A couple of young, out-of-work archaeologists in Egypt discover evidence of the burial place of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka. After receiving funding from an eccentric magician and his beautiful daughter, they set out into the desert only to be terrorized by a sinister high priest and the living mummy Kharis who are the guardians of Ananka’s tomb.
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Chaney, like Karloff, hated the Mummy makeup (Chaney was no fan of the Wolfman transformation, either). Karloff said his Mummy make up took longer than Frankenstein. My question is why not put Chaney's name over the title for marquee value (which was done) but let a Chaney double or Tom Tyler, the original Mummy in "The Mummy's Hand" play the monster. With all that makeup and rags, it's difficult to recognize Chaney anyway. Besides, half the time the Mummy stumbles around in virtual darkness. How long is Chaney actually in the three films he did as the Mummy? Maybe 20 minutes each, if that? Pay Chaney, let's say, $2,000 for his name on the marquee in each picture, but let Tyler do the heavy lifting. To satisfy Tyler (who'll probably get the scale salary), list him in the beginning and end credits, but give him a character name NOT in the movie.
To get one thing out of the way up front, this movie scored as well as it did because the cast is so likable. Yes, the characters they play are idiots, but the actors do a fine job of inhabiting their roles and all the "good guys" mean well and try to do well. And George Zucco gives one of his best performances as the evil priest who wants the secret of the Mummy kept secret. Alas, the movie's attempt to mix comic relief with horror didn't work for me. Half the time I felt as if I was watching "Abbott and Costello" instead of an actual horror film. If I wanted light hearted tributes to the old Universal horror icon's I would seek it out - here it is unwelcome, at least to me. Not a bad movie by any means - but not one I really want to watch again.
The first in Universal's fun Kharis the mummy series. The plot is about a couple of archaeologists (Dick Foran and comic relief Wallace Ford) teaming with a magician and his daughter (Cecil Kellaway, Peggy Moran) to search for the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka. But George Zucco is entrusted to guard the tombs of Egypt and uses the living mummy Kharis (Tom Tyler) to try and stop the outsiders. Often referred to as a sequel to The Mummy, it's really not despite the use of stock footage from that film. The mummy character and his lost love are given different names in this one. Instead of Imhotep we now have Kharis and instead of Ankh-es-en-amon we have Ananka. Also, now instead of the mummy himself being in control of his actions, he's now controlled by George Zucco through use of tana leaves.The cast is great, with Foran and Ford surprisingly likable heroes. I say surprisingly because both men were hit or miss with me in some of their earlier work in the 1930s. Cecil Kellaway is always enjoyable. Peggy Moran is lovely and has a badass moment or two before becoming the damsel in distress. Tom Tyler is no Boris Karloff but the role really requires very little that a stuntman couldn't do. Tyler would go on to be in the Captain Marvel and Phantom serials, which are great fun. The real star of the film is horror legend George Zucco. He's one of those great old stars that made movies better just by his presence. He's awesome in this.While none of the Kharis series ever matched the original Mummy's quality, they do bring more action and humor to the table. Oh, and more mummy as well since Karloff's bandaged mummy only appears briefly in that film. In this series, the mummy is front and center throughout. This first film in the series is the best. It's a fantastic, old-fashioned horror-adventure film that young and old alike can enjoy. If you're a fan of Universal horror films like me, movies like this are a real treat and have immense rewatchability.
It's a kind of ragout of Hollywood genres -- murder mystery, spoof, romance, story of exotica. Dick Foran is an archaeologist who stumbles on an ancient vase with precious secrets encrypted in its hieroglyphics. Wallace Ford is his comic sidekick. George Zucco is the fez-capped, oleaginous villain. Cecil Kellaway is a good-natured stage magician who joins Foran and Ford in their search for the ancient MacGuffin. Peggy Moran is the female.By this time, Universal Studios must have just about reached pattern exhaustion in its monster series. Dracula and Frankenstein had appeared eight years earlier and -- well, how many times can you revive the good Count or the hand-crafted monster. What is there left for them to DO? The original mummy with Boris Karloff appeared in 1932 as well but hadn't been exploited so ruthlessly. Maybe they thought it was time to revive Kharis again. It was a mistake. An entirely new approach appeared in, I think, 1948, with "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Universal said, "To Hell with it," and threw together Frankenstein's monster, Count Dracula, and the Wolfman in a farce. It worked pretty well. But then Universal ran THAT pattern into the ground. In the next few years Abbott and Costello met every monster in the Universal franchise and some that weren't.This is an inexpensive production. It seemed to me aimed more at kids than adults. It's hard to believe that Mary Shelly's original "Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus" was a serious look at the directions in which the scientific revolution might take us.
