Director: Reginald LeBorg
Writers: Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher, Brenda Weisberg
Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Robert Lowery, Ramsay Ames, Barton MacLane, George Zucco, Frank Reicher, Harry Shannon, Emmett Vogan, Lester Sharpe, Claire Whitney, Oscar O’Shea, Jack C. Smith, Jack Rockwell, Carl Vernell, Stephen Barclay, Dorothy Vaughan, Mira McKinney, Bess Flowers, Caroline Cooke, Eddy Waller, Fay Holderness, Ivan Triesault, Anthony Warde, Peter (Pietro) Sosso, Martha MacVicar, David Bruce
Yousef Bey (John Carradine), an Egyptian High Priest of Arkham, travels to the town of Mapleton in America to find the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Bey’s mission is to reunite Kharis with the mummy of his ancient lover Princess Ananka. They try stealing the mummy of Ananka from a museum, but it disintegrates because Ananka’s spirit has been reincarnated in a living woman. That woman is Amina Mansouri (Ramsay Ames), an Egyptian exchange student at the local college in Mapleton. Bey and the Mummy seek her out and kill anybody that gets in their way.
The Flashback Fanatic movie review
The Mummy’s Ghost was the third of the four Kharis Mummy films from Universal Pictures. Although all of the Kharis films, except this one, used footage from the earlier film The Mummy (1932) for flashbacks to Kharis’ origins, that Boris Karloff starring film is an unrelated story. The continuity through the four film Kharis series was always pretty shaky. In this film, when the Mummy makes his first appearance, he just comes shambling from out of the countryside. No explanation is given for how he survived the fire that should have destroyed him in the last film, nor is there information regarding his whereabouts since then. This is a less egregious oversight than the time warp that must have occurred between the previous two Mummy films to cause two characters to age 30 years, or the relocation from New England to Louisiana bayou country another 25 years later in the next installment!
Critics of the Mummy films often cite the repetitive plot points. Many of them are to be found in this entry, as well. All film series hinge on some sort of formula, and the Mummy films can be more restrictive than most, but I enjoy them. The fun is in returning to the same circumstances that generate the conflicts and seeing what new elements are introduced. The reincarnation concept is lifted from the unrelated film The Mummy, but it is played out in a much different manner that makes this film quite distinctive.
I consider this the best of the three Mummy films starring Lon Chaney, Jr., as Kharis. There is no heavy-duty drama going on here, but the interaction between all the main characters seems livelier in this installment. I think a lot of the credit goes to John Carradine as the villainous Yousef Bey and Robert Lowery as Tom Hervey. Carradine’s voice and the fanatical gleam in his eye make you pay attention to his scheming and never forget that he is as much of a menace as the Mummy. Robert Lowery is a welcome relief from the utterly bland young heroes of the other two Chaney Mummy films. Some have noted that his performance is a bit surly, but I welcome that bit of character. Lowery’s Tom Hervey is probably possessive of his beautiful girlfriend Amina and also worried about her. He is frustrated with anything that can feed Amina’s seemingly irrational dread that stems from the spirit of Ananka reincarnating in her.
Ramsay Ames as Amina Mansouri is more decorative than dramatic. She is very beautiful and looks great in that silvery nightdress she wears, but her acting has drawn criticism from many. While I don’t think she hurts the film, she just doesn’t make us feel as deeply as we should for the fear and confusion her character is suffering. In her defense, I will say that even Meryl Streep would probably have a tough time bringing conviction to lines like “Isn’t it wonderful? I can laugh again.”
Lon Chaney, Jr., seems a bit more animated this time around as the Mummy, perhaps too animated for some members of the cast and crew of this film. According to director Reginald LeBorg, Chaney really throttled elderly actor Frank Reicher. Later when killing the museum guard (Oscar O’Shea), Chaney purposely broke a large pane of real glass in a door when the prop department did not supply the breakaway glass on time. It is a bit unclear whether the take seen in the film was the instance when the real glass was broken. If so, it was incredibly dangerous, as Chaney was dragging actor O’Shea into the glass when it shattered. We see O’Shea clutching the back of his head after the glass breaks before he succumbs to the Mummy’s strangling grip. Is this good acting on O’Shea’s part, or a real physical reaction to shards of real glass pelting him? If the glass was real, it is awfully impressive of O’Shea to stay in character in that shot and continue to allow Chaney’s strangling to finish him off. Chaney is supposed to have gotten some glass stuck in his hand. There are dark spots on the Mummy’s chin in that scene that some have speculated are blood, perhaps from Chaney’s injured hand. It appears that those spots are also on his chin as he approaches the guard before breaking the glass. It would not seem that this is part of the Mummy make-up, as we don’t see those spots in any other scene. If they were indeed blood, it would be reassuring to know that they occurred in an earlier take that did not endanger O’Shea.
Chaney’s recklessness has been attributed to actor’s zeal, too much alcohol, or a macho bit of showing off. He is also said to have been trying to impress director LeBorg, whom he hoped to be joining on more films. Another contributing factor was probably Chaney’s frustration of being stuck in the monster rut at Universal. He desired more human roles, and he could get pretty irritated with the lengthy and uncomfortable make-ups that his monster characters required.
The most distinctive thing about this film, which not only sets it apart from all the other Universal Mummy movies, but also makes it quite special among most horror films prior to the 1970s, is the very tragic finish. Aside from some of producer Val Lewton’s horror films at RKO Pictures and Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941), there were not many fright flicks of this era that would wrap up their horrors on such a downer. Director LeBorg is said to have pushed for this ending and I am glad that he did. A lingering aftermath makes the horror matter. Even if we forget about the victims that died during the story, there are still consequences for the survivors. Other lesser films often forget that.
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