MummysGhost

The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

This is the 4th movie in the Universal Mummy series. This one picks up after the events of the Mummy’s Tomb. The action starts in Egypt with another high priest, Yousef Bey, being sent to America to recover the lost Mummy of Kharis. Kharis, who everyone was presumed to have been destroyed, is actually still intact and Bey is given instructions on how to return him to life or I suppose his unlife. After restoring the Mummy Bey discovers that the soul of Ananka has been reincarnated into a local Egyptian girl so he sends off the Mummy to recover her so that they all may return to Egypt. But Bey is weak and falls in love with the girl, which leads to the Mummy getting out of control.

This is a pretty weak entry into the franchise. The story is very thin and is again a rehash of the standard Mummy story with Kharis basically looking for his girlfriend again, while yet another priest is trying to destroy the infidels and return the princess to her homeland. There is nothing new or interesting about the story or the presentation. In spite of the movie barely breaking the hour mark I still found myself bored with it at times. Hell included in that hour is a fairly generous retelling of the original Kharis story using the same footage that we will see again and again from the original movie, which this one also ignores. Now that said there are a few cool things about the movie. First of all when the action picks up towards the end it does get kind of cool. I mean we have all seen the “villagers”, which are New England townsfolk this time around, chasing down the monster. But in the Mummy’s Ghost I was rather shocked, and be aware there is a spoiler here, that they didn’t save the girl and that the Mummy got his bride this time around! Our heroic male lead fails to save the day. Which I suppose makes the yippy little dog the real hero of the movie, since he is the only one that figures out where the Mummy is half the time. That sort of amuses me.

The cast is solid with Lon Chaney Jr. donning the mummy makeup again. Though he really doesn’t get to do much with the character other than shuffle around the sets. This movie does boast a decent cameo from returning character (Jason isn’t the first movie villain to repeatedly come back from the dead) Andoheb played again by the great George Zucco. Toss in a decent performance from John Carradine and you have a nice set of actors portraying the bad guys (for lack of better words). Too bad our heroic characters are as interesting. Speaking of Chaney this is the 2nd consecutive movie where it seems like they started to really cut back on the makeup. The mummy doesn’t look bad, but it is nowhere near as good looking as the original from 1932 or The Mummy’s Hand.

If you are a collector and fan like myself you will most likely want to watch The Mummy’s Ghost so that you have seen them all. And the fact that it is included on the Mummy Franchise Collection with the rest of the movies makes it easier to justify buying it. But over all this really is at best a mediocre effort form a series that really never did justice to the original anyway.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer