The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

Director:

Harold Young

Writers:

Neil P. Varnick (story)
Griffin Jay (writer) ...

Release Date:

23 October 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

BURIED FURY!...stalking to life from the depths of doom! (print ad from Realart re-release)

Plot:

A high priest travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who...

Plot Keywords:

Mummy | Egyptian Curse | Cemetery | Fire | Revenge

Cast

Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Kharis, the Mummy (as Lon Chaney)
Dick Foran	...	Stephen Banning
John Hubbard	...	Dr. John Banning
Elyse Knox	...	Isobel Evans
George Zucco	...	Andoheb
Wallace Ford	...	'Babe' Hanson
Turhan Bey	...	Mehemet Bey
Virginia Brissac	...	Mrs. Ella Evans
Cliff Clark	...	Sheriff
Mary Gordon	...	Jane Banning
Paul E. Burns	...	Jim, the caretaker
Frank Reicher	...	Professor Matthew Norman
Emmett Vogan	...	Coroner

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #8655) | UK:X (1952) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Company:

Universal Pictures

Goofs:

Continuity: When the Mummy is first awakened and travels to the Banning house, one of the neighbors is awakened by a shadow moving across her face. She wakes up her husband to tell him. He then looks out the wrong window to try spot the cause of the shadow. The moonlight comes in from a different set of windows.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Creature Features: Frankenstein/The Mummy's Tomb (#1.9)" (1970)

The Mummy's Tomb (1942) **1/2

This 61 minute sequel begins with roughly about 10 minutes of stock footage from the previous film (THE MUMMY'S HAND), and I'd like to get that out of the way right from the beginning because it seems to unnecessarily bother a lot of monster fans who didn't go to the theater in 1942 when THE MUMMY'S TOMB first premiered. It should be taken into account that these first two Universal installments were released a couple of years apart back in their day, and it was during a time in our history when we didn't even have the luxury of television, much less something as convenient or extravagant as a "home video theater". Today we can watch these films over and over, and back to back; but in the early '40s it wouldn't have been so easy to recall where the story of Kharis the mummy left off two whole years ago, and that's in the context that this repetitive footage should be considered.

After being refreshed of the last films' Egyptian exploits of novice archaeologists Steve Banning and Babe Jenson (now mistakenly referred to as Babe "Hanson", an error which is NOT as easily excusable!) we move ahead 30 years where the mummy of Kharis (newly played by Lon Chaney) is stuck in America with current high priest Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey). Why it's taken so long is anyone's guess, but Mehemet has a mission to unleash the mummy on Steve and Babe (Dick Foran and Wallace Ford, reprising their parts in senior citizen's makeup) for daring to defile Kharis' tomb three decades earlier.

This is strictly a "B" level programmer without many trimmings, but it's still an entertaining one. Lon Chaney looks menacing in his dingy mummy outfit which properly shows some of the effects of the fire which consumed him once upon a time. Chaney absolutely hated playing the restrictive part of Kharis, yet he wound up grumbling through it for two more sequels following this one. Harold Young's pedestrian direction is nothing much to get excited about, but we do get some chilling sequences of Kharis creeping around modern-day Mapleton, Massachusetts on dark and windy evenings, which are a plus. Turhan Bey is perfectly cast as the mummy's foreign protector, and lovely Elyse Knox is easy on the eyes as the love interest to John Hubbard, who doesn't leave much impression as Steve Banning's son. One can nitpick on the inconsistency of these mummy sequels forever; for example, even though TOMB occurs thirty years after HAND and should therefore be set in 1970, everyone still dresses and acts like it's 1942. But what the hell -- taken for what it is, THE MUMMY'S TOMB is a fast and fulfilling hour of mindless fun.