“I must take you into my confidence and warn you. There is a curse which says that all persons present at the opening of a Pharaoh’s coffin and who gaze at the face of the mummy therein, shall die. You have been warned!”

Another class act from the Hammer stable, Curse can be summed up as "the one where lots of people get their hands lopped off".

For despite a large amount of plot, terrific acting and some top notch thrills, that's what sticks in your mind. Within the first couple of minutes some poor unfortunate has been spreadeagled between two posts by a bunch of blacked-up actors from the home counties in Arab outfits, whereupon he is stabbed and has his hand chopped off.

The hand appears on his daughters bed as a warning.

What's more, the Mummy has lost his hand before the film even starts, and is no less scary for it. As usual the bandaged one is sworn to protect the tomb and kill everyone who desecrated it - bad news for Prof Stiff-Upper-Lip, young Miss Damsel-In-Distress and assorted Tommy Cooper impersonators and teatowel headress wearers.

It's difficult to pick holes in a film which rightly deserves the term classic, whilst avoiding all the pitfalls of similar efforts which also make that claim. It's not camp, over the top or badly acted - just a solid, serious thriller which tells a good tale and even manages to have a twist near the end.

It also has what must rank as one of the top ten nasty movie deaths, when the monster, having broken into the hero's house hotly followed by the ineffectual police, stamps on a cringing Egyptian's head. Of course, this being the 60s you don't actually see the guy's head explode, but the noise it makes, and the looks on the other actor's faces is enough.