The
Mummy’s Hand (1940) – 6.0
Universal waited eight years before bringing back the Mummy. Part of the reason that it did is likely the success of the re-releases of Frankenstein and Dracula as a double feature. It did gangbusters and Universal dove back into the horror genre. They were to make four Mummy films - called the Kharis Quartet (by me). But Universal didn't have enough confidence apparently to make a top tier film and so kept the budgets at the B level. That is clear almost immediately as we view the Temple of Princess Ananka and the face sculpted into the stone walls is obviously not Egyptian but Aztec or Inca. Not surprising since they were using the set of Green Hell which takes place in the Amazon jungle and had been directed by James Whale earlier in the year. They also use footage from the first Mummy film (1932) in a flashback scene. The budget was $80,000 which went a lot further back then but not that much further. It certainly didn't allow them to hire any well-known actors and a director who had over 160 credits but none that you have likely heard of (Christy Cabanne).
Still this isn't a bad film especially if you measure it on the B film scale. They make do with what they have. Most of the budget must have gone into the bandages and make-up of the Mummy. He is terrifying and back then I bet he scared the hell out of people in the audience. His face is like looking into an evil black shiny slippery hole. After 3,000 years of being buried that is how you probably look if you have not decayed. Because Kharis, the mummy, has been alive for 3,000 years waiting to be reunited with the Princess. Let's go back into time. Kharis was in love with Ananka and when she died he snuck into her tomb and stole some Tana leaves that give you eternal life. His plan was to bring her back to life with them. My question is if the Egyptians had this leaf why did she die and why did the Pharaohs die. Mix a few leaves in with your tea and live forever. I would in a minute. Kharis though is caught before he can do this and is buried in a coffin with the Tana leaves to keep him alive. Ok - if I had to be entombed, maybe I would not take the Tana leaves.
Back to the present - Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his comedy relief companion Babe (Wallace Ford) are stuck in Egypt with no money or prospects. Banning is apparently a famous archeologist but that doesn't even get him a bus token home. In a bazaar he finds a vase that looks like they picked it up in Woolworth the day before but it is an ancient vase with a map to Ananka's tomb! Just sitting there. The two of them talk a magician from Brooklyn with an Irish accent (Cecil Kellaway) - who always reminds me of a large Leprechaun - into financing the expedition and he throws in his pretty daughter (Peggy Moran - later married director Henry Koster and dropped out of show biz) into the deal.
But watching all of this is one of our favorite B movie villains - George Zucco - who is a High Priest of the Cult of Kharis. Hell, if Trump can have a cult why not a mummy buried for 3,000 years. His duty is to stop anyone from entering the Tomb of Ananka and if he has to wake up Kharis with an overdose of Tana leaves so be it. Zucco was to say that he hated these roles but they paid the bills and have made him a favorite of many 80 years later. Of course, Banning gets the girl but it is honestly the comedy relief that does the heavy lifting but comedy relief never gets the girl. The next one is The Mummy's Tomb in 1942 and Lon Chaney takes over the Mummy role. This one had Tom Tyler.
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) – 5.5
Two years after The Mummy's Hand this very peculiar and unique sequel from Universal was released. Can't think off-hand of another sequel quite like it. It is now 1942 with thirty years having passed in movie time. The war is on and I was hoping that somehow Nazi's would be involved in this but no luck - but there are two references to the ongoing war. A reporter mentions that his choices were covering this story or covering the Russian front and one of the characters gets called up to serve. This is better than you might expect with echoes of Frankenstein, King Kong and anti-foreigners in it. If you look hard for them. The actors are bland but serviceable.
Stephen Banning (Dick Foran), the archeologist from the first film is alive and well and is relating the story of the Mummy to his neighbors for probably the 50th time. He is the local bore and no one believes his fancies including his grown son, John (John Hubbard). For a moment I mistook this for an episode of How I Met Your Mother since he ended up marrying the woman from the first film who has now passed away (in reality that actress Peggy Moran was getting married and cutting back on her career). This rehash with clips from the first film takes up ten minutes of the 60-minute film. But back then it was probably useful with two years in between films. John is in love with a cutie (Elysie Knox) from down the street in this small American town. Everything seems just fine. Karma though has a long reach and is in no rush.
