The Rumored Mummy Storyline

[PennyDreadful]

     I've encountered several rumors to the effect that DS was plaiing a mummy storyline following 1897, and that this idea was dropped in favor of the Leviathan storyline.  A poster on the old DS  newsgroup even stated that they had read about it in a blurb from a 1969 TV Mirror magazine.  He posted that the blurb claimed something to the effect of: "the Collins family in the present will have to deal with a living mummy from Egypt."   

    Does anyone have any information or specifics on this reputed storyline?  I'm very curious to find out if this was really something the DS writers & Dan Curtis were planning, and what this storyline might have entailed.

    I'd bet dollars to doughnuts they would've wrapped up our fav fuzzball Alex Stevens in those bandages! 

[MagnusTrask]

Everyone, someone, has to get the info. on this, get it actually written or something, and basically make it good enough that it'll be possible for me to rewrite my memory, so that all this replaces the Leviathans in my head and soul.   Only this way can I be happy. 

Hard, considering a mummy would just be like the dead people Jeb and Gerard summoned up... staggering and throttling.    Building a storyline around that?   I don't know.    Hard to have a creature who doesn't transform into a regular-seeming human part of the time... he doesn't take part in things, except for those throttling moments, which can't go on for long.    The rest of the time, people have to talk about how scared they are of him.   That gets old too.    Some person controlling a mummy could be more of a focus for the story I guess.

[Fletcher]

This is interesting.  I had never heard that rumor.  Although, I wouldn't have been crazy about a mummy storyline, I think I would have enjoyed it more than the Levitahan story -- which i really think was the beginning of the end for DS.  I always enjoyed DS best when it was recreating one of the classic horror stories. Anytime they left the classics, I enjoyed the show a lot less.

They toyed around with a short Egyptian storyline in 1897, when Laura and Quentin came back from Egypt.  Maybe the present-day mummy story would have had some connection to that.  Perhaps Quentin had done something scandelous in Egypt and now the mummy and his protector had searched through time to find him.  Or maybe Quentin had a cache of Egyptian antiquties hidden somewhere, among them a mummy.  Could have been fun.

I just couldn't get into the Levithan storyline.  Those people seemed to have only a contrived connection to the Collins famiily.  And why would a group like the Leviathan's choose little old Collinsport?  I just couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to invest in it.

[CyrusL]

  I think the only substantiation would be that Dan Curtis once said, "I would have put a mummy up in Collinwood if I could have figured out how to get one in Maine." or something very close to this. I just can't remember if which tape it's on, as I think it was on camera rather than a written interview. I think the other thing that adds to this lore is that I have also heard more than once, including from Diana Millay herself, that she was asked to if she could come back to the series. This was during the last few months, so had the show gone past the 1841 story, there were plans to bring Laura back, who is naturally the best character to attatch a mummy storyline of some kind to.  

Michael 

[Nelson Collins]

I think a mummy storyline might have worked well, if they had taken a page or two from Universal's 1932 version.  In other words, the mummy awakes and performs a spell to bring him back to full life, the way Karloff's Imhotep did.  After all, since DC picked up the reincarnated love storyline from that film to form the basis of the early Barnabas/Maggie story, I think it's only fair they ought to have done a mummy story and tried to twist it another way. 

[Raineypark]

The coast of Maine is a cold, damp place.  A Mummy would have rotted faster than fish on the docks.

Not that physical  realities were EVER allowed to interfere with plot devices on DS...

[Nelson Collins]

The coast of Maine is a cold, damp place.  A Mummy would have rotted faster than fish on the docks.

Not that physical  realities were EVER allowed to interfere with plot devices on DS...

Oh, there are lots of ways around that.  Even the 1932 version of the The Mummy was set mostly in London, wasn't it.  Hardly the driest of countries 

I imagine they could have a small exhibit visiting the Collinsport Museum or a few artifacts (including a mummy) on loan from a larger museum for display at the local library or something, then have a middle eastern sorcerer come to town looking for the mummy and brings it to life with a spell from an ancient Egyptian scroll.  The living mummy turns on its resurrector killing him, performs additional spells to make itself completely human and takes the identity of the dead sorcerer.  He decides to settle in Collinsport while he makes his plans.  He has a servant, the dead Sorcerer whom the Mummy brought back to life to serve him.  However, the spell  that made him human is only temporary you see, he must do something else, sacrifice a virgin to Anubis and/or find a ancient Egyptian relic that has magic properties to bind the spell permanently.  I do think it would be too much to try to redo the Maggie/Josette story, but maybe instead he falls in love with the woman fated or foretold that he must sacrifice to make himself permanantly human.  So he puts off the big spell as long as he can, killing others to prolong he temporary human existance.  If he goes too long without sacrificing someone he begins to revert to his true age and appearence.  In the end, he must choose his life or the life of his true love and he ends up choosing his own life, but the woman he loves is saved and the mummy reverts to being a mummy again, and the servent/sorcerer/zombie keels over dead......

