The Stranglers Of Bombay (1959)

There are elements of The Stranglers Of Bombay that are easily enjoyed, but it's hard to just sit back and enjoy a movie that is such a relic from a bygone age, in many ways. One of those movies showing when the might of Great Britain stretched far overseas, into areas that had been colonised by, according to the movies, tea-drinking gentlemen who would sometimes look upon the locals with amused curiosity, and occasionally afford them the respect that they deserved.

It's the early part of the nineteenth century. Lots of people have been going missing, all of them murdered by the Thugee Cult Of Kali. Of course, nobody knows this immediately. An investigation begins, led by Captain Christopher Connaught-Smith (Allan Cuthbertson, every inch Lord Flashheart from Blackadder), hopes to get to the truth, but the man best qualified to provide answers (Captain Harry Lewis, played by Guy Rolfe) is being ignored, or even mocked. Meanwhile, the leader of the cult (George Pastell) knows that the British are creeping closer and closer to finding the truth.

Hampered by a stilted script from David Zelag Goodman and the lack of any real A-list stars, although Rolfe is good enough in the lead role and Pastell has plenty of screen presence, director Terence Fisher does his best to make something entertaining and interesting. What he ended up with, however, feels like the closest Hammer ever came to real exploitation fare. This is almost a mondo film in a number of ways, best illustrated by the scene in which we watch a mongoose and snake fighting one another (note: animal lovers may wish to turn away for that moment), and that's what actually keeps it watchable nowadays as a curio piece from the studio.

It just manages to qualify as an above average viewing experience, but I'd recommend it only to either Hammer completists or those who like their horror to have one foot dipped in any of the darker chapters in our world history.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Stranglers-Of-Bombay-Region/dp/B009O8U9VY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392155164&sr=8-1&keywords=the+stranglers+of+bombay

The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb (1964)

As mentioned in my review of The Mummy, I'm not a big fan of mummy movies. So the fact that I enjoyed that film and, to a lesser extent, this one too should bode well for those who like to see their bad boogeymen shuffling around while swathed in bandages.

Michael Carreras directs, and writes, this time around and the first half of the movie is very familiar territory. A tomb is opened, treasures are removed and deaths start to occur. The second half brings in one fresh idea but by then all the fun is to be had watching the mummy go about its business anyway (and I, for one, thought that this particular mummy had a great look to it . . . . . in as much as a mummy CAN look good).

The cast are a real mixed bag. Ronald Howard is the standard Hammer hero, a solid gentleman always ready to help a damsel in distress in between his academic pursuits. Terence Morgan is smooth as Adam Beauchamp, Jack Gwillim is okay in the first half of the movie but doesn't really convince in the latter half as his character becomes a bit of a drunkard, Fred Clark is great fun as an American entrepreneur wanting to make big money from the discoveries and George Pastell plays a character very similar, superficially, to the one he played in The Mummy. And Michael Ripper pops up, too. Oh, then there's Jeanne Roland, one of the most irritating women I have watched in a Hammer movie. I'm sorry to say it but her accent felt like nails on a blackboard to me. That may seem unfair, considering the fact that she was dubbed but her acting wasn't all that good either.

It's definitely not up there with the better Hammer horror movies but The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb is a decent enough, consistently entertaining, entry in their extensive catalogue. Boredom never sets in and the ending provides a satisfying mix of tension and tragedy. Worth a look.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Curse-Mummys-Tomb-DVD/dp/B000HWXQHU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350997685&sr=8-1

The Mummy (1959)

Well, despite the pedigree (Terence Fisher directing, Jimmy Sangster writing, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee starring) this is a mummy movie and, when played as straight horror, I have always found mummy movies to be a little bit lacking in atmosphere, scares or anything else that can put them higher up the horror league table. So the fact that I've given this a 7/10 is actually a very good sign.

The plot is the standard gubbins that you get from every mummy movie: a tomb is excavated and a mummy is released to exact some revenge. Deaths occur. Then there's someone who looks like a lost love (in this case it's Yvonne Furneaux playing both Isobel Banning and Princess Ananka).

The direction from Fisher is fine, even if the material isn't quite as exciting as most of his other Hammer films, and the script by Sangster structures things in a way that helps the pacing of the movie by making viewers wait longer for "the big reveal" and building up the storylines for each character.

It all looks nice enough, and there's always entertainment provided by watching Cushing and Lee (with the former being the hero of the piece and the latter doing a great job as the bandage-swathed mummy), but it's also just not that exciting. George Pastell gives a worthwhile performance as the man trying to control the mummy, and there's a fantastic exchange between him and Cushing, but the movie still can't quite claw its way up to anything great because it adds nothing new to the mythos of this creature.

Why the generous rating then? Well, although it's retreading very familiar territory (an accusation I realise that could be levelled at almost every Hammer movie ever released) it does it very well. The performances are all great and the mummy is given an adequate backstory that allows it to be depicted as quite a sad and pitiable creature, much like Frankenstein's monster. If I actually liked mummy horrors then I'm sure I would have rated this one as highly as many other Hammer fans. It's a very good film.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mummy-DVD-Peter-Cushing/dp/B0002VF5LG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1350162465&sr=8-2