User reviews

Fun, typical Universal"B".. In what must've amounted to a cost-cutting measure, over 10 min. of the film's 60 min. running time, is made up of scenes from 1940's The Mummy's Hand"!! This flick would mark Chaney's first of 3 appearances as Kharis. Look for Glenn Strange[Frankenstein's Monster from '44-'48]in an unbilled "bit" as a farmer calming a horse, during the Mummy's first attack sequence.

This movie starts out with about ten or twelve minutes devoted to recapping the events of the prior film, The Mummy's Hand. I hadn't seen something like that since watching Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

This one is supposed to be taking place thirty years after that film, which if it took place in 1940, places this one in 1970. No effort is made to make it appear to be set in the future, apart from aging the characters from the first movie.

In The Mummy's Hand, Babe shoots four shots at point-blank range into an Egyptian High Priest, who then falls down a long flight of stone steps. Even though we are shown this clip, later in the movie we see that priest as an older man, initiating his son, the way he'd be initiated in The Mummy's Hand. He claims he'd only been shot once, in the arm. Yeah, right.

The Mummy is also back, after having been shot at and burned in the prior film. The only difference seems to be that he has no eyes now (I'm not sure how he gets around, maybe by sound like The Blind Dead, who director Amando de Ossorio thought of as mummies, not zombies?). He's got old bandages wrapped around him. His old bandages should have burned, so presumably he was re-wrapped with old bandages (since if new ones were used, he wouldn't be as scary). Additionally, while Kharis needed to have potions of Tana leaves planted on the premises of people he was supposed to kill in the last film, here he can be sent out without that.

The young Egyptian gets a job as a cemetery caretaker in America, where the Banning family lives, so he can set the mummy on them for having violated Princess Annanka's tomb. He doesn't seem to have any plans to try to get her or her treasures back from the museum, which is never seen. He seems set on killing the Bannings, apparently not knowing about Babe - who had shot his father! He only goes after Babe after Babe shows up and figures out the mummy is back, and the priest overhears him. Likewise, the priest doesn't seem to know or care about finding out what happened to the magician and his daughter. The daughter, we learn, died, but the priest never hears that. The magician, I suppose, disappeared.

This Egyptian priest, like his father before him, and like Kharis before them, falls in love with a woman who does not have any feelings for him. Like his father, he uses the mummy to try to retrieve her.

Seeing the mummy hobbling about in suburban American neighborhoods seemed fairly absurd. It would have been easier for the priest to go into the homes of the people he wanted dead and shoot them! Also absurd is the point at which all the townspeople go hunting for the mummy with torches! Would anybody in 1970s American be able to produce and light a torch at a moment's notice, like nineteenth century European villagers in a Frankenstein movie? They also start to burn a house down to get the mummy, thinking nothing of destroying the house. They don't try to kill him in a more efficient way, and seem to give no thought to the welfare of the mummy's captive. Some also try shooting him when he is struggling with someone, giving no thought to the bullets passing right through him. Of course, no one is harmed. Additionally, while the mummy seems afraid of fire, torches are thrown at him to no effect, and he also walks through fire a few times without burning.

Overall, this is a pretty flawed movie. Still, watching it was sort of fun, and it's hard to dislike a classic Universal monster movie.

When I first watched this, some 4 years ago, I remember being very disappointed with it and recall labeling it a lazy overall effort, especially as it heavily borrowed footage not only from the previous film - THE MUMMY'S HAND - but also FRANKENSTEIN (1931), BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and THE WOLF MAN (1941) for its mob scenes at the climax! However, coming back to it now - and despite having just watched the other "Kharis" films - I found it to be quite enjoyable, atmospheric and competently handled (especially during Chaney's various rampages and the fiery finale). It was nice to see Dick Foran, Wallace Ford and George Zucco (why on Earth did he wait 30 years to exact his revenge?!) reprise their roles from THE MUMMY'S HAND, if only briefly, as it was to have Mary Gordon - Mrs. Hudson of Universal's contemporaneous "Sherlock Holmes" series - as one of Chaney's victims. As for Chaney himself, I thought that his first stab at the role wasn't bad at all: suitably brutish when required but with a hint of emotion seeping through the wrappings on occasion to provide a balance (especially when Turhan Bey, yet another misguided High Priest of Karnak, is liable to jeopardize their 'mission' of restoring Princess Ananka to life by conveniently falling for leading lady Elyse Knox).

