The Mummy's Shroud is a 1967

1967 in film

The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 made in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by Hammer Film Productions

Hammer Film Productions

Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...

. It was directed by Hammer veteran John Gilling

John Gilling

John Gilling was an English film director and screenwriter, born in London. He was chiefly known for his horror films, especially for Hammer Films, for whom he directed Shadow of the Cat , The Plague of the Zombies , The Reptile and The Mummy's Shroud, among others...

.

It stars André Morell

André Morell

André Morell was a British actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s...

 and David Buck

David Buck

David Buck was an English actor. His most famous role was in the animated film The Lord of the Rings , for which he provided the voice of Gimli...

 as explorers who uncover the tomb of an ancient Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian mummy. It also starred John Phillips

John Phillips (actor)

William John Phillips MC, was a British actor. He is best remembered for the role of Chief Superintendent Robins, in the television series Z-Cars and for his work as a Shakespearean stage actor.-Early life:...

, Maggie Kimberly and Michael Ripper

Michael Ripper

Michael Ripper was an English character actor born in Portsmouth.He began his film career in quota quickies in the 1930s and until the late 1950s was virtually unknown; he was seldom credited. He played one of the two murderers in Richard III. Ripper became a mainstay in Hammer Film Productions...

 as Longbarrow, in one of his most celebrated roles for the studio. Stuntman

Stunt performer

A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...

 Eddie Powell

Eddie Powell

Eddie Powell was a British stuntman.Powell performed stuntwork in several films for Hammer Studios, serving as a regular stunt double for Christopher Lee. His credits during this time included portraying Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness and the Mummy in The Mummy's Shroud...

 (Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

's regular stunt double) played the Mummy, brought back to life to wreak revenge on his enemies.

The uncredited narrator in the prologue is sometimes assumed to be Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

, although no record exists.

It was the third of Hammer's four Mummy films, a cycle which began in 1959 with The Mummy

The Mummy (1959 film)

The Mummy is a 1959 Technicolor British Hammer Horror film starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.Though the title suggests Universal Pictures' 1932 film of the same name, the film actually derives its plot and characters entirely from two later Universal films, The Mummy's Hand and The Mummy's...

, continued with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is a 1964 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions.-Plot:A mummy discovered by three Egyptologists is brought back to London by a showman...

(1964), and ended with Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is a 1971 British film starring Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, and James Villiers. This was director Seth Holt's final film, and was adapted from Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars. The film was released as the support feature to Dr...

(1971). It was the last to feature a bandaged mummy - the final film contained no such character.

It was the final Hammer production to be made at Bray Studios, the company's home until 1967, when its productions moved to Elstree Studios

Elstree Studios

"Elstree Studios" refers to any of several film studios that were based in the towns of Borehamwood and Elstree in Hertfordshire, England, since film production begun in 1927.-Name:...

 and occasionally Pinewood

Pinewood Studios

Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...

.

Plot

The Mummy's Shroud is set in 1920 and tells the story of a team of archaeologists who come across the lost tomb of the boy Pharaoh Kah-To-Bey. The story begins with a flash back sequence to Ancient Egypt and we see the story of how Prem, a manservant of Kah-To-Bey, spirited away the boy when his father was killed in a palace coup and took him into the desert for protection. Unfortunately, the boy dies and is buried. The movie then moves forward to 1920 and shows the expedition led by scientist Sir Basil Walden (Andre Morell, a Hammer regular) and business man Stanley Preston (John Phillips) finding the tomb. They ignore the dire warning issued to them by Hasmid, a local Bedouin about the consequences for those that violate the tombs of Ancient Egypt and remove the bodies and the sacred shroud. Sir Basil is bitten by a snake just after finding the tomb. He recovers, but has a relapse after arriving back in Cairo. Preston takes advantage of this and commits him to an insane asylum, to take credit for finding the tomb and Prince's mummy himself. Meanwhile, after being placed in the Cairo Museum, the mummy of Prem is revived when Hasmid chants the sacred oath on the shroud. The mummy then proceeds to go on a murderous rampage to kill off the members of the expedition, beginning with Sir Basil after he escapes from the asylum. One by one, those who assisted in removing the contents of the tomb to Cairo are eliminated by such grisly means as strangulation, being thrown out of windows, and having photographic acid thrown in their face. Greedy Stanley Preston, the real villain of the piece, after repeated attempts to evade the murder investigations and flee for his own safely, is murdered in a Cairo sidestreet by the avenging mummy. All ends happily thanks to the intervention of remaining members of the party, Stanley's son Paul Preston and Maggie Claire de Sangre, who succeed in destroying the Mummy in a very dramatic and beautifully staged finale.