But across the world things are stirring - turns out that the High Priest
(George Zucco) wasn't killed as we had thought and neither was the Mummy
Kharis (now being played by Lon Chaney Jr). He is passing the reins of his
Priesthood to a younger man played by the Turkish Turhan Bey who deserved
so much better and would soon get it in a number of adventure tales. For
a few years he was the Exotic Hunk of Hollywood. Turhan has orders to take
Kharis to America and kill all those with the blood line of Banning. Three
Tana leaves to wake him up, nine to make him a psychotic and give him GPS.
That would be Banning, his son and his Scottish accented sister played by
Mary Gordon. And the comedy relief from the first film is still alive and
shows up. Babe (Wallace Ford) has no laughs in him this time as the Mummy
goes on the prowl.
Mummy's are like Zombies - you can out run them but not into a dead-end street preferably. At one point, Turhan decides he needs to have some Elysie just as his predecessor got a hard-on for Peggy Moran. A big no-no in the Priesthood. He tells Kharis to go get her so that he can give them both Tana leaves and live together forever. I am thinking don't you want to get to know her a little better. Forever is a long-term commitment. Kharis gives him this look through the bandages, mold and decay that implies I am here to kill. I am not a pimp. A good B film that is surprisingly dark with some great shots of Kharis carrying the woman through the graveyard and up the trellis with hundreds of torch-bearing townspeople chasing after him. I hope his house had Mummy Insurance as they burn it down to get at the Mummy. The house is called the Shelby House and was The Spider Woman Strikes Back home as well as making appearances in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Man Made Monster, Brute Man and Son of Dracula*. Back then of course the audience saw nothing wrong with grave-robbing the ancients - and bringing the goods to America. That has changed. Maybe we should be rooting for Kharis.
* - from the book Universal Horrors by Tom Weaver, John Brunas.
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) – 5.5
Kharis is alive! He lives! He lives! We all thought we had seen the last of the Mummy two years previously in The Mummy's Tomb when he appeared to die in an inferno of fire. But a Mummy is a hard thing to kill. So is a sequel. Apparently, he escaped the fire and has been in hiding for these many months. Being so inconspicuous it was not hard. He probably disguised himself as a bundle of dirty laundry. But then one night with the full moon gleaming above he smells the scent of burning Tana leaves. A professor is trying to understand how the Mummy had lived so long and decided to burn Tana leaves. Nine of them. Like catnip to the Mummy and sure enough he limps to the home of the professor and does the strangle hold on him. The town goes into a frenzy. Not him again. Yes, the first Freddie Kruger.
Meanwhile back in Egypt, it turns out that George Zucco as the elderly priest is alive as well. I thought he died in the last one. And the first one. He finds a new acolyte in the form of John Carradine and sends him on a new mission. Find Kharis and bring him and Princess Anaka back to their burial ground. On the campus the 31-year old Robert Lowery is playing a university student madly in love with Amina. Of Egyptian heritage. Every time she gets near a book on Egyptology she gets the chills. What could that mean? When Kharis kills the professor she goes on a sleep walking jaunt in her white nightgown. Humma humma humma. Played by Ramsay Ames, she could bring Kharis to full manhood without the Tana leaves. Best image in the film. She was the evil wife in The Inner Sanctum - Calling Dr. Death and I think I went humma humma humma then too. Another beautiful B actress that never could get to the next level due to either talent, bad luck or not sleeping with the right people. In her case I guess it was talent. Later when she wakes up surrounded by the Priest and Kharis she just goes "Who are you" like she met the milkman at the door. The role was actually suppose to go to Cult actress Acquanetta but on one of the first days of shooting she had an accident and was knocked out. And they rushed in Ames from another lot.
The twosome break into a museum that is holding Ananka's body. A sweet reunion. In a sense these Mummy films are love stories. A man carrying a torch for 3,000 years. How many of us could do that? My limit is two months. He just wants to be with the one he loves as opposed to being in love with the one he is with. Admirable. But oops, her body is gone along with her soul. Transferred without permission into another person. And take a wild guess who that person is. The film moves along as slowly as the Mummy at times. And he just kills a bunch of old slow men. Not fair. I didn't like that. Lowery is a brick of an actor. Lon Chaney Jr. played Kharis again. I wonder what that was like. Wrapped in bandages without a word of dialogue. Easy to remember your lines I guess. Chaney once said that underneath all the bandages was a hip flask of vodka that he sucked on all day. A good ending to an otherwise sludgy film. And with Kharis dying again, there is no way there can be a sequel. So the end of Kharis, right? In the cast is also Barton MacLane as a cop of course. He spends five minutes of the film digging a trap for Kharis that is then forgotten about and left in front of someone's home. I see a lawsuit coming.