Okay, so this is pretty familiar stuff once again--you know, mad Egyptian cult leader and his resurrection of a mummy to exact revenge on those who have desecrated ancient tombs. About the only big differences here are having Lon Chaney, Jr. play the mummy for the first time and the action is moved to America (despite this making little sense). While this is far from the best mummy film, it is good old fashioned fun and I enjoy this much more than the overly special effects enhanced mummy films of the last decade because of the fun factor. The campiness and the whole ambiance are just so wonderful--and they remind you that the term "B-movie" isn't such a bad thing. Watch it and let yourself go--and have FUN!

The Mummy's Tomb is the 2nd part of the original "The Mummy" franchise following on from The Mummy's Hand (1940).

It's set 30 years after the events of the first film and the mummy has returned under new guidance, this time to kill off all surviving members of the Banning family who were responsible for foiling the evil plans in the first movie.

This time there is no comedy, the entire tone of the movie is considerably darker!

For this reason it doesn't have the same charm as the first movie but it makes up for this with better cinematography and continues the story perfectly.

It does suffer all the tropes of movies of this era (And there are many) but it could have been considerably worse. For fans of classic horror cinema this is a watchable continuation of the franchise.

The Good:

Looks better than the first part

Follows on very well

The Bad:

Remaking scenes from the earlier film is a tad silly

Very cliched

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Mummys are excellent climbers

If in doubt, cry witch!

Playing dead works against Mummys

This 61 minute sequel begins with roughly about 10 minutes of stock footage from the previous film (THE MUMMY'S HAND), but it should be taken into account that these first two Universal installments were released a couple of years apart back in their day, and it was during a time in our history when we didn't have the luxury of television, much less "home video". Today we can watch these films over and over, and back to back; but in the early '40s it wouldn't have been so easy to recall where the story of Kharis the mummy left off two whole years ago, and that's in the context that this repetitive footage should be considered.

After being refreshed of the last films' Egyptian exploits of novice archaeologists Steve Banning and Babe Jenson (now mistakenly referred to as Babe "Hanson", an error which is NOT as easily excusable!) we move ahead 30 years where the mummy of Kharis (newly played by Lon Chaney) is stuck in America with current high priest Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey). Why it's taken so long is anyone's guess, but Mehemet now has a vengeance mission to unleash the mummy on Steve and Babe (Dick Foran and Wallace Ford, reprising their parts in senior citizen's makeup) for daring to defile Kharis' tomb three decades earlier.

This is strictly a "B" level programmer without many trimmings, but it's still a fairly entertaining one . Lon Chaney looks menacing in his ravaged mummy outfit which properly shows some of the effects of the fire which consumed him once upon a time. Chaney absolutely hated playing the restrictive part of Kharis, yet he wound up grumbling through it for two more sequels following this one. Harold Young's pedestrian direction is nothing much to get excited about, but we do get some chilling sequences of Kharis creeping around modern-day Mapleton, Massachusetts on dark and windy evenings, which are a plus. Turhan Bey is perfectly cast as the mummy's foreign protector, and lovely Elyse Knox is easy on the eyes as the pretty love interest to John Hubbard, who doesn't leave much impression as Steve Banning's son. One can nitpick on the inconsistency of these mummy sequels forever; for example, even though TOMB occurs thirty years after HAND and should therefore be set in 1970, everyone still dresses and acts like it's 1942. But what the hell -- taken for what it is, THE MUMMY'S TOMB is a fast and fulfilling hour of mindless fun.

**1/2 out of ****

As Dick Foran and Wallace Ford put the torch to Kharis the Mummy in The Mummy's Hand there's no way that Universal Pictures was thinking about a sequel. Otherwise they would have made sure to identify the fact that the action was taking place in 1912 and had everyone wear costumes of the period.

