The Mummy's Tomb Review: The first monster in AMERICA

While even further dumbed down than The Mummy’s Hand, and not as original an idea as The Mummy (though by this point, Universal was pretty much done with originality), The Mummy’s Tomb is an easy to watch sci-fi/horror film with little (if any) of the slapstick trappings featured in many of Universal’s later era monster films and a blistering pace (once it gets rolling) that sucks you in and keeps you entertained. It’s also the first Universal monster film to set its action in America rather than England, France, or non-descript Eastern European countries.

Though it conflicts (as usual) with any sense of real continuity and timelines, the story is set 30 years after the events of The Mummy’s Hand. Steve Banning (Dick Foran in some makeup to make him look older) is telling his son John (John Hubbard from One Million B.C.) about his run-in with the immortal mummy, Kharis (played by Lon Chaney Jr. this time, fresh from his stint as Frankenstein’s monster). John and his future wife Isobel don’t exactly believe Steve but they find the story entertaining and it gives the filmmakers a chance to recycle some footage from The Mummy’s Hand and remind the pre-home video audience what happened in the prequel

Banning isn’t the only one spinning yarns, though. Dr. Andoheb is still very much alive and after 30 years limping his life along, he has chosen a successor, Mehmet Bay (The Climax’s Turhnan Bey may be the first real-life Middle Eastern to PLAY a Middle Eastern in a Universal film…yay for no more yellow-face!). Andoheb tells Mehmet the story from his side, white outsiders tried to invade Anankha’s tomb and he tried to fight them off only to be shot and left for dead, and then forces Bay, as part of his oath to vow he will put an end to the Banning family and everyone involved in the raiding of Anankha’s tomb and the attempt to kill Kharis. Did I say ATTEMPT? Yeah, I did. Kharis still lives, though one of his eyes has been burned shut and one of his hands has become little more than a club.

Mehmet Bay isn’t in town more than one night (nor longer than 20 minutes into the movie) before Kharis is shuffling about town looking for Bannings to kill. When Steve “gets what’s coming to him” the next night, the town goes into an uproar. The town sheriff (Cliff Clark of Mighty Joe Young) gets himself involved (there is a murderer on the loose after all) and Babe Hanson (and yeah, Universal continuity strikes again, his name was Jenson last time, although it still is the star of Freaks, Wallace Ford) comes in from whatever town he had moved to after the events of The Mummy’s Hand. When John mentions that a strange black smudge on his father’s throat was the only indication of foul play, Babe begins trying to convince everyone that a killer mummy is on the loose. This claim is of course laughed at, at least until the black smudges on the victims’ necks are analyzed – and with 4 total victims including Babe, the groundskeeper and another non-character at this point, there are plenty of smudges to analyze – and found to contain ancient Egyptian embalming fluids.

At the same time, MehmetBay has been spying on John and Isobel in the hopes of being able to inform Kharis of the best ways in which to eliminate them. Unfortunately, Mehmet takes quite a shine to Isobel, and when he’s down to just the two young lovers, Mehmet decides he has a different plan for Kharis. Mehmet, much like Andoheb, has realized that High Priest of Karnack is a thankless, sexless position and he wants some lovin’. He has Kharis go out to kidnap the young woman, but apparently forgets that he has left at least one friend of Isobel’s alive. Clearly, somebody is going to miss her if Kharis kidnaps her and a rescue attempt is going to happen.

Though the setting might be different than the previous outing, the story here (what little story there is) isn’t that much different from The Mummy’s Hand. Perhaps that can be chalked up to this one-hour movie spending the first 15 minutes of its running time recapping and replaying the events of the previous film, but I also think it’s because many of the characters find themselves in the same roles and, being such a DIRECT sequel to The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb does really feel like it’s picking up right where the previous film left off.

Lon Chaney might not make the most convincing menace in the history of mummy-dom but at least he brings some LIFE to the role, unlike Tom Tyler. His characterization of Kharis is such that, when he finds out that his master wants to kidnap the girl, we get the distinct feeling that the mummy remembers what happened last time and doesn’t want to get burned “alive” again.

As always, we’ve learned a few things here today, at least I think we have. At the very least, we’ve learned that FINALLY, by 1942, Universal was beginning to overcome its yellow-face prejudices (for those not in the know, yellow-face was a practice of casting Caucasian actors in Asian roles [ok, so technically this is a Middle Eastern role, but it’s the same principle] and painting them up a bit to look more Asian). We’ve also learned that fire is like the universal “bad” thing for Universal’s monsters, as if we haven’t learned that over the past 17 films or so featuring torch-bearing mobs. Speaking of torch-bearing mobs, we’ve learned they are just as quick to break out in the Western world as they are in the old world. Speaking of the Western world, we’ve learned that being undead, or returned from the grave, or whatever it is a mummy is automatically makes you like a walking GPS. Kharis is able to find his way around without any difficulty; it’s awesome for pacing, but not so much for intelligent plotting.

It might not be the best Universal movie ever made, but it is pretty entertaining and thus far, the mummy series has failed to disappoint me in any major way (something that none of the other monsters have been able to do by the time the third film rolled around). It’s breakneck speed and end to end action make it more than tolerable, they make The Mummy’s Tomb fun (even if the title would have made more sense applied to the previous film).

Final Rating below and as always a full index of reviews and explanation of the ratings system can be found RIGHT HERE.

This hub is number seventeen in my “30 Hubs in 30 Days (PLUS THREE!) Challenge” where I will be reviewing essentially all the old Universal monster movies (the 30) as well as the very first, the very best and the very worst films to feature ensemble casts of ALL the monsters (PLUS THREE) over the period of just thirty (plus three) days. Who “challenged” me? Nobody…well, unless one can challenge themselves. In that case, I challenged me.