Two Films by Seth Holt

"His virtues are things of bits and pieces," wrote Andrew Sarris of Seth Holt.  This is true of Holt's last two films, Danger Route (1967) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), both recently shown on Turner Classic Movies. Holt died, at the age of 47, before finishing the latter film; it was completed by Michael Carreras. Holt was championed by "Movie' magazine as a director trying to break out of the genteel tradition of British films, as was Michael Reeves, who died at 27.  Both directors were considered guilty of what critic Robin Wood called "the fallacy of bad taste" in their attempts to make personal genre films with limited budgets.

Danger Route was one of the many films of the 60's that attempted to cash in on the James Bond phenomenon.  Jonas Wilde, played by Richard Johnson (who looks a bit like Sean Connery) was something of an anti-Bond, not using any gadgets and killing people with his bare hands.  He doesn't seem to take much pleasure in sex except to the extent he can use women to accomplish his goals, as he does here with a rather frumpy-looking Diana Dors, who is the housekeeper of a mansion Wilde is trying to break into.  There is a lot about US-England rivalry and a great deal about class conflict in Danger Route, Wilde eventually being betrayed by his friends and even his shack job (Carol Lynley).  One friend, attempting to kill Wilde, says how much he resents those in the upper classes who run the intelligence operations, "unless you're in the upper classes you'll always be a sheep, never a shepherd"

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, from Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars, fits in nicely with Hammer Studio's roster of horror films.  In 1959 Terence Fisher made The Mummy for Hammer and Fisher was by far Hammer's best director of horror, his films being rather cerebral period pieces about Frankenstein, Dracula, et al.  Holt was much less comfortable with this kind of material, though he gets credit for playing it straight (with the slight exception of naming a character Tod Browning, the name of the original director of Dracula), with the help of Valerie Leon, playing a modern reincarnation of an exotic Egyptian "Queen of Darkness."   Holt's film follows the basic blueprint of most Mummy films from 1932 to the present:  a Mummy comes to life in an attempt to retrieve items stolen from a tomb.  The film takes place in the present day, though it is quite stylish and if it weren't for the modern motorcars and purple shirts it could almost be Edwardian.