Movie review - "The Awakening" (1980) **

 Nothing wrong with elevated horror but sometimes it's so elevated you don't have the required sex, suspense, violence. This is a version of Bram Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars. It takes too long to get going - should have started with the birth, Stephanie Zimablist is too nice and polite in a role that needs someone exotic and strange (and her character is introduced far too late - the story should be about her being possessed). Charlton Heston is fine. Susannah York isn't bad just feels under-utilised.

The story hints at themes not developed - incest, death, so on. I can see why Orion asked for it to be recut. The writers Chris Bryant and Allan Scott adapted Don't Look Now and what this needed was Nic Roeg not Mike Newell at the start of his career. 

Oh and you can tell moments where they've gone "make it more like The Omen." 

Top Ten Hammer Horror Leading Ladies

 1) Ingrid Pitt - fabulous star, can't believe she only did two for the company, should've done a heap more

2) The Collinson Twins - a gimmick yes, not sure there was a second film in these two, but a fabulous gimmick

3) Raquel Welch - suited the world of Hammer better than you'd think - her successors in cave outfits never had the same impact

4) Ursula Andress - wonderful in her film, again should've done more with the company

5) Valerie Leon - bewitching, captivating, helps make her mummy film a classic, deserved another movie

6) Barbara Shelley - perfected the sad eyes, secretly-wants-it look, finally got an actual lead in Blood Island 2 but wasn't done justice - still, probably the woman who did best out of Hammer

7) Martine Beswick - had probably the best role for a woman in Hammer as Sister Hyde and did very well

8) Susan Strasberg - she never became the great actress that she was predicted to become but she was very good and developed a neat line in "woman who is terrified" that was very well used in Taste of Fear 

9) Stephanie Beacham - a bright light from a dim period for Hammer

10) Natassa Kinski- her presence is clearly problematic but she has genuine charisma and is perfectly cast 

Movie review - "The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008) **1/2

 It was a bright idea to move the setting to China and deal with those mummies. There's fast action and colours. The whiteness of the leads is distracting - even the supporting characters, I mean, come on - and there's too many heroes to service. There's Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello (not as good as Rachel W) and their son, Luke Ford. In particular Fraser and Ford are too similar - swashbuckler-y types. Really they should have had Ford be a kidnap victim and have his parents go to rescue him. 

If they couldn't have Rachel Weisz back they should have killed her character off screen and had Fraser romance a Chinese lady for fresh romance.

Fun to see Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh just a shame they couldn't have bigger parts. Ditto one feels more could've been done with John Hannah.

Movie review - "The Mummy" (2017) ** (re-viewing)

 There are irritating things about the movie - Tom Cruise too old for his character, the female lead isn't up to the job (how about giving one of his old time leading ladies a gig), stock action, all the Dark Universe set up. But it's not the main problem.

The main problem is clear - Tom Cruise could be cut out of the movie. There's no connection between him and the mummy. He let her out but... so what?

If Tom had been the descendant of her old love and the mummy did it for love, you would have had a hit.

The film has no DNA.

I felt for the production people.

Movie review - "The Mummy Returns" (2001) ***

 Silly, fun, colourful, over the top, tongue in cheek. Rachel Weisz doesn't get credit for what she brought to these movies - as well as the loveliness factor she grounds them in reality. John Hannah's part is trimmed but that's a good thing.

It was a bright idea to skip forward a few years so they had a kid who could be the stakes. Solid action.

Movie review - "The Mummy" (1999) ***1/2

 This is fun. Silly. Over the top. Colourful. It works.

Brendan Fraser's goofines softens the character. Rachel Weiz is charming. John Hannah is fine.

Some of the support cast underwhelms, particularly the rival treasure hunters.

I wish it wasn't as racist as it was.

Movie review - "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971) **1/2 (re-watching)

I've seen this a few times and it never makes sense even though surely the basic story is simple. Christopher Wicking never did like writing uncomplicated screenplays and Seth Holt's death during filming wouldn't have helped. Some of it is silly such as the convincing flashbacks to ye olde Egypt and there's little chemistry between Andrew Keir and Valerie Leon - Cushing (the original choice) would've been far better.

And yet... the film has as certain magic about it. The circumstances of its production of course, but also the bewitching Valerie Leon, all curves and flashing eyelashes - Hammer should have given her another lead, like Ingrid Pitt she was a star. Keir is professional and actors like James Villiers and George Colouris are excellent. It's fun seeing an Aussie bearded Mark Evans as Leon's love interest, called "Tod Browning". There's neat severed hands and fun costumes. It's very patchy but is its own thing.

