PHARAOH’S CURSE. United Artists, 1957. Mark Dana, Ziva Rodann (as Ziva Shapir), Diane Brewster, George N. Neise, Alvaro Guillot, Ben Wright. Director: Lee Sholem.

   Sometimes low-budget features pleasantly surprise you. Despite a near complete lack of critical appreciation, Pharaoh’s Curse is everything you could hope for from a somewhat obscure 1950s horror film, and more.

   True, the director Lee Sholem is more widely known for churning out timely product than for any particular artistic vision. And yes, the actors and actresses in the cast are hardly household names. But if you give the movie a chance and dig a little deeper, you may just unearth a dusty little nostalgic treasure in the form of a charmingly simple archaeological-themed thriller.

   At a running time of less than seventy minutes, Pharaoh’s Curse doesn’t indulge in too much backstory. The movie gets into the heart of the matter pretty quickly. American-accented British officer Captain Storm (how’s that for a name!) is dispatched from Cairo to find out what has happened to an international archaeological expedition.

   Along the way, Storm (Mark Dana) and his party encounter a mysterious exotic woman by the name of Simira (Israeli actress Ziva Shapir). She claims that her brother is with the expedition and that she knows the quickest way to get there. Sounds simple enough, right?

   As it turns out, the archaeological party is already knee deep in trouble, having broken the seal on a mummy’s wrappings. And you know what that means, of course! A curse and a living corpse back from the dead determined to guard his tomb against would-be grave robbers.

   There’s also the matter of Simira. Who, or what, is she exactly and what is her relationship with the ancient Egyptian past? It’s up to the intrepid Captain Storm to solve a supernatural mystery emanating like a hot desert wind out of the distant Egyptian past!

   Now don’t get me wrong. Pharaoh’s Curse is hardly of the same quality, aesthetically or dramatically, as Hammer Films’ The Mummy (1959), which I reviewed here and which stars the always wonderful to watch Peter Cushing. Pharaoh’s Curse is filmed in black and white rather than in lavish color; Death Valley, California has to stand in for Egypt; and the characters occasionally meander down the same interior hallways.

   That said, the actors all appear to be taking their roles seriously, lending this movie a spunky authenticity notably absent from so many science fiction and horror films from the same era. The movie may never be a classic, but that doesn’t stop it from being thoroughly escapist fun.