For those hording toilet paper

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

For me, The Mummy’s Ghost is the lowest point in the Universal Mummy series. I can’t really find much good to say about it, to tell you the truth. It has those wonderful Universal (I’m guessing backlot) sets and there’s still some atmosphere, but the plot’s absurdities even had me (someone who actually can let that slide from time to time) rolling my eyes with this one. I have only seen this once before back a few years ago when I made my way through the series from start to finish. It is really something when you go through the various series and see how far in quality each one goes. The Mummy’s Curse does have its moments, so at least it doesn’t stink up the joint like this movie does.

Once again, Kharis just emerges thanks to brewing tana leaves. A professor and Egyptologist, Matthew Norman (Frank Reicher) discovers that nine tana leaves have a certain significance (a small chest with hieroglyphics tells him a secret involving nine so he brews tana leaves through the directions on it) and dies because of it. Kharis kills him I guess because Norman stood in the way of his tana leaf stew. Ridiculous as it may seem, Norman can’t just outrun the shambling one-armed Kharis or avoid one single hand’s grasp around his throat (Norman even collapses before Kharis can get a firm grasp!).  

John Carradine is Yousef Bey, another Egyptian called by Andoheb (George Zucco, in elderly make-up, even adding the shakes to the character to describe just how ancient and riddled by the olds he is), this time to go to America (upstate New York) and bring back mummies Kharis and Ananka to Egypt.

Yousef allows Kharis to run free a bit before reining him in a bit. You have the sheriff and inspector trying to resolve this problem once a local farmer with a shotgun and a museum guard (this museum is where Ananka’s mummified corpse rests in its sarcophagus) are both killed (shotgun and pistol blasts fail to even budge Kharis). There’s a subplot involving the relationship between college student, Tom (Robert Lowery) and Egyptian Amina (statuesque and stunning Ramsay Ames). Amina is haunted by any mention of Egypt. Another absurd plot development has the “reincarnated spirit” of Ananka “entering” the form of Amina (Kharis touches her body and Amina cries out from her sleep). Later in the film, Amina ages while being carried (with two arms, cradled by Kharis; the film brushes aside the fact that the entire film, Kharis has favored one arm that appears badly crippled) by Kharis to a swamp. Yep, for whatever reason, she starts to age. Also, Yousef, upon the moment he’s about to give Amina “the elixir of eternal life” (I guess she’s aging because Ananka invaded her body), he starts to contemplate not going back to Egypt, taking some of the “eternal brew” so he can live life everlasting, and sharing his existence with Amina (or Ananka, take your pick.). Kharis gets pissed when he hears this and winds up tossing Yousef from this shack perched high from an elevating railroad tracks (I don’t even know what this is used for, but it is cool to look at). Yes, this voice speaks to Yousef and he listens with interest, eventually convinced by it to heed to the desires that all of sudden, out of the blue, call to him.

This is the case where the script is a mess, and the Universal machine that can make even the silliest plots sometimes look so damn good, is up against it. Add to that an uninspired Lon Chaney, Jr. who inexplicably makes the mummy Kharis a dull monster (look at even Tom Tyler in The Mummy’s Hand and see the difference in how Kharis seems far creepier, with a menace that just isn’t present in Chaney’s version). Still, though, Jack Pierce didn’t take the day off, with the mummy make-up up to par with the previous films. Moody photography also helps to add a degree of eerie to the night scenes. You try to find the nuggets in the shit, my friends.