The Mummy’s Curse (1944) – 6.0
Damn. The Mummy is Back! And so is Princess Ananka. This is the fourth and sadly last in the Kharis Quartet. I think this might be my favorite. Love is in the air. Well, in the swamp anyways. The last we saw of Kharis in The Mummy's Ghost he was sinking into a bog carrying the rapidly aging Ananka in her new human form. Twenty years have passed since then but mysterious deaths in the Louisiana bayou have people talking about the Mummy again. It seems somehow Kharis managed to get from Mid-west America to Louisiana with his girl. Hitchhiking? Is there a series of swamps from there to the bayou? And why Louisiana? The Cajun music? Why swamps? The humidity must play hell with his bandages. But nevertheless that is where he is but he has lost Ananka in the murky muddy swamps.
A company has come to drain the swamps and this wakes up Kharis and he goes back to his bad habit of very slowly walking toward people and strangling them. In one lovely scene a couple pick up Ananka who has fainted on the road and take her to their car unaware that Kharis is literally inches away but unable to speed up. Two academics from the same museum as in the last film show up to look for Kharis. One of them is Egyptian (Peter Coe). Oh oh. Yes, a secret follower of Kharis! They are everywhere. Martin Kosleck who is a helper is one as well. In one of the better scenes in these films, the ground begins to stir after part of it has been dug up. A hand emerges, then an arm and finally the body of Ananka (Virginia Christine) looking young, lovely and very dirty. After a dip in the swamp she is a doll. I guess those mud skin treatments really work. She has no idea who she is but Kharis does and comes looking. People who get in the way die.
The ending definitely left room for another sequel, but no go. These films were actually much better than I expected or had read opinions of. Not great by any means, but at an hour they are rather fun. A Mummy is not really an exciting character per se - moves slowly and has nothing to say for himself. But the back story is always fascinating and the make-up is wonderful. As I said before, this is a love story behind the horror. Instead of keeping Ananka in a museum for people to ooh and ahh about, why not reunite her with her love in the dry sands of home. Just do the right thing. Still a little disappointed that the plots never brought evil Nazis into the story.
Universal waited eight years before bringing back the Mummy. Part of the reason that it did is likely the success of the re-releases of Frankenstein and Dracula as a double feature. It did gangbusters and Universal dove back into the horror genre. They were to make four Mummy films - called the Kharis Quartet (by me). But Universal didn't have enough confidence apparently to make a top tier film and so kept the budgets at the B level. That is clear almost immediately as we view the Temple of Princess Ananka and the face sculpted into the stone walls is obviously not Egyptian but Aztec or Inca. Not surprising since they were using the set of Green Hell which takes place in the Amazon jungle and had been directed by James Whale earlier in the year. They also use footage from the first Mummy film (1932) in a flashback scene. The budget was $80,000 which went a lot further back then but not that much further. It certainly didn't allow them to hire any well-known actors and a director who had over 160 credits but none that you have likely heard of (Christy Cabanne).
Still this isn't a bad film especially if you measure it on the B film scale. They make do with what they have. Most of the budget must have gone into the bandages and make-up of the Mummy. He is terrifying and back then I bet he scared the hell out of people in the audience. His face is like looking into an evil black shiny slippery hole. After 3,000 years of being buried that is how you probably look if you have not decayed. Because Kharis, the mummy, has been alive for 3,000 years waiting to be reunited with the Princess. Let's go back into time. Kharis was in love with Ananka and when she died he snuck into her tomb and stole some Tana leaves that give you eternal life. His plan was to bring her back to life with them. My question is if the Egyptians had this leaf why did she die and why did the Pharaohs die. Mix a few leaves in with your tea and live forever. I would in a minute. Kharis though is caught before he can do this and is buried in a coffin with the Tana leaves to keep him alive. Ok - if I had to be entombed, maybe I would not take the Tana leaves.
