Tut-ankh Amen’s Tomb (Daily Sketch Topical Budget 600-1)

“No discovery of our time has so moved the whole world,” proclaims an intertitle introducing this special extended newsreel edition. For once, Topical Budget’s characteristic hyperbole is on the money. The discovery and excavation (some would say grave-robbing) of the tomb of the 14th Century BC Egyptian pharaoh was already an international sensation by the time this newsreel screened in February 1923. The sense of breathless excitement surrounding the discovery extends to Topical’s intertitles, which expend a good portion of the film’s running time explaining the relatively fleeting, poor quality images of the excavation itself. But we do get to see the removal of an ebony, ivory and gold chair, and two glimpses of expedition leader Howard Carter – in long-shot from behind as announced in an intertitle, but also a much clearer, unheralded shot at the ‘halfway rest house’, where he cuts a dash in white shirt and trousers.