Egyptomania Goes To The Movies

Tut N’ Come In

Egyptomania Goes to the Movies:
From Archaeology to Popular Craze to Hollywood Fantasy
by Matthew Coniam
McFarland & Co
ISBN: 978-1476668284

Wow, this is an awesome book. I’ve always had a low level fascination with the plundered artefacts and bandaged, monstrous, vengeful hellspawn of this far off accursed land, especially in connection to movies inspired by such but, it wasn’t until I saw Valerie Leon, glamorous star of Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (reviewed by me here) tweeting about this book that I even knew of its existence... nor of Matthew Coniam’s existence either, it has to be said.

Well, I went out on an unbandaged limb and added Egyptomania Goes to the Movies: From Archaeology to Popular Craze to Hollywood Fantasy to my holiday reading (via the US Amazon shopping cart, which was somehow cheaper than a UK resident such as myself ordering it from the UK Amazon at the time... go figure) and embarked upon a somewhat irreverent, thoroughly entertaining and surprisingly knowledgeable encapsulation of all that stuff it says on the subtitle of the book above. I’m now very pleased I took that leap of faith, kickstarted by a knowing social media wink from the reincarnated Queen Tera to the physical manifestation of Matthew Coniam’s sacred text, as soon as possible.

And he had me right from the start, as the book begins with a wonderfully comic ‘Dramatis Personae’ of all the important movers, shufflers and shakers who feature in the book, acting as a glossary for those readers who are unfamiliar with the identity of such luminaries as Lord Carnarvon, Howard Carter, Tutenkhamon and, of course, Karloff the Uncanny.... to name but a few. And it’s in this light hearted spirit in which he manifests all his ideas and research for the book, starting off with an introduction which references a recent archaeological excavation of artefacts from the desert that some readers may remember being in the news a few years back... the various sets from Cecil B DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, buried in the sand over time and becoming almost as ‘sought after’ as the real artefacts that inspired DeMille’s two versions of the film in the first place.

Another thing which won me over straight away on Mr. Coniam’s behalf was the delightful use of BC and AK... where AK stands for Anno Karloff. This is the way to suck me into a book which is, at the very least, as much about the actual events and history of Egypt that inspired various movies as it is the films themselves. Coniam appears to be something of an expert in the subject and his enthusiastic filling in and way of completely enlightening those readers who are alarmingly ignorant of such matters (a list in which I count myself, having proven myself a thoroughly ignorant reader on more than one occasion), like the basics of Egyptology and mummery and such like, is done in a way that’s extremely informative.

For instance, I had no idea that for many centuries, excavated mummies were ground up and consumed by many people for their medicinal properties... even finding their way onto the dinner table with the other condiments in later centuries. Indeed, the tradition of consuming portions of powdered mummy was so popular that supply could not keep up with demand and fresh killings were being carried out and then ‘processed’ as a trade in bootleg mummy remains also surfaced, it would seem.

I also didn’t know certain things about the ‘not so aptly named, it turns out’ Cleopatra’s Needle, which now famously resides in London. Such as the problems with shipping it over to my rainy capital, how a cylinder was constructed to float it to the United Kingdom, how it got further ‘lost at sea’ for quite a while and how, after languishing in its own country after the British ignored it for centuries, we only got interested in shipping it back to England after we found out the French had their eyes on it too. All very illuminating.

Of course, Mr. Coniam also says a lot of good and interesting stuff about various selected movies inspired by Egypt and, especially, the mummies... including many films that never got before the cameras or were lost soon after. Not to mention the latest, far from accurate but nevertheless entertaining novelty songs and dance crazes inspired by what he calls Egyptomania.

A few things made me sit up and take note when the author has his ‘film head’ securely screwed on... and I was pleased that he acknowledged that the one bandaged scene, lasting not very many seconds, of Karloff slowly opening his twinkling eyes... is a subtle moment which rivals the best of Val Lewton’s rival/antidotes to the success of Universal Horror. I was also very pleased that he makes note of the absolute insanity of the four ‘sequels’ to the movie, in terms of both their timelines (where years and even decades pass between films but they are all set contemporary to their release within a year of the last one) and also the fact that Kharis the mummy sinks into a swamp in one country at the end of one film and then, timelessly over the decades, re-emerges from the same swamp which has bafflingly been relocated to New Orleans while he slept. I’ve never understood how the writers let these huge continuity errors exist but I’m glad Mr. Coniam seems as baffled by them as me.

Coniam also talks about Universal maestro of make-up Jack Pearce's influences on the medium and, interestingly, points out that the antagonistic creature in the much later Hammer movie, The Mummy's Shroud, actually has the most accurate make-up in terms of being compared to those specimens found on archaeological digs, although he also points out the movie is problematic in terms of accuracy for other reasons. He also kept me happy by mentioning neglected movie gems like The Awakening (another adaptation, starring Charlton Heston, of Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars, which Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb was based on) and both the book and movie version of Robin Cook’s Sphinx (which has a gorgeous soundtrack that should be commercially released... at least I have a promo copy).

So, yes, a wonderfully informative book by someone who really seems to know what he is talking about... which isn’t always a given thing for some writers of recent years, I’ve noticed. As an added extra, after the writer’s epilogue, we are treated to a section of, quite humorous, pocket reviews of a large list (not quite exhaustive, I fear... it seems a little Santo/Blue Demon light although, to be fair, although some of the mummies they fought may have been Aztec rather than Egyptian) of Egyptomania movies, including a wonderful Paul Naschy one, Vengeance Of The Mummy (which I reviewed here). He also includes some of the Egyptian themed porn movies made and I was especially taken with his rather cheeky, two sentence review of the 2004 film Attack Of The Virgin Mummies... "Undead Egyptian hotties revived in a future where sex is illegal. Two directors were necessary to bring it off."

And that rather concludes my look at Mr. Coniam’s truly wonderful book Egyptomania Goes to the Movies: From Archaeology to Popular Craze to Hollywood Fantasy. Well written, blisteringly entertaining and an absolute must read for fans of Egyptology, cinema and, of course, that thrilling combination of the two. I can’t wait to track down one of the writers other books on The Marx Brothers at some point in the near future. Awesome stuff.