The Egypt of The Mummy

Abstract

This chapter assesses how The Mummy (1932) approaches ancient Egypt and the ways in which it reflects contemporary attitudes towards the place and era. Although set almost entirely in the Cairo of 1932, The Mummy shows little concern with twentieth-century Egypt; indeed, many of the principal characters are not even Egyptian. In The Mummy, the Egypt of the 1930s is treated merely as a midway point between Western civilisation and the era of the Pharaohs: a land of museums, excavations, archaeologists, and the occasional revived mummy. The chapter then studies how the spectre of Tutankhamun permeates the film. The Mummy appears to have lifted basic details of Tutankhamun's life and worked them into an almost entirely fictitious story. With its themes of death, resurrection, and the afterlife, The Mummy also frequently touches upon ancient Egyptian religion. Finally, there is the phenomenon that originally prompted Universal Pictures to head to Egypt for inspiration: the cursed tomb.