Saturday, July 13, 2019

PHARAOH'S CURSE - "It Came From The Dead" (1957)

  It's time for another Saturday Night Special down in The Dungeon, and a classic little 66 minute movie from 1957 called "Pharaoh's Curse."

Eleven years later, and finally, the curse has been lifted, and boy, do I feel good about it!
 I did a very short write up on "Pharaoh's Curse" back in 2008, because the only DVD we could find back then malfunctioned, so I only got to watch a few minutes of it.
These days though it's a different story, and all you lucky people can just watch it any time you want to for free on the amazing Mr.YouTube!
And I just found out, that if you've got an Amazon account, they have a much better copy streaming there too!

 Here's a shot to prove the authenticity of the location of this film just in case you think it looks like Death Valley, California anywhere along the line!

Cute couple! Too bad she's got a husband!
That's Diane ( The Invisible Boy) Brewster and Mark (Hot Cars, Hot Shots) Dana!
Diane's character has followed her no good husband into the hot desert to inform him that she wants a divorce!

The exotic Ziva Rodann is the Cat Goddess. This was only Ziva's second film and she was credited as Ziva Shapir. Ziva was the go to girl if you needed somebody for a role that was dark and mysterious in the 50's and 60's like Nefertiti in the "Batman" TV series.

Jewelry like this is usually a dead giveaway, literally!

  There's really not a whole lot going on here, so they have Diane Brewster's character get stung by a scorpion!

"Pharaoh's Curse" was directed by Lee "Roll Em" Sholem who was notorious for no nonsense quick shoots, and I'm sure working out in the desert, everybody appreciated his style!

It made me wonder if The Beatles were a big fan of this movie, as the Doctor looks at this inscription on the sarcophagus, and utters the words that he believes to be sage advice,
"Let It Be!"

"Pharaoh's Curse" is kind of a takeoff on the regular old mummy story, except for one thing, there's no mummy out walking around!

Looks like Santa Monica to me!

In the wrong place at the wrong time, the Cat Goddess's brother Numar gets the Dorian Gray treatment!
Alvaro Guillot was in only two movies and one TV show, but he had a much more interesting life as a member of the "New Surrealist School" of painting!

Alvaro was a personal friend of Salvador Dali and was known for paintings like this brilliant piece!
 Here's a link to a website dedicated to the man!

So there's no mummy......................

...........Just this crusty, dusty old fart!

This guy's so old and slow just like a mummy, that his arm comes right off when it gets pulled on, and yet the stupid people can't seem to get away from him! That's what has always bugged me about mummies!

"Okay, Fess up! I know that you know what's up!"

Dude is still out wandering around, walking around in circles!

Dumb Diane, they told her to stay in the tent, but No..........!

Is it him? Is it her? How did it get back in the box and get the mask back on?  There's many unanswered questions, but there won't be a sequel, since there wasn't much of a story to begin with!

THE END
is always more pertinent and final when it's a shot of a bunch of mule's and horse's asses!

This lobby card includes almost the whole outstanding cast including Mark Dana and Ziva Rodann, George N.(The Three Stooges In Orbit) Neise, Ben (Three Episodes of The Twilight Zone & Three Episodes of The Outer Limits) Wright, Guy (The Unearthly, Queen Of Outer Space, The Hypnotic Eye) Prescott, and Robert (The Bottle Imp) Fortin!
"Pharaoh's Curse" might not be the most exciting movie ever made, but with this array of talent, you can't hardly go wrong!

2 comments:

Grant said...

I never saw it till this year.
(This would be a spoiler, but I think you mention it above.)
I can't help wondering if this is the only horror film about Egypt that has an actual Egyptian deity in the story. Almost all the others have characters who worship them, but this film actually has a deity as one of the characters.

EEGAH!! said...

I'm pretty sure you're correct Grant!

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