Movie review - "The Mummy" (2017) ** (warning: spoilers)

A famous misfire, one of those films that inspired a "pile on" of critical disdain. There are some good things about it - technically its very fine, handsome looking with some impressive effects. I like Jake Johnson and Russell Crowe (ideal casting as Jekyll and Hyde!) and Sofia Boutella has a great look. The start of the film is solid, even if it was a slight stretch to have Cruise go treasure hunting while on patrol for the arm (and why need that? Why not have him as ex army).

But it's confusing - I had trouble following what was happening especially after Cruise died and came back to life. There was stuff about possession and souls and back from the dead and gods and daggers and rubies and stuff - I got lost.

There's no emotional underpinning of anything. I never knew why Tom Cruise was so important to Boutella's mummy - she wanted him to be her husband was that it? In the best mummy movies the mummy was driven by love - he was a former priest going after the reincarnation of his former love. Very simple - that powered everything. Why not just use that - have Boutella think Cruise was the reincarnation of her lost love or something? Everything would've made sense - her drive, the rivalry with Annabelle Wallis.

The movie is also hurt by miscasting. I have so much affection for Tom Cruise but he's not growing into his looks - he's in great shape for a 55 year old but he's no longer a cocky kid. What's a 55 year old doing as a sergeant in the army and fortune hunting on the side? Why not use his age? Why not cast him opposite someone more age appropriate?

Wallis is poor as the female lead. There's so many other good looking female actors out there they could've used (how much would Kate Winslet have cost?)

I went in with an open mind. I wanted to like it. I feel it needed to be simplified. And maybe add a few more scenes that were scary.

Book review - "Cagliostro: The Great Impostor" by Nina Wilcox Putnam (2009)

It's not surprising that the magician Cagliostro attracted the attention of Universal execs looking for a vehicle for Bela Lugosi, and then later Boris Karloff in the early 1930s - the mad mysterious physician inspired several books and films over the years. But the treatment turned out here by Nina Wilcox Putnam isn't very good - it simply rips off Dracula with its story of an immortal man who falls in love with a young woman who looks like his former love - only she's in love with a handsome young man who has a Van Helsing style mentor. There's black servants and a killing spree and invisible rays - it isn't very scary or memorable. What's more there's not much Cagliostro either - just "Dr Astro" (it's set in the present day). However you can see several things which were later used by John Balderstone when he turned this into The Mummy.

It is a shame Lugosi or Karloff never got to play Cagliostro - and certainly both men made movies with worse stories than the one here. But this was definitely not a Classic that got Away and Universal made the right decision not to make it.

Movie review - "Dr Phibes Rises Again" (1972) **1/2

Considerably less good sequel to the original in part because Phibes motivation isn't as good - he revives himself and wants to revive his wife (why didn't he do this in the first film?) only to discover that the scrolls he had to do this have gone missing. So he enlists the use of his assistant (who died in the first film, something irritatingly overlooked especially as there was no need for it - he could have enlisted another hot assistant) and goes about knocking off the people who stole his scrolls using exotic Egyptian methods... when really his focus should be on helping his wife.

So the story isn't as logical or emotionally satisfying - the love Phibes had for his wife, which drove the first one, is muddier. There's also too much narration. But Price is in strong form and he has excellent adversaries in Robert Quarry (who wants to live forever) and Fiona Lewis, as his lover, and the movie gets better as it goes along.

The production design and costumes look impressive and it at least attempts to be smart. It would have been nice to see a third Phibes movie, if only because it gave Price such a great role.

Movie review – “The Mummy’s Shroud” (1967) **

The third of Hammer’s mummy cycle starts with an eight minute prologue – mummy movies love their exposition – then kicks into a standard story: expedition pokes around studio set substituting for Egypt; discover a tomb despite native opposition and warnings; members of the expedition start dying. Unfortunately the expedition hole up a hotel and basically hang around to be killed off one by one – this gives the story a static quality. Most of the drama in between killings is handled by the ruthless head of the expedition (John Phillips). The cast lacks star power – it includes Andre Morrell and Michael Ripper – and the low budget hurts. It cries out for some old style gorgeous set design or photography but that isn’t the case. The mummy doesn’t even look like a traditional mummy. Having said that director John Gilling has fun with deaths –and the mummy is more active and virile here than usual. The female lead (Maggie Kimberley) isn’t the best actor in the world but she has a striking, unusual beauty.

