The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

Welcome back to Mummy Mondays! This week we’re talking about The Mummy’s Ghost, a sequel set right after The Mummy’s Tomb that doesn’t feature any ghosts. But the Mummy is back! Somehow! Don’t question it.

I want to do something different this time; instead of detailing the plot and making a couple points, I want to go a little more in depth with a couple characters. But for those who don’t want to read the Wikipedia summary for the movie: Kharis finds out Princess Ananka is reincarnated into a living woman, he grabs her, and they sink into a swamp. A Massachusetts swamp–that will be referenced next week.

Our protagonist this time is Tom, a college student who doesn’t matter. The dog does more than him! But his girlfriend, Amina, is interesting. Played by Mrs. Ramsay Ames, Amina is of Egyptian descent and the mere mention of that country unnerves her for reasons she can’t explain. Turns out she’s the reincarnation of Ananka, but, like, explicitly. Previously we’ve had heroines who look a lot like the princess, but Amina IS Ananka; her mummified body disappears from the museum, and under Kharis’ touch Amina becomes desiccated before our eyes. She’s a rather tragic character, one of the few main female characters from horror movies of this era I can think of who dies. I mean, who wasn’t also evil or something.

The High Priest of Arkam (Karnak in the previous movies) this time is still Andoheb, returning for his third and last time. But the guy who takes over from him is Yousef Bey, no apparent relation to last movie’s Mehemet Bey, and played by Mr. John Carradine. He’s got this weird, angular face and intense eyes that makes me think he would’ve been a great Universal monster. And you can tell he’s Egyptian because he wears a fez, a shorthand this series has been leaning on over and over again. But sadly he becomes just another failure, falling for the same trap that doomed all of his predecessors: a pretty American lady. Him arguing with his own internal monologue was a cool scene, but otherwise he’s another bland bad guy.

And I was wrong thinking that Lon Chaney Jr. would grow on me. He looks even worse this time around! They didn’t bother wrapping his face, instead apparently applying some kind of paper-mâché goop all over his head; you can clearly see where his hair starts and ends. And there are a couple times where he just doesn’t know what to do in a scene. At one point, while Yousef monologues about Princess Ananka, Kharis just… clenches and unclenches his hand. I’m not impressed, and I don’t have the highest hopes for him in the next movie.

MUMMY FUN FACT! In the scene where Kharis goes apeshit and wrecks the museum, he smashes a display case made with real glass. They forgot to replace it with stunt glass, and in the process a shard flew up and cut Jr.’s chin. You can see it clearly after Kharis kills the guard, as his chin has dark splotches–real blood–that weren’t there before.