Back to the present - Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his comedy relief companion Babe (Wallace Ford) are stuck in Egypt with no money or prospects. Banning is apparently a famous archeologist but that doesn't even get him a bus token home. In a bazaar he finds a vase that looks like they picked it up in Woolworth the day before but it is an ancient vase with a map to Ananka's tomb! Just sitting there. The two of them talk a magician from Brooklyn with an Irish accent (Cecil Kellaway) - who always reminds me of a large Leprechaun - into financing the expedition and he throws in his pretty daughter (Peggy Moran - later married director Henry Koster and dropped out of show biz) into the deal.
But watching all of this is one of our favorite B movie villains - George Zucco - who is a High Priest of the Cult of Kharis. Hell, if Trump can have a cult why not a mummy buried for 3,000 years. His duty is to stop anyone from entering the Tomb of Ananka and if he has to wake up Kharis with an overdose of Tana leaves so be it. Zucco was to say that he hated these roles but they paid the bills and have made him a favorite of many 80 years later. Of course, Banning gets the girl but it is honestly the comedy relief that does the heavy lifting but comedy relief never gets the girl. The next one is The Mummy's Tomb in 1942 and Lon Chaney takes over the Mummy role. This one had Tom Tyler.
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) – 5.5
Two years after The Mummy's Hand this very peculiar and unique sequel from Universal was released. Can't think off-hand of another sequel quite like it. It is now 1942 with thirty years having passed in movie time. The war is on and I was hoping that somehow Nazi's would be involved in this but no luck - but there are two references to the ongoing war. A reporter mentions that his choices were covering this story or covering the Russian front and one of the characters gets called up to serve. This is better than you might expect with echoes of Frankenstein, King Kong and anti-foreigners in it. If you look hard for them. The actors are bland but serviceable.
Stephen Banning (Dick Foran), the archeologist from the first film is alive and well and is relating the story of the Mummy to his neighbors for probably the 50th time. He is the local bore and no one believes his fancies including his grown son, John (John Hubbard). For a moment I mistook this for an episode of How I Met Your Mother since he ended up marrying the woman from the first film who has now passed away (in reality that actress Peggy Moran was getting married and cutting back on her career). This rehash with clips from the first film takes up ten minutes of the 60-minute film. But back then it was probably useful with two years in between films. John is in love with a cutie (Elysie Knox) from down the street in this small American town. Everything seems just fine. Karma though has a long reach and is in no rush.
Mummy's are like Zombies - you can out run them but not into a dead-end street preferably. At one point, Turhan decides he needs to have some Elysie just as his predecessor got a hard-on for Peggy Moran. A big no-no in the Priesthood. He tells Kharis to go get her so that he can give them both Tana leaves and live together forever. I am thinking don't you want to get to know her a little better. Forever is a long-term commitment. Kharis gives him this look through the bandages, mold and decay that implies I am here to kill. I am not a pimp. A good B film that is surprisingly dark with some great shots of Kharis carrying the woman through the graveyard and up the trellis with hundreds of torch-bearing townspeople chasing after him. I hope his house had Mummy Insurance as they burn it down to get at the Mummy. The house is called the Shelby House and was The Spider Woman Strikes Back home as well as making appearances in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Man Made Monster, Brute Man and Son of Dracula*. Back then of course the audience saw nothing wrong with grave-robbing the ancients - and bringing the goods to America. That has changed. Maybe we should be rooting for Kharis.
* - from the book Universal Horrors by Tom Weaver, John Brunas.
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) – 5.5
Kharis is alive! He lives! He lives! We all thought we had seen the last of the Mummy two years previously in The Mummy's Tomb when he appeared to die in an inferno of fire. But a Mummy is a hard thing to kill. So is a sequel. Apparently, he escaped the fire and has been in hiding for these many months. Being so inconspicuous it was not hard. He probably disguised himself as a bundle of dirty laundry. But then one night with the full moon gleaming above he smells the scent of burning Tana leaves. A professor is trying to understand how the Mummy had lived so long and decided to burn Tana leaves. Nine of them. Like catnip to the Mummy and sure enough he limps to the home of the professor and does the strangle hold on him. The town goes into a frenzy. Not him again. Yes, the first Freddie Kruger.
