Eyes of the Mummy (1918)

Ernst Lubitsch had been making short films in Germany for several years but Eyes of the Mummy (Die Augen der Mumie Ma) was the feature film that established him as a director to take note of. It was released in October 1918 so it was actually made during the First World War. It’s also significant in being his first movie starring Pola Negri. It gave him a taste of commercial success. Two months later he had his first major international hit, Carmen, again starring Pola Negri. Lubitsch had arrived.

It’s not that easy to classify Eyes of the Mummy. The title leads one to suspect a horror movie but the horror movie genre did not exist in 1918. At the time it would presumably have been regarded as an exotic melodrama. That’s how I’d describe it.

The next few years would see Lubitsch in wildly and intoxicatingly experimental mode. He accepted the existence of no rules. The only limits were imposed by the film-maker’s imagination and Lubitsch’s imagination at that time was boundless.

There is no actual mummy in Eyes of the Mummy but there is an ancient Egyptian tomb and there is a curse, and strange and inexplicable events have been linked to the tomb.

Two Europeans are in Egypt, separately, exploring the ruins and soaking up the exotic atmosphere. One is Prince Hohenfels (Max Laurence). The other is a painter, Albert Wendland (Harry Liedtke).

Wendland makes an amazing discovery in the tomb. There is a girl imprisoned there, and she’s very much alive. Her name is Ma (Pola Negri). That’s also the name of the Egyptian queen buried in the tomb. The girl had been kidnapped and enslaved by a scoundrel named Radu (Emil Jannings). Wendland rescues the girl and takes her back to Germany with him.

Meanwhile Prince Hohenfels has found the disconsolate Radu wandering in the desert. The Prince takes Radu back to Europe with him. This is likely to lead to trouble. Radu intends to reclaim his slave girl.

Wendland has installed Ma in his household, presumably as his mistress. They’re crazy about each other. Ma is a wild child, knowing nothing whatever of civilisation or the social rules, but she’s charming and adorable and very sexy.

Ma becomes quite a social success and gains acclaim as a dancer. A painting of her by Wendland makes her even more of a celebrity.

Unfortunately her growing celebrity also alerts Radu to the fact there she is here, in the same city. He has not given up his obsession with her. In his own perverse way he probably does truly love her.

Emil Jannings had a huge reputation as an actor in this period, something I’ve never quite understood. In this role he does certainly convey the idea of a man with a dangerous obsession.

This is however Pola Negri’s film. She was one of the great screen sex goddesses but interesting she generally did not play vamps or bad girls. Her specialty was playing wild crazy fiery passionate women. Sometimes they were a bit naughty, but in an endearing way. They were women who could drive a man crazy, but he’d enjoy it. Negri just had her own unique screen persona and it made her one of the most fascinating stars of the silent era.

The big danger here is to treat this as a horror movie, and then be disappointed that it doesn’t work as a horror movie. Lubitsch was not trying to make a horror movie. He was trying to make a romantic melodrama, and when you judge it in that light it does work. There are no overt supernatural elements but there are very subtle suggestions that influences slightly outside the range of normal experience could be at work. Ma has the same name as the long-dead Egyptian queen. Could Queen Ma be partly responsible for the hypnotic effect that the modern Ma exercises over men? Is there some vague occult connection between Ma and Radu? Perhaps.

Lubitsch was developing astonishingly quickly as a director. Within a year he would be making much more accomplished and much more ambitious movies. Eyes of the Mummy still has considerable interest as marking the beginnings of Lubitsch’s incredibly rich early German period. And Pola Negri is always worth watching. Recommended.

I’ve reviewed quite a few of these early Lubitsch films - The Oyster Princess (1919), The Doll (Die Puppe, 1919), Sumurun (1920) and the magnificent The Wildcat (1921).