Movie review – “Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb” (1964) **1/2

Sons of moguls seem to be important kicking off horror cycles – Carl Laemle Jnr was crucial for Universal horrors, and Hammer horrors were partly driven by Tony Hinds and Michael Carreras. This film was written, produced and directed by Carreras, and is not among the most highly-regarded of the Hammer horrors, but it’s not bad.

There is a lack of star power – the closest thing to a marquee name is Fred Clark, the American comic banana, who hear plays a Yank showman sponsoring a mummy expedition (he's a little like Carl Denham in King Kong). Of course this induces a curse. Although there is a girl in the story (the daughter of the leader of the expedition – who has his hands chopped up in a striking opening sequence), she’s not a reincarnation of anyeon. However, there is an Egyptian who has been walking the Earth for 3,000 years so there is a vampire influence.

Decent action, some humour from Clark (the film's a lot less lively once he dies), pretty average mummy make up, a dreadful performance from the female lead. It’s about the standard of a Universal mummy film of the 40s, without that great photography.

Movie review – “Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb” (1971) **

Famously troubled Hammer production – Peter Cushing had to pull out of filming after his wife became terminally ill (he was replaced with Andrew Keir), director Seth Holt died during filming (Michael Carreras stepped in to complete the job). It’s a bit of a hodge-podge but I’m unclear how much of that is due to the troubles – Hammer were capable of making smooth productions that turned into a hodge podge.

The plot of this has beautiful Valerie Leon realising (surprise) she may be the reincarnation of an Egyptian sorceress dug up by her dag (Keir). Some of it doesn’t make sense – Keir’s kept a mummy in the basement all these years? – and potential themes of them film are undeveloped (eg does Keir have incestuous designs on his own daughter?). It's confusing in spots and the writing feels lazy at times, with Andrew Keir conveniently knocked out for most of the running time

I saw this as a kid and my most vivid memory was Leon’s sexy bare back as she got changed in the dark – that remains the case today. It isn’t particularly suspenseful or scary, partly because there’s no “real” character, except for arguably Leon’s boyfriend (whose name is Tod Browning – presumably a dig of the screenwriter, a former film journo ).

Leon isn’t the best actor in the world but she’s gorgeous and really looks like someone who could be English and Egyptian (love that Eygptian bra); although she uses a body double for her brief nude scene (a bare back and bottom) her breasts dominate the film in various low cut dresses like few actresses ever did – it's reminiscent of Jane Russell in The Outlaw. There's some good acting from Keir and villain James Villiers, a high death toll and a memorable ending. It’s not a disaster by any means – with a bit more care it could have been really good, but it’s still entertaining.

Movie review – “The Mummy” (1959) **1/2

Following their success with Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer set about doing versions of other famous monster tales – Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, Hound of the Baskervilles, and the Mummy (I’m surprised they never had a crack at the Invisible Man.) A contract with Universal enabled them to raid films in the mummy series: this borrows not just from the Karloff Mummy but also The Mummy’s Hand and the Mummy’s Ghost (and of course the stage version of Dracula, which inspired so much of the Karloff Mummy). This was made by the Hammer A team - Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster, Cushing, Lee – but it’s not one of their classics.

There’s an opening sequence in a faraway land where someone goes mad – cut back to England where said mad person is in a loony bin (Peter Cushing’s father – it’s weird seeing Cushing play someone’s son). Cushing isn’t quite right in the lead but Christopher Lee is effective as the mummy (not that much praise, I know, but he looks believable in flashback); the art design is typically excellent and there are some good (if too frequent) action sequences but the story gets a little dull at times.

The majority of the plot concentrates on the mummy getting revenge for being dug up but them throws in a Cushing’s-wife-looks-just-like-Lee’s-lost-love subplot towards the end; too little too late. Still, Hamer went on to make a number of other mummy films, including The Curse of the Mummy, The Mummy’s Shroud, and the Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (the latter being a cursed production during the making of which director Seth Holt and Peter Cushing’s wife died).