Meanwhile back in Egypt, it turns out that George Zucco as the elderly priest is alive as well. I thought he died in the last one. And the first one. He finds a new acolyte in the form of John Carradine and sends him on a new mission. Find Kharis and bring him and Princess Anaka back to their burial ground. On the campus the 31-year old Robert Lowery is playing a university student madly in love with Amina. Of Egyptian heritage. Every time she gets near a book on Egyptology she gets the chills. What could that mean? When Kharis kills the professor she goes on a sleep walking jaunt in her white nightgown. Humma humma humma. Played by Ramsay Ames, she could bring Kharis to full manhood without the Tana leaves. Best image in the film. She was the evil wife in The Inner Sanctum - Calling Dr. Death and I think I went humma humma humma then too. Another beautiful B actress that never could get to the next level due to either talent, bad luck or not sleeping with the right people. In her case I guess it was talent. Later when she wakes up surrounded by the Priest and Kharis she just goes "Who are you" like she met the milkman at the door. The role was actually suppose to go to Cult actress Acquanetta but on one of the first days of shooting she had an accident and was knocked out. And they rushed in Ames from another lot.
The twosome break into a museum that is holding Ananka's body. A sweet reunion. In a sense these Mummy films are love stories. A man carrying a torch for 3,000 years. How many of us could do that? My limit is two months. He just wants to be with the one he loves as opposed to being in love with the one he is with. Admirable. But oops, her body is gone along with her soul. Transferred without permission into another person. And take a wild guess who that person is. The film moves along as slowly as the Mummy at times. And he just kills a bunch of old slow men. Not fair. I didn't like that. Lowery is a brick of an actor. Lon Chaney Jr. played Kharis again. I wonder what that was like. Wrapped in bandages without a word of dialogue. Easy to remember your lines I guess. Chaney once said that underneath all the bandages was a hip flask of vodka that he sucked on all day. A good ending to an otherwise sludgy film. And with Kharis dying again, there is no way there can be a sequel. So the end of Kharis, right? In the cast is also Barton MacLane as a cop of course. He spends five minutes of the film digging a trap for Kharis that is then forgotten about and left in front of someone's home. I see a lawsuit coming.
The Mummy’s Curse (1944) – 6.0
Damn. The Mummy is Back! And so is Princess Ananka. This is the fourth and sadly last in the Kharis Quartet. I think this might be my favorite. Love is in the air. Well, in the swamp anyways. The last we saw of Kharis in The Mummy's Ghost he was sinking into a bog carrying the rapidly aging Ananka in her new human form. Twenty years have passed since then but mysterious deaths in the Louisiana bayou have people talking about the Mummy again. It seems somehow Kharis managed to get from Mid-west America to Louisiana with his girl. Hitchhiking? Is there a series of swamps from there to the bayou? And why Louisiana? The Cajun music? Why swamps? The humidity must play hell with his bandages. But nevertheless that is where he is but he has lost Ananka in the murky muddy swamps.
A company has come to drain the swamps and this wakes up Kharis and he goes back to his bad habit of very slowly walking toward people and strangling them. In one lovely scene a couple pick up Ananka who has fainted on the road and take her to their car unaware that Kharis is literally inches away but unable to speed up. Two academics from the same museum as in the last film show up to look for Kharis. One of them is Egyptian (Peter Coe). Oh oh. Yes, a secret follower of Kharis! They are everywhere. Martin Kosleck who is a helper is one as well. In one of the better scenes in these films, the ground begins to stir after part of it has been dug up. A hand emerges, then an arm and finally the body of Ananka (Virginia Christine) looking young, lovely and very dirty. After a dip in the swamp she is a doll. I guess those mud skin treatments really work. She has no idea who she is but Kharis does and comes looking. People who get in the way die.
The ending definitely left room for another sequel, but no go. These films were actually much better than I expected or had read opinions of. Not great by any means, but at an hour they are rather fun. A Mummy is not really an exciting character per se - moves slowly and has nothing to say for himself. But the back story is always fascinating and the make-up is wonderful. As I said before, this is a love story behind the horror. Instead of keeping Ananka in a museum for people to ooh and ahh about, why not reunite her with her love in the dry sands of home. Just do the right thing. Still a little disappointed that the plots never brought evil Nazis into the story.