Die Augen der Mumie Ma

The more silent Lubitsch I see the more I think he's was a lousy silent director who managed to succeed only because he found his niche in sound and comedy. His ANNA BOLEYN, SUMURUN and EYES OF THE MUMMY are just plain awful. This is a very poor film technically and even the great Jannings is wasted as the villain. Negri is effective but overacts badly. Her dance is just plain silly. Only for dyed in the wool fans of the director and the two stars.

In the late 1910s, while Hollywood was focusing mostly on serious contemporary drama, their soon-to-be significant rivals in Berlin were turning more towards adventuresome flights of fancy. Myth, fantasy, exotic lands and a touch of horror were the hallmarks of German cinema. Although better known for his unique comedies, director Ernst Lubitsch was nevertheless a capable and versatile craftsman, and at this stage was at the forefront of the Germanic style.

The approach to these pictures was all about space, and for Lubitsch the most important aspect of space appears to be depth. A lot of the movement in Die Augen der Mumie Ma is towards or away from the camera. Of course, Griffith and many others in the US had been doing this for years, but Lubitsch actually shuns horizontal movement, and his pictures seem designed to accommodate movement in depth. Often there is a large empty space behind the actors, or a doorway at the back of the set leading to another room. The bric-a-brac of Kurt Richter's elaborate set design tends to be concentrated at the sides of the frame, creating a kind of tunnel effect in some scenes.

What is the point of all this? Well, I think first and foremost it was probably just a style that appealed aesthetically to Lubitsch and Richter, and there is no shame in that. Nevertheless it is one that they could use to great effect. Emil Jannings often appears to be advancing eerily upon us, while good guys Harry Liedtke and Pola Negri disappear worryingly away from us. In the few shots where the actors are backed up against a wall with no space behind them, for example in the flashback where Jannings first brings Negri to the tomb, the sudden change is palpable, in a nastily claustrophobic way. And depth plays a part in all the most chilling moments, such as Jannings appearing in a mirror at the far end of the room. We simultaneously see him in the distance yet are aware he is actually behind the camera, and thus behind "us". These are all moves towards a more interactive cinema, in which the audience are not merely external observers, but feel they are enveloped in the film's world.

Die Augen der Mumie Ma is also notable for early performances by two giant figures of German cinema, the aforementioned Emil Jannings and Pola Negri. Like Lubitsch, Jannings's area of expertise was comedy, and his Radu is a hammy caricature. But Jannings's hamming was of a good sort, and just as his excessive mannerisms could make us laugh in pictures like The Merry Jail or Faust, here they come across as grimly macabre. Negri too is a little hysterical at times, but in fact far less so than many leading ladies of German cinema, and most of her performance is refreshingly restrained, comprised of slow, delicate movements.

If there is anything significantly wrong with this picture, it is its naïve silliness. For example, Jannings is taken to Europe to become Hohenfels's manservant, and yet still potters about the prince's palace in his native garb, clutching his dagger and muttering about getting revenge on the woman who wronged him, whereupon the prince pats him amiably on the shoulder as if to say "There, there old chap". Mind you, it would probably have looked equally ridiculous had the murderous Radu been given a haircut and shoehorned into a butler's uniform. Such moments are an unintentional source of humour for me, so I don't regard them as so much of a bad thing. It goes without saying that screenwriter Hans Kraly was another collaborator on this picture whose main field was comedy, and he was most adept at creating romantic fables for fast-paced farces, a genre that doesn't exactly demand logic and cohesion. And yet, in the hands of Lubitsch, Jannings and Negri, Die Augen der Mumie Ma becomes an atmospheric and reasonably entertaining short horror adventure.

... but a tragedy... of sorts. The "Eyes Of The Mummy" refer to the eye-holes in a doorway with a face on it that Pola Negri looks out of to scare people out of the temple of Queen Ma. There is no mummy, there is no monster, there really is no horror. This is not a complaint, but this movie is often grouped in with monster movies merely because of it's title.

