Universal originally wanted to follow up Boris Karloff’s success in Frankenstein with a movie called Caligostro – but this script was rewritten by John Balderstone, who made it a mummy story.In fact, it really is a remake of Dracula: the plot has a bunch of men trying to protect a woman from an otherworldly force, complete with David Manners as the boyfriend, Edward van Sloan as a Van Helsing type, an ancient Egyptian symbol with the powers of a crucifix, the mummy having power of underlings, the girl being drawn against her will towards the mummy, Karloff trying to transform the girl into a mummy to keep him company, and the mummy being destroyed by a sunlight equivalent (burning the scroll).
The Dracula template actually humanises the mummy story. In the sequels it was often hard to care about this rampaging creature in bandages – but Karloff spends most of his time out of make up so you can make a connection. (As he points out to the girl - "I’ve suffered for thousands of years for you the least you can do is be killed".) It helps that Jack Pierce’s make up for the mummy is very effective – far more than it was for later movies.
Boris Karloff isn't quite believable as a sexy suave type who can seduce Zita Johann with his eyes but he's great with the doomed unrequited love stuff, and looks terrific as a mummy. Zita Johann is sexy in a series of bra-less outfits (even if her performance is a bit stiff at times) and Manners and Van Sloan are fine. Bramwell Fletcher goes enjoyably mad during the opening sequence - it's a shame he couldn't have been brought back to the action as a sort of Renfield-type figure. Noble Johnson plays "the Nubian".
Other parallels to Dracula - the opening sequence is very strong, and the film gets bogged down as it goes along. Also you get the feeling the girl would have been better off with her otherworldly lover as opposed to David Manners.
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