The Mummy (1932)

There’s just something about mummy movies that’s always turned me off. In my point of view, the mummy just never was able to compare to the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man in the scares department. All the dude really does is shuffle around at the speed of your great grandma while maybe stretching out the occasional arm towards a potential victim for dramatic flare. A two year old could evade him, and my cat would have him unwrapped in about two minutes. Plus, any dude that still loves the same woman after thousands of years seems to be a wee bit obsessive...get over it dude, think Princess Amon would have done the same for you? However, while I still think the mummy is a rather lame guy I have to give credit where credit is due, starting with the picture in question for this review, 1932’s “The Mummy”.

. Starring the great Boris Karloff as Im-Ho-Tep, high priest of ancient Egypt who was buried alive for sacrilege, in his case attempting to use the mystical Scroll of Thoth to return his dead love to the land of the living. Flash ahead to modern day Egypt (well, 1934 at least) as a pair of archeologists have discovered Im-Ho-Tep’s sealed tomb containing his mummified corpse and the Scroll of Thoth. Unable to resist, a nitwitted young researcher mutters the mystical words of the scroll which immediately resurrects Im-Ho-Tep. Ten years later, Tep shows up in the form of one Ardeth Bey, a wrinkled old dude that shows just a little to much interest in a young lass named Helen, the proposed reincarnation of Bey/Tep’s long lost Princess Amon. The rest of the picture deals with Bey working his black magic against those that would interfere with his proposed plan of sacrificing Helen so she can live again as Amon, or something to that effect.

In a sense, “The Mummy” basically swipes the story of “Dracula”, and gives you mummies instead of vampires, with several of the same characters from “Dracula” playing just about the same roles here. Actually, you don’t even get mummies, as Karloff is only wrapped up in the opening scenes of the film, and in a particularly nasty flashback segment. But where “Dracula” gave you a fantastic opening and then stalls, “The Mummy” keeps things going with plenty of Egyptian mumbo jumbo, terrific cinematography, and a genuinely eerie vibe throughout the film. The opening scene of a re-animated Tep is truly terrific; make-up artist Jack Pierce did a top- notch job on the mummy costume that required Karloff to withstand over 8 hours in the make-up chair to get the desired results. No wonder we don’t see too much of the mummy eh? The only drawbacks are the ones typical of older films, the always lame “romance angle” and the occasional overacting, though these are all minor complaints mind you. A much better film than “Dracula” and one that truly established Universal Pictures after the success of “Frankenstein”.