Book review – “Hammer Horror” by Dennis Meikle

All of film genres it are horror and sci fi which seem to inspire the greatest devotion. Heck, I should know, I’m among them – so there are always books about Bela Lugosi and Boris, George Pal, Star Trek, Universal horrors, Roger Corman, etc. England’s leading contributor to this are the Hammer horrors of the 50s and 70s. Meikle’s book is one of a number of works on the subject, but it is probably the best. Excellently researched, well written, with a genuine fondness for the films (though he does criticise them, and the people who made them) and an understanding of how they are made.

The success of Hammer horror had some interesting correlations with most popular cycles - Bonds, Universals, Cormans, Poes, etc – a series of happy accidents. Economic factors combined with the right people at the right time leading to a terrifically successful series of pictures.

Hammer was a small company with off-and-on beginnings which go back to the 30s. It was basically created by two families, Carreras and Hinds, with father-son combos involved. The company was involved in distribution and production and didn’t really get going until after World War Two, when they thrived producing cheapie double features for the British quota market. Some of these had minor American stars eg Lloyd Bridges, and many were adapted from British radio. Both these things were present in The Quartermass Experiment, taken from the BBC radio serial and starring Brian Donlevy. This was a big success and encouraged Hammer to move further into the sci fi/horror genre.

Television started eroding their bread and better B picture market so they rolled the dice with colour and struck gold with Curse of Frankenstein. This film featured a fortuitous group of talent who would form the core of Hammer’s subsequent success – Peter Cushing, Jimmy Sangster, Chris Lee, Terence Fisher, Bernard Robinson (sets), Jack Asher (DOP), etc. (Just like the Bond films it was wonderfully lucky alchemy that Richard Maibaum, Sean Connery, Terence Young, Ken Adams, Maurice Binder, Broccoli and Salztmann all came together on Dr No – and ditto the group that gathered for AIP’s Poe cycle: Corman, Matheson, Price, Crosby, Haller, Baxter).

In hindsight, and only in hindsight, there were many reasons for Hammer’s success – just the right amount of violence and sex at just the right time, the Britishness gave the films a feeling of class many low budgeters lacked, the star performances of Lee and Cushing. Dracula and a second Frankenstein confirmed it, along with Camp on Blood Island (apparently a hit at the time although people don’t seem to talk about it much nowadays).

Hammer tried to expand their range. An attempt to break into US TV failed. Hound of the Baskervilles was a so-so Doyle adaptation. A more mainstream picture, Ten Seconds in Hell, flopped – Michael Carreras blamed Robert Aldrich for taking over and being a pain (although how big a hit was a film starring Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance going to be? Also it was about bomb disposal – those films are always tricky to make exciting eg Blown Away, Small Black Room, Juggernaut). The ambitious Two Faces of Dr Jekyll underperformed, throwing out the ambitions of Michael Carreras (including a plan to adapt The Picture of Dorian Gray). Meikle argues for a reappraisal of Bride of Dracula, says Peter Cushing gave his greatest performance in Captain Clegg, and claims that Losey’s The Damned was the best film ever made by Hammer.

The early 60s were an odd time for Hammer. Films which should have been sure-fire hits like Curse of the Werewolf and Phantom of the Opera actually flopped (Hammer hoped to get Cary Grant for Phantom – it wasn’t a lunatic fancy, Grant expressed interest in being in a Hammer film for a bit – but why then give the role to Herbert Lom over Christopher Lee, who badly wanted to play the role? Ok yes they were irritated Lee didn’t then want to play Dracula again – but surely they could have used the role to bribe him.) But they would have hits with sub-cycle films, like Pirates of Blood River, and psycho thrillers (eg Taste of Fear), and perhaps their most well-known non-horror genre, Hammer Glamour – adventure tales starring shapely women (She, One Million Years BC). They also kept turning out Dracula and Frankenstein sequels as well as other horrors (Meikle is a fan of Plague of Zombies). These films plus American investment saw Hammer get its second wind in the mid 60s, it’s own contribution to the booming English film scene of the time.

One Million Years BC was Hammer’s biggest financial success but attempts to duplicate it (Lost Continent, Slave Girls) didn’t not work as well. Despite respectability with the Queens Industry Award for Exports and the occasional later film of quality – Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Devil Rides Out – the tide had started to run out. The Dracula films got steadily worse, Tony Hinds left the company, they lost their American partners. Lesbian vampires brought in some money and a new star (Ingrid Pitt) but the films just got worse and worse.

