Mummy in the Bayous

 

I was having myself a fun little 40s horror marathon Monday and knew that I hadn't quite finished up the Universal Mummy series, so "The Mummy's Curse" (1944) felt like a nice close to the evening. My user comments below are not that kind towards it, but it isn't that I dislike the presentation, besides too much reliance on previously filmed footage and baffling change of location, as much as the story and some of the characters. Christine is very alluring and the monastery a visually Gothic gem of a place for the big finale. Too bad Coe's High Priest is underwritten while Kosleck, simply a murdering servant for the most part, gets the strange "quick burst of obsessive lust" that seems to overcome the villains in the Mummy films. 

I wish the series ended better than this but this was such a far cry from not only the definitely superior Karloff Mummy film but even it's sequel, Hand.

From my IMDb user comments, August 2007...

"The devil's on the loose and he's dancing with the mummy!"

The mummified one-armed strangler returns as Kharis(Lon Chaney Jr)once again seeks his mate, Princess Ananka(the beautiful Virginia Christine, who rises from the earth in the film's best sequence)who is reincarnated and listless. Somehow, both Kharis and Ananka find themselves in the bayou of Louisiana after having went into a swamp in New England..how this possibly could occur is never established. It's been 25 years, and the village folk..the whole superstitious lot..are scared senseless of the myth of a bandaged killer and his princess bride. Museum curator James Halsey(Dennis Moore)and his assistant Ilzor Zandab(Peter Coe)are searching for the remains of Kharis and Ananka for their new museum which drives Pat Walsh(Addison Richards)crazy. You see Pat is the foreman behind a great excavation project draining the swamp so that citizens can have a much safer environment to live(..and of course opening the door for future businesses to enter in), but the workers are worried sick about being killed by the mummy. It doesn't help matters when one of the workers is found with a knife in his back. Later we find that Ilzor is the new High Priest of Arkham, yet another "middle man" who commands his servant lackey Ragheb(Martin Kosleck)to feed Tana leave stew to Kharis so that he can find and nab Ananka wherever she may be. A body count escalates as anyone who tries to protect a bewildered Ananka(suffering a case of amnesia, not knowing exactly who she is)suffers the suffocating grasp of Kharis. But, what Ilzor doesn't know is that Ragheb will, of course, betray him desiring to take Pat's niece Betty(Kay Harding), a secretary for her uncle who falls in love with Halsey. Where the Egyptian crypts for Kharis and Ananka reside in the ruins of a monastery, where the climax takes place as Ragheb will face those he betrayed..Ilzor and Kharis as the mummy finally captures Ananka. Will Ragheb be able to control the mummy for himself? Will Ragheb hurt Betty? Will Kharis finally return with his bride to Egypt with Ilzor where they belong?

The film has atmosphere to burn and excellent use of shadow as we see the image of the mummy draw near(also, the film uses the sound of Kharis' dragging foot to full effect), but has a lackluster premise that is essentially Kharis killing people in an alarming rate at a slow speed searching for Ananka, who seems to faint a hell of a lot. Peter Coe as Ilzor is yet another dull block-of-wood in a series of wooden villains who command Kharis to kill. Kosleck is a smallish fiend who isn't that imposing. Christine is fine as the unfortunate princess who has a hard time understanding the horrors swirling around her. But, the film's bread-and-butter is Ananka's rising from the earth burying her..it's an eerie scene, perfectly chilling, that the film as a whole couldn't accomplish.

The curtain closes on a poor, run-of-the-mill, uninspired series.