It's easy to laugh at a film almost 85 years old, your grand kids and great grand kids will laugh at what you currently enjoy as well. The dance that Pola does may look strange to our eyes, but the desired effect was to be exotic. The acting is typically broad and melodramatic, appropriate to it's time. With the deterioration of many silent movies, we can sometimes be thankful that the actors seemed to be overacting, we can still see their expressions even when their films are fading away.

Not Pola Negri's best work, or her worst. There must be a few different cuts of this film circulating. The one I saw was about an hour and ten minutes long, not the half-hour reported here or the forty-five minutes reported on the main page for this movie. I rather enjoyed the version I saw, maybe the shorter cuts leave too much out to fill the story out.

Recommended if you enjoy the genre and it's stars. If you are looking for Halloween fare, stick with Universal's later horror classics, including..yes, the "real" mummy movies.

Actually am feeling bad about giving 'Eyes of the Mummy' a low rating and below average review. Considering that it has people involved that are usually held in high regard by me. Ernst Lubitsch was to me one of the great directors of the 30s and 40s, and his early work is not as good but still interesting. Emil Jannings was always watchable and more (when it comes to silent films to me he's one of the greats), especially in villain and authority figure roles and his role here sounded perfect on paper.

'Eyes of the Mummy' sadly was to me a seriously odd film. Not awful, but Lubitsch and Pola Negri are not well served and although Jannings is one of the redeeming merits he has also been better. Like others have said, don't be fooled by the title. Which indicates that it is a horror film. It isn't. 'Eyes of the Mummy' is more a melodrama and it unfortunately does not do that aspect particularly well at all. Worth a look for curiosity and completest sake, but not much else.

Jannings comes off reasonably well compared to everything else going on. His performance is not at all a subtle one, he does try too hard, but he gives it absolutely everything and is a formidable and sinister presence throughout his screen time. Some of the set design is quite elaborate.

The last 15-20 minutes are effective, the part that held my attention the most (shame that it took too much time to get there) and it was well staged and lump to the throat worthy. Jannings appearing in a mirror did give me the creeps too, the one part that resembled anything close to being horror.

On the other hand, 'Eyes of the Mummy' doesn't work everywhere else. Even for this very early stage of his career, this did not feel like a Lubitsch film. He tried to adopt a change of pace here and is well and truly out of his depth here, as can be evidenced by the stiff and uninvolving direction. The story never really came to life apart from the climactic moments, before that it is very turgidly paced and emotionally dreary melodrama that one finds very difficult to connect with. Especially considering that it revolves around characters that are not easy at all to get behind, due to them not being at all interesting.

Mostly, 'Eyes of the Mummy' looks cheap. Some elaborate set design aside. Otherwise, it looks very static and unfocused and like it was made in a rush. Negri overacts to an embarrassing degree, some of the worst silent film acting there's been in my view, and the dancing in general is far from exotic and is unintentionally funny today. The music also does not fit in tone, orchestration or use, it was like it was written for a completely different film and it was disconcerting.

In summary, watch it once but not interesting or well done enough to warrant repeat viewings. A very odd experience indeed, a contender for Lubitsch's strangest. 4/10

What an egregious waste of talent!! It's poorly acted, indifferently directed, and badly written; too bad THIS film survived when so many other more worthy silents didn't! It's hard to believe this was made in 1918--technically and artistically, it's more like 1909. This is the sort of film you should definitely NOT show to someone unfamiliar with silent film, as it confirms every awful stereotype about them--clownish makeup, hammy gestures, and cheesy plot--and, it's boring to boot. The great Emil Jannings looks more like Othello in search of Desdemona instead of an Egyptian in search of his captive, and this time his habitual overacting is annoying rather than bravura. And, you have to be a pretty maladroit filmaker to take Pola Negri, with her angular Gypsy beauty, and make her up to look like a pint-sized Little Egypt. Take it from a die-hard silents fan who will watch ANY silent film, simply because they are silent: skip this one.