James Carreras sold what was left of the company, which wasn’t much (the name, really, and a few properties – the co-producers had most of the back catalogue) to his son Michael, who tried to keep things going, but couldn’t due to a combination of the hostile filmmaking environment and his own shortcomings (he lacked his dad’s salesmanship and connections, and for all his understandings of the nuts and bolts of filmmaking didn’t seem to be that good at creative stuff. Just look at the scoreboard, especially his non-Hammer words).

Hammer ended with To the Devil a Daughter and – irony – the unloved remake of The Lady Vanishes. This last bit makes depressing reading – father and son separated; Dad wound up with cash, lots of mates and a mistress but dissatisfied, as a lot of once-powerful men do when they hit retirement. Michael Carreras seems to have lost all his dough. Depressing ending to an enthralling book.

NB I can’t weep for Hammer’s unrealised 70s projects (including a big budget co-production with Toho, Nessie). But one potential classic that got away – Richard Matheson adapted I am Legend, to be made by Hammer as a follow up to Curse of Frankenstein… but the British censors nixed it!! (Hammer sold the script to Robert Lippert who turned it into the unremarkable Last Man on Earth. But imagine it with those Hammer production values).

Movie review – Mummy #5 - “The Mummy’s Curse” (1945) **1/2

The last of Universal’s mummy films – at least, until Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. It takes place a number of years after the last one, with engineers wanting to drain the swamp in which the mummy and his girlfriend disappeared last into. (For anyone who came in late, there are flashbacks to bring you up to speed). The mummy turns out to be not in the swamp but in another tomb, and the girl comes back to life via the sun. Of course there is another villainous Egyptian priest along to help keep things mischevious. 

The addition of this girl (Princess Ananka played by Virigina Christine, a different actor from the girl who played the role in The Mummy’s Ghost) to the action adds freshness to the series – it’s like a new character. (She doesn’t seem to have suffered too much from being decomposed all that time). 

Unfortunately, they don’t exploit the potential of this as much as they might eg why not have the archaeology guy fall in love with her or something? What does the archaeology guy’s girlfriend think of it? (A great potential love triangle and they ignore it). 

By the end the story turns into the regular mummy kidnapping the girl and shenanigans with tanna leaves and humans trying to save the day, with a mob of people running up a hill. There’s also a bit where one of the mummy priest’s servants gets hot for a girl and tries to have his way with her, resulting in him killing the priest (something similar happened in The Mummy’s Ghost). 

The film lacks star power – there’s Lon Chaney Jnr but no George Zucco, John Carradine or even Turhan Bey (Peter Coe steps in instead). Dennis Moore, the unmemorable male lead, makes you long for Dick Foran. There is a comic lawdy-lawdy black American (who says things like “the mummy’s on the loose and he’s dancing with the devil”). 

But there are some fun things. I really enjoyed the mummy tearing apart a gaol to get at a baddie and having it collapse on him, as always the photography and sets are enjoyable, and the non-Ananka female lead is quite sprightly and engaging.

Movie review – Mummy#4 - “The Mummy’s Ghost” (1944) **1/2

For those who came in late, audiences are brought up to date about the mummy history and the havoc it’s wrecked on various expeditions by a withered old George Zucco and then a university professor, Professor Norman. Both characters were in the previous film, giving the series a sort of continuity, though the roles of both men are small.

In this one Zucco sends off another minion – John Carradine – with the mission of bringing the mummy back to Egypt to guard the tomb of the dead princesss. He cooks up some leaves, which is apparently enough to get the mummy rising from the swamp… whereupon he promptly kills the professor (thereby continuing another tradition i.e. if you survive one mummy film, chances are you’ll be killed off in the next one).

The professor’s at a college where one of the students conveniently turns out to be a reincarnation of the princess. (This dodgy coincidence would be repeated in Hammer's 1959 Mummy.) Carradine ends up falling for her- which sets off the mummy – which is the most interesting thing about the movie, but that all takes place in one scene. The rest of it is just the mummy killing people and the reincarnated princess feeling weird.

Carradine always looked like a fire and brimstone preacher, so he’s well suited to play what essentially is an Ancient Egyptian version of the species, all lean fanaticism. His performance is the best thing apart from the movie, apart from the Universal black and white photography and the mummy mumbo-jumbo; Lon Chaney is the mummy but again it’s hard for him to show much character (though the mummy has more in this one, getting angry at Carradine… but as previously stated too little is made of this).

