The Curse of King Tut's Tomb

OK, I don't know how many movies there have been about some idiot archaeologist deciding that being a rich white guy makes it alright to dig up other cultures' kings, thereby incurring the spirits' wrath; as it is, this premise sounds like the forbear of the rules for surviving horror movies as laid out in "Scream". "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb" is yet another addition in the genre, specifically focusing on Howard Carter (Robin Ellis), famous for finding Tutankhamen's burial site.

I could pretty much predict the sorts of things that were going to happen. This seems like the kind of movie that they made because there was absolutely nothing else to do. Probably the strangest aspect was that they gave Eva Marie Saint and Raymond Burr these supporting roles; having starred in Alfred Hitchcock movies - hell, Eva Marie Saint has won an Oscar - they deserve better than this.

Is it a terrible movie? Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that (after dreck like "My Dream Is Yours", "Baryshnya-Krestyanka" and "Everyone Says I Love You", almost anything seems at least tolerable). The acting passes. It's just that the whole let's-see-what-happens-when-we-dig-up-the-mummy routine got old a long time ago (in the past year, I've also seen the Egypt-set horror flicks "The Awakening" and "Sphinx"). So don't make it your first choice. Also starring Tom Baker and narrated by Paul Scofield.

This does feature authentic locations--I've been to the tomb and to the Valley of the Kings--and so it was a good choice to actually go film there. However this seems to have taken so much money that the production values get pretty thin. Burr,and, and others wearing dark makeup to pass as Arabs and Egyptians would be one problem but when you can see where their real light skin color sticks out from the sides it's distractingly fake. Music score by Veteran Gil Melle is also rather cheesy--not many players in his orchestra though at least it isn't totally a synth job as would around this time become the norm for TV. The music tends to want to play generic period hotel music rather than effectively sell the spooky and atmospheric elements of the story--which could use the help from music and don't get it.

The tomb artifacts are unevenly done and the whole thing is pretty poorly photographed. The lights go out in the tomb, supposedly, yet it looks like it is lit with car headlights. All these type problems are typical of TV movies on that era. The most famous and beautiful object in the tomb is the famous Golden Mask and this is really poorly done when we see it in the film--otherwise I blame the way things are lit more than the prop man.

Where the story goes wrong is in attempting to show clearly supernatural effects of the curse--all of which are really cheaply done, and yet trying to maintain a semi-realistic true to the facts presentation of the actual discovery. The discovery aspects are much better done than the repeated TV movie zoom shots of statures faces with "scary" lighting. Director Leacock in other work did manage to pull off scares and atmosphere but for probably a variety of reasons he can't do it here. At scorpion attack and snake attacks are really badly done in total Z grade movie fashion.

The script is also pretty cheesy, true the actors do what they can with it. There are probably too many people/characters to really bring across any other them completely. Only Harry Andrews comes across as a total character.

Overall the real Egyptian locations and some passing references and shape of the real discovery hold this together for people pre-disposed to like this kind of thing--as I am. As tourism by proxy it works OK and the period cars and airplanes and such are well done, unfortunately a lot of quick and dirty TV movie problems hamper it.

The fictitious King Tut curse has long had an appeal for nearly everyone, but it's never been adapted to film in any effective way. Despite it's fairy-tale status, or possibly because of, it's a tailor-made story for the screen, big or little, but this TV-movie is a complete failure.

The cast, mostly effective and the best thing about the production, does as good of a job as they can with the dreadful script and complete lack of effective location filming. If they truly did film this in Egypt and England, the director should be shot because of the lackluster scenery he chose. Except for a few scenes, it looks like it was done on a backlot. This story is filled with good dramatic potential, but the scriptwriters took advantage of none of that, or the history behind Carter and his years in Egypt, nothing that could have elevated this beyond the usual TV dreck.

Robin Ellis is a good enough actor, but he had no business being cast as Howard Carter. That is one of the major flaws; he is simply unbelievable as Carter since he doesn't seem to care one way or another about the tomb. Harry Andrews does better as Carnarvon; he exudes the correct air of privilege. Eva Marie Saint is completely wasted and also completely unnecessary to the story, and seriously gets in the way. Tom Baker plays an Egyptian in his usual compelling manner, and could be called the standout of the cast. That's not saying much since the mummy case is a better actor than most of the cast; perhaps the director could only identify with a slab of wood.

The single worst aspect of this film are the artifacts themselves. If they were going to do this, they should have made quality copies. The priceless treasures from the tomb are important to the story and you can't make bad copies; it shows too glaringly that they ARE copies. The propman must have gone out to a kindergarten class and had them do the papier mache' work; for 5 year-olds it would have been good, but for a production studio to manufacture something that bad is beyond belief or explanation.

If you must watch something on the Curse of King Tutankhamen's Tomb, find the "In Search of..." episode that deals with it; it's not great, but at least it's shorter.

You could cut it some slack on account of it being a TV movie, I guess, but even within those confines I still feel like The Curse of King Tut's Tomb doesn't have much at all to offer. It's a very strange blend of genres that never entirely commits to one enough to satisfy. The adventuring isn't much fun, it's not particularly thrilling, and I didn't find the horror elements came anywhere close to being scary, though.

It is very quaint and probably decent enough background noise, which is maybe enough for a good many TV movies (they're a bit antiquated now, so I don't know for sure... I guess the modern-day equivalent would be those straight-to-Netflix movies, usually action-focused, that almost everyone seems to "watch" but nobody really seems to remember).

After 6 hard years of work in the Valley of the Kings an archeologist by the name of "Howard Carter" (Robin Ellis) finally finds what he believes is the burial place of King Tutankhamun. Extremely excited by this he immediately contacts his sponsor "Lord George Carnarvon" (Harry Andrews) who immediately makes plans to see it for himself in spite of a warning from a medium named "Princess Vilma" (Wendy Hiller) of dire consequences if he travels to Egypt. Likewise, Howard Carter also unearths a medallion which states, "Death will come swiftly to those who disturb the tomb of the king." But neither he nor Lord Carnarvon heed these warnings. What they don't know, however, is that there is a very influential rival by the name of "Jonash Sabastian" (Raymond Burr) who is willing to do anything to prevent their discovery from going public. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay made-for-television film which managed to capture the 1922 time-period quite well. It also benefited from the fact that it was narrated at certain point to resemble a documentary of sorts. Unfortunately, it suffered from a general lack of suspense which caused certain segments to seem a little monotonous. But all things considered, I thought it was an adequate film for the most part and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Average.