COLLECTIBLE TIME: MEGO 8" HAMMER/CHRISTOPHER LEE, KHARIS/MUMMY

As reported, Donna gave me a Marvel Gallery/Diamond Select Vulture statue in advance of Valentine's Day (see 2/8 post), but guess what? She also followed up with an 8", MEGO Corporation, Hammer Studios action figure of Christopher Lee's Kharis from Terence Fisher/Jimmy Sangster's The Mummy (1959): a vivid redux of Universal Studios' The Mummy's Hand and The Mummy's Tomb, with a significant dash of The Mummy's Ghost. 

This 1970s-styled figure (packaged on a stylish, blister card, with portrait-shots from the movie) was sculpted/designed by action-figure specialist Marty Abrams and holds 14 articulation points and an impressive resemblance to Lee's  tongue-less, Egyptian High Priest of Karnak, muddied by boggy pigments, composed of plastic and cloth. 

The Mummy is one of my favorite Hammer flicks and was part of the company's next-phase strand, as it collaborated with Universal. On this basis, the Mummy figure represents an important chapter in horror history and gave Lee yet another imposing persona to add to his fiendish roster. 

I knew that modern MEGO had produced this Hammer/Lee salute, but my time limitations to browse and travel prevented me from getting one. Thanks to Donna (my comparable Princess Anaka), I now possess good ol' Kharis, and for that, I'm eternally grateful. 

Collectible TIme: LIFE's Mummies: Enchantment, Horror, and Mortality

LIFE has a new, macabre submission on magazine racks. Mummies: Enchantment, Horror, and Mortality, written by Richard Jerome, covers the archival and cultural influence of these long-preserved cadavers, as demonstrated by the above cover design featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the tongue-less Kharis, from Universal's The Mummy's Ghost, and in the studio's below lobby card with Boris Karloff as The Mummy's forerunning Imhotep.

A predominate part of Jerome's scholarly periodical is dedicated to the natural, ceremonial and scientific means that have made mummies an integral part of life--and death--over various regions of the globe, from antiquity to modern times. The procedural details, shared through the magazine's confirming photos, are as awe-inspiring as they are morbid. 

The curse myth, associated with the disinterred Tutankhamen, is also explored, though as Jerome implies, such mummified mystique captured the public's fancy years prior to Tut's excavation, resulting in the German silent, The Eyes of the Mummy, but the 1922, Howard Carter/Lord Carnarvon discovery did, without any speck of doubt, spur Karl Freund's 1932, Karloffian hit, and the rest is cinematic history. 

The text further explains how the in-demand, resurrection notion was rehashed for The Mummy's Hand, with Tom Tyler taking the musty reins from Karloff, with Imhotep renamed Kharis; and from there, Chaney Jr.'s The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse followed, with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy concluding the series with the titular monster redubbed Klaris and enacted by stuntman Eddie Parker. 

Along with Universal's shares, Jerome explores Hammer's contributions, highlighting the 1959, Kharis redux with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, joined by various, mystical spinoffs and variants, which consist of Mexican wrestler/crusader, El Santo in Vengeance (Revenge) of the Mummy, The Aztec Mummy inserts; Ann Rice's Ramses the Damned; the Brandon Fraser and Tom Cruise-led, Universal reboots; and Marvel/Disney's mirthful-to-a-fault Moon Knight. 

Jerome's compilation is encyclopedic and enjoyable, guaranteed to bring hours of avid page-turning. Indeed, this one belongs in everyone's library.

LIFE's Mummies: Enchantment, Horror, and Mortality can be purchased at supermarkets and drugstores nationwide.