Famous Hollywood Hills in California, USA. Hollywood Sign. California Photo Collection.

By Kallie Stahl 

This summer Falvey Library is going to the movies! Well, we’re using our beloved Library’s resources to research the coolest film scenes set in libraries. So grab a seat and a box of popcorn because the we’re going to look at when libraries go to Hollywood.

The Mummy (Universal Pictures). Image courtesy of IMDB.

Yes, the 1999 cinematic masterpiece starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

The Mummy has a bit of everything…adventure, horror, comedy, and romance. The film is one of the last “action-adventure” films produced before the rise of the superhero blockbuster. Not overly dramatic or serious, the show never gets too dark, offering audiences plenty of opportunities to laugh despite the ongoing conflict with the awakened mummy, Imhotep.

While The Mummy doesn’t feature an iconic library (like the University of Pennsylvania’s Fisher Fine Arts Library in the film Philadelphia), books play a crucial role throughout the movie. One of the main characters, Evelyn “Evy” Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), is a librarian and aspiring Egyptologist working in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. The introduction to the character is a fun scene, as she accidently knocks over every bookshelf in the museum’s library.

Books drive the storyline, as Evy, her brother Jonathan (John Hannah), and Richard “Rick” O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) travel to the lost city of Hamunaptra to find the book of Amun-Ra. On their trip, Evy reads a page from the Book of the Dead, which resurrects the mummy. Not to spoil too much of the plot, but Evy’s ability to read hieroglyphs proves helpful in solving the mummy’s mystery (“Take that, Bembridge scholars!”) You can watch the movie using Falvey’s Interlibrary Loan service.

Looking for more libraries featured on film? Explore the resources below.

Libraries on film in Falvey’s collection:

• The Name of the Rose
• The Time Machine
• The Day After Tomorrow
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• All the President’s Men
• Harry Potter

More movies featuring libraries via Interlibrary Loan:

• The Music Man
• The Breakfast Club
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Se7en
• Clue
• National Treasure

Want to win a cool “Falvey Says Read” tee shirt? Email your favorite movie library to libraryevents@villanova.edu, and we’ll pick a winner at random!

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library.