So it looks a little ridiculous to have Dick Foran and Wallace Ford now elderly beginning The Mummy's Tomb made up as elderly gents with Foran reminiscing about those days on that dig in Egypt where he bested the cult of Kharis and Princess Ananka and brought back the Princess Ananka's mummy with the treasures of her tomb. The first 10 to 12 minutes of this film is a flashback synopsis of the previous film.

But it turns out that Wallace Ford didn't really kill George Zucco with those bullets fired at point blank range. George has been waiting for 30 years, but he and the cult want some payback. Kharis survived too and Zucco before he dies turns him over to a new handler in Turhan Bey. They've even got a cover story with Bey getting a job as cemetery worker, the better to bring Kharis over from Egypt.

The Mummy's Tomb takes the unusual step of having Kharis kill the heroes of the previous film. But Foran left a grown son in John Hubbard who has taken up the fight against the undead. And Bey deviates from the mission because he's decided he wants Hubbard's intended bride Elysse Knox all for himself and he sends Kharis out to arrange it in his inimitable fashion.

I think you see where this one is going, but Universal did this one in their usual Gothic horror style. But The Mummy's Tomb is not as good as its predecessor and none of those films involving Kharis are anything approaching light years as good as Boris Karloff in the original The Mummy. Universal did not do as good as it did with Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman.

Mummy films are the runt of Universal's litter.

Well, I like it anyway! As before, the first 10 minutes are spent in a series of flashbacks, this time out of a total running time of 57 minutes.

30 years on the Mummy and Zucco have actually "survived", Zucco enrols Bey to take the Mummy to Hicksville, America and eliminate the surviving tomb raiders. The plan is carried out but derailed by Bey's instant lusting for the heroine, much to the Mummy's disgust. It's an utterly preposterous (and monstrous) plot of course, and without the usual nominal Universal production values would not even have the charm I like in Golden Age movies. In 1952 this would have been an out and out clinker, a Plan 9 competitor. But with those production values also come the familiar nitrate film/atmosphere/sets/actors and decent photography that I love to watch over and over again. The crematorium in The Black Cat was used, and in this they even set fire to the Winslow house - would that Hugh Herbert's character had been inside! That was never Lon Chaney Jr playing the Mummy, and it was Tom Tyler in the flashbacks, they just used Chaney's name to help sell the picture.

The local doctor examining the mould from a victim of the Mummy announced that they "were in the presence of the living dead" - sadly I get that feeling every time I trot an old Hollywood film out!

Like I said, I like it but frankly I think I'm in a tiny minority!

If you liked "The Mummy's Hand" (1940) - I didn't - then you might like this, its sequel, "The Mummy's Tomb," since it's largely the same film. Even the first 10-or-so minutes of it are mostly comprised of clips from its predecessor as recollected by one of its survivors. While the footage is cannibalized from the prior installment, the remembered narrative device itself is a lesser variation on "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), which included the framing story of Lord Byron recapping the 1931 "Frankenstein" before the original author Mary Shelley told the new main story. Fortunately, the narrator's remembrances here don't include the awful comic relief of "The Mummy's Hand," and this sequel is devoid of such stupid attempts at humor. Memory is a faulty thing, though, and despite carrying over one of the same writers, this one changes the last name of Babe from Jenson to Hanson ("Dracula's Daughter" (1936) likewise screwed up the name of "Von" Helsing) and retroactively pushes the setting of the prior film back 30 years so that this one may be set in contemporary time and still be 30 years later than its predecessor.

After the cheap B-picture expediency of recounting the last film, "The Mummy's Tomb" moves on to re-enacting "The Mummy's Hand," with an elderly high priest once again passing the torch and control of the zombie mummy Kharis to a younger man. While seeking revenge, once again, the lascivious foreigner priest falls for the girl (there's a laughable series of superimpositions to represent his newfound love), has the beast Kharis carry the screaming-and-fainting beauty to him so that he can strap her down--the same damsel-in-distress bondage stuff from the last film. Also repeating itself is a foot-dragging and slow-moving Kharis only being able to attack anyone because they're all incapacitated, either physically or mentally--because all you need to do to avoid this monster's clutches is walk away. He's that slow. There's a new emphasis here, carried over some in the subsequent films in the series, on the mummy's shadow, which seems appropriate given how much this sequel shadows the prior mummy movie. The main difference this time, besides the absence of comic relief and shadow business, is that the colonialism is reversed, with the Egyptians invading America rather than the Americans looting Egypt last time. There's also the addition of that Universal shocker staple of a mob hunting the monster, and there's what would become a horror film cliché of teenagers in a parked car being interrupted by the fiend.

