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| Temple with Jackals, Zucco, Mummy, and Moran |
I think what makes
The
Mummy’s Hand stand out, especially after revisiting it again tonight, is
that it is more of an “Egyptian Adventure” where a grand archeological dig led by
American archeologists (Foran and Ford), funded by a jolly magician (Kellaway)
and his skeptical daughter (Moran), is undermined by a “royal priest of Karnak”
(George Zucco), his tana-leave addicted, black-eyed killer mummy (Tyler), and
street beggar henchman (Arno). It doesn’t saddle the running time with too much
exposition but allows us to understand that Zucco’s professor has been given
the task of maintaining the sanctity of Ananka’s tomb by turning the mummy
loose on anyone on that dig that tries to find her. The comedy team of Foran
and Ford, with the romantic chemistry of Foran and Moran, and Kellaway’s magic
tricks, Tyler’s creepy mummy (saddled with the limp arm gimmick that always
irked me), and Zucco’s dedication to his tomb-and-artifacts protecting cause
through murder offer a great difference from the Freund/Karloff classic. It
sets in motion, though, bad sequels that follow its formula without the benefit
of these Universal tomb sets. No big horror star names; think the equivalent of Hammer's
The Reptile or
Plague of the Zombies, great sleepers without the benefit of the horror icon in the credits.
--Brian
Much like the "brief passages" platform for
"The Twilight Zone", I thought it would be ideal for most of the
remaining Universal Studios Classic Monster sequels. The point of the “brief
passages” part is to try and limit myself to just a “mini-review” five-to-six
line paragraph for each sequel, probably not difficult since I've more than
contributed enough about them on the blog in the past.
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