way that you would expect (Frank never did seem that upset when his father died) I am however interested in the way the women are portrayed. Helen Grovenor was a pleasant surprise for a 1930s heroine, she actually has some independence and goes of wandering about the Cairo bazaars on her own without the male escort you would expect in that time. She does however spend a lot of time swooning and fainting as so many girls did in films in those days and continued to do on screen for some time even to the present day. What did make me laugh was the little scene with Helen on the couch plus all the men in the room where she meets the mummy for the first time. I think this pretty much an equivalent of the 1990s Arnold Vosloo version of Imhotep making his way into Evelyn Carnahan's bedroom and then everyone else barging in to save her. The 1930s film has obviously been stuck with a few 1930s niceties; keep a stiff upper lip, don't leave an unmarried woman alone with a man and for God's sake keep your clothes onold Boy. Both Im-ho-tep here and Helen when she is being Ankh-es-en-Amen later in the 1930s version seem rather overdressed by the standards of the 1999 film and also by the standards of the Ancient Egyptians, but then they are wandering about in 1930s and not just on film. The other thing is the lack of violence and warring hordes in the 1932 film, which actually I didn't miss. Standards have changed - we expect big budget movies with lots of action - and something which would have been banned in the 1930s for its violence would be thought pretty tame today. The meeting between Helen Grosvenor and Im-ho-tep was oh so polite and they stayed well apart and showed not a flicker of desire for each other, but I think it said very similar things to the modern scene.
Silence is Golden
One interesting lesson I got from watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis in detail was how silent film differs from the talkies. If you have to do everything with written titles you have to keep the scenes fairly short and snappy and the dialogue down to a minimum. The actors have big part to play with their expressions and body language telling the tale which could be explained in a few words. I suppose we all laugh at some of the acting in these old films because we call it stilted and stereotypical. Villains behave in a certain way, as do beautiful heroines but we have to understand in their day these stereotypes had a purpose. In one short scene this acting method told the audiences who the characters were and what their function was and so saved a whole load of complicated dialogue and titles of explanation.
If you apply this to the 1932 Mummy this was not very long after silent films had come to an end. The profession was still filled with old silent film actors and directors who had their own favourite ways of working, and audiences who knew the messages the films were passing on as they had grown up in the silent era too. The flashback scene in the 1932 Mummy where Im-ho-tep tells Helen her history as Ankh-es-en-amun uses the silent film methods the whole way through and is a treat to watch. Apart from Im-ho-tep's narration there is Boris Karloff using wonderful body language and expressions to tell the story and we almost don't need him to tell us what is happening. It is interesting also to see what happens when the modern remake does a similar flashback with sound but limited by them speaking Ancient Egyptian courtesy of Stuart Tyson 'Stargate' Smith. Although the acting nowadays would be called more 'natural' (we have relaxed in more ways than one since the 1930s) a lot of the methods used in that old version are there and Mr Vosloo would have made a fine silent film actor. Observe his face as he has to watch his beloved kill herself and the horror on it as he is mummified alive.
Continued on the next page ...