This is a sequel to The Mummy's hand. It is scarier then The Mummy's hand and that is not easy to do. The Mummy's ghost is scarier. The Mummy cures is also scarier. This is a horror classic. 5.8 is a good ratting. But this such a great movie 5.8 is underrating it. This is a 9. It has great acting. It also has a great story line. It also has great special effects. If this movie does not scary you no movie will. This is scarier then The Shining and that is not easy to do. This is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do. This is scarier then Friday the 13th and that is not easy to do. Harold Young is a great film maker. This is one of the his best movies. See it.

I loved the very first Universal Mummy movie with Boris Karloff in all his spookiness. It has a connection to mysteries of Egypt and Books of the Dead. Most of the other films from this genre have a real sameness to them. There is the man who travels with Kharis, the poor creature, buried alive and wrapped in cloth. His agenda seems to be to protect Kharis but he fails sometimes. This one hearkens back to the Mummy's Hand where the characters have now aged and gone on to a new generation. There is lots of death in this one, where people who the mummy realized were responsible for his struggles are done in. Soon the mummy has found a new love, and so he sets out to make things happen. Jealousy plays a role in this offering and sets the scene for another movie.

THE MUMMY'S TOMB (Universal, 1942), directed by Harold Young, the third installment in the Mummy series, the second to feature Kharis and the first starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the living creature under wraps. A  sequel to THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940) released two years earlier, this legend of Kharis continues, set thirty years later, with Dick Foran, Wallace Ford and George Zucco reprising their original characters sporting middle-age makeup consisting of gray hairs, glasses and wrinkles.

The story opens in a town of Mapleton in Massachusetts, with the middle-aged widow named Steve Banning (Dick Foran) relating his scientific expedition to his sister, Jane (Mary Gordon), son, John (John Hubbard) and Isobel (Elyse Knox), John's fiancé, on how he, his now deceased wife, Marta (played earlier by Peggy Moran) and his friend, Babe Hanson (Wallace Ford) encountered the ancient burial ground of Kharis, the mummy. The next scene shifts over to Egypt where High Priest Andoheb (George Zucco), who amazingly survived three bullet wounds shot into him by Hansen and his long plunge down the temple steps (told via flashback), assigns Mehemet (Turhan Bey), to guide Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to America where his next assignment is to avenge the surviving members of the expedition, doing away with the Banning family and finally Babe Hansen, whose character arrives later in the story.

Taking a new direction from its previous successors by shifting Kharis from Egypt to the United States, with similarities to Dracula (1931) where Kharis on board the ship, resting inside his tomb, bound for his destination with Mehemet as his guide in the similar fashion to Dracula's Mr. Renfield. Once in Massachusetts, Mehemet takes up residence as a cemetery caretaker with Kharis feeling right at home surrounded by tomb sweet tombs of buried beings. Like Dracula, Kharis stalks his victims at night and rests by day.

While THE MUMMY'S TOMB tends to be original, it mostly borrows from other horror stories, including its predecessor where Mehemet captures Isobel to make her his bride as his predecessor Andoheb tried to do with Marta in THE MUMMY'S HAND. Besides resurrections and revisions, the film delivers towards its final half with chills and thrills, and Kharis meeting the same fate as the Frankenstein monster, who doesn't appear here.

Supporting players include Frank Reicher (Professor Matthew Norman); Cliff Clark (The Sheriff); Virginia Brissac (Ella Evans); and Otto Hoffman (The Cemetery Caretaker).

Strictly "B" material for the juvenile crowd, THE MUMMY'S TOMB is a fast-paced if not entirely incredible 62 minutes. Without the flashback and stock material from the previous film, this movie would have been ten minutes shorter. Minus the over abundance of comedy