The male lead is a particularly wet college student complete with sweaters and one of those triangle flags on his wall, played by a 4F leading man; at least it’s a neat twist that he loses the girl in the end (no kidding – she winds up submerged in a swamp).

Movie review –A&C #35 - “Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy” (1955) **

Abbott and Costello are in Cairo and get involved in mummies. The basic plot is the standard mummy one – devotees of the mummy try to protect it through murder. Abbott and Costello are actually the only sympathetic characters in this – everyone else is trying to kill them, whether they’re defending the mummy’s tomb or trying to grave rob it (Meet the Keystone Cops at least had a sympathetic studio head).

This is a so-so work, not very strong but peppered with good moments: the exciting opening acrobatic dance number, the lounge singer who “doesn’t want to be asked out”, a routine involving pitches, three mummies running around at the end, Abbott and Costello trying to get rid of a medallion. John Grant again gets sole screenplay credit (based on a story by others) – he was clearly better writing routines rather than stories. He died just before this film was released.
Abbott has a little more to do in this one than he did in most of their later films: not only is it he not Costello who is falsely accused of a crime (usually it’s poor old Costello), but he gets to dress up as a mummy. Marie Windsor is fun as a treasure hunter. This was the last film Abbott and Costello made for Universal, whom they saved from bankruptcy many times.

Movie review – Mummy #3 - “The Mummy’s Tomb” (1942) **1/2

The mummy’s back and he’s not happy. This is a real sequel in that it is very heavily influenced by The Mummy’s Hand, including an extensive opening flashback to that film (the first ten minutes of the movie – and it’s only a 60 minute movie) and starring Dick Foran as the same character 30 years on. 

This is a better movie because the story is cleaner and gets going earlier – the mummy is out for revenge against Foran and his family for what they did in the previous movie. This has shades of Dracula at first, with Turhan Bey as a sort of suave Renfield escorting the mummy in a coffin across the seas, but then the film more turns into Frankenstein, with the monster roaming the countryside and abducting a girl and the townsfolk getting whipped up into a frenzy, lighting up the torches and turning into a mob to save the day. 

There are two great shocks – major characters from the earlier film are both killed, even though they're old (they survived the first one through being a romantic male lead and comic sidekick respectfully; but here they’re old men and thus at risk – the romantic male lead here survives). While the two romantic leads are bland (the leading man is a classic wartime 4F star and it isn't helped that he leads the mob at the end - mob leaders aren't terribly sympathetic), Bey shines in a silky youthful villain turn (like Zucco in the first film he falls in love with the leading lady a bit too conveniently); also it’s great to see George Zucco again, and there’s the bonus of Lon Chaney Jnr playing the mummy (though to be fair it is hard to tell he’s there under that make up). 

Mummy movies lack the humanity of vampire or Frankenstein films – since you don’t really see the mummy’s face there’s not the same emotion. The big advantage they do have is the ancient Egyptian connection, with ensuing atmospheric mumbo-jumbo.

Movie review – Mummy #2 - “The Mummy’s Hand” (1940) **

Son of Frankenstein brought the horror film back in a big way so it was only natural that Universal decided to resurrect the mummy franchise (and the Invisible Man franchise, and the Dracula franchise, etc, etc). A semi-remake of the 1932 Mummy as opposed to a sequel, it starts out with a huge whack of surprisingly violent exposition – a lot of stuff about the priest tormented by love for a princess whose tongue is cut out and who is buried alive and slaves were killed and there is a curse etc etc. (Bonus points if you can understand all the rules involving the mummies.) George Zucco is meant to guard the tomb but lunkish Dick Foran (an unconvincing archaeologist and odd romantic lead) and his wacky Brooklyn sidekick get on the case.

The film is almost 50% over before the tomb is dug up and the mummy goes on a rampage; before then there is a lot of comedy (Cecil Kellaway adds some into the mix as a magician who backs the expedition – indeed once the rampage is on most of the tension comes from wondering whether one of the comic relief will die, since you know Foran and the love interest won’t).

This has a jokey swashbuckling tone – the 1999 remake took its cue from this rather than the Karloff Mummy. The sense of love across the ages isn’t as strong – the mummy and Egyptians are a lot less sympathetic. Zucco adds class as a villainous priest and the photography is as always in Universal horrors a delight but it’s a bit undercooked as a film – Zucco sacrificing the love interest at the end feels a bit rushed, the finale is flatly staged.