[Raineypark]

Why do I get the distinct impression you have an entire screenplay of this tale, hidden at the bottom of a desk drawer somewhere, Nelson Collins?....

[Nelson Collins]

Why do I get the distinct impression you have an entire screenplay of this tale, hidden at the bottom of a desk drawer somewhere, Nelson Collins?....

LOL.  Thanks very much!  However, believe it or not, all of that came gushing off the top of my head... (now isn't THAT a vivid image  )

[Raineypark]

Well, if DS had ever gotten around to a "Mummy" story arc, I'd have been in favor of it.  Especially if it was set (like the original movies) in the early 1930's.  I'm a great fan of Art Deco design, which borrowed liberally from ancient Egyption design.  The tomb discoveries of the 1920's were the inspiration for the 1925 Paris World's Fair "Exposition Internationale Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes"

And from that came the fashions we think of as "flapper" style, which, I'm pretty sure, has already been discussed here.  It would have been a wonderful visual treat to see the DS actors dressed in those debonair suits and the ladies in such stylized gowns.

But we were talking about mummies, weren't we?.....

[onyx_treasure]

The coast of Maine is a cold, damp place.  A Mummy would have rotted faster than fish on the docks.

Not that physical  realities were EVER allowed to interfere with plot devices on DS...

     I got a kick out of this.  I remember how everyone knew Josette was around by the smell of jasmine and Daphne was the scent of lilac.  Everyone would be able to escape because a stinking slow moving mummy would be hard to miss.  Raineypark,  your wry, right between the eyes observations always crack me up.

[Nelson Collins]

Well, if DS had ever gotten around to a "Mummy" story arc, I'd have been in favor of it.  Especially if it was set (like the original movies) in the early 1930's.  I'm a great fan of Art Deco design, which borrowed liberally from ancient Egyption design.  The tomb discoveries of the 1920's were the inspiration for the 1925 Paris World's Fair "Exposition Internationale Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes"

And from that came the fashions we think of as "flapper" style, which, I'm pretty sure, has already been discussed here.  It would have been a wonderful visual treat to see the DS actors dressed in those debonair suits and the ladies in such stylized gowns.

But we were talking about mummies, weren't we?.....

I like that idea a lot!  While I was "gushing" earlier I thought about how it might have been incorporated into 1897 or somesuch, but Depression era Collinsport?? WOW.  I love it.  When were Elizabeth and Roger born?  Could David Henessy and Sharon Smyth or Denise Nickerson have been the right age to play Liz and Roger as children?    Visiting the museum or library where the mummy was on display and Roger teasing and scaring Elizabeth about burying someone in the basement....... hehehehehe

[Raineypark]

  Raineypark,  your wry, right between the eyes observations always crack me up.

You're too kind.....

[Nelson Collins]

BTW, Rainey, I love your avatar, where did you find it?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

When were Elizabeth and Roger born?  Could David Henessy and Sharon Smyth or Denise Nickerson have been the right age to play Liz and Roger as children?

Liz was supposedly born in 1917 and Roger in 1925. So, Sharon Smyth (heaven forbid!  ) or Denise Nickerson (a much better choice) might have been able to play Liz as a child during the Depression, but David Henesy would have been too old for Roger. However, if the storyline took place in the early-to-mid '30s, David Jay, who was so annoying as Alexander during the Leviathans storyline, might have made for a perfect pre-pubescent Roger.    (Alexander was almost exactly how I picture Roger as a child.  ) And if the storyline took place far enough into the '30s, how about Kathleen Cody as Liz - perhaps Liz, like Joan Bennett herself, was actually a blonde? 


Yes, the more I think about it, the better I like it. Just think of the horror of Kathleen Cody and David Jay as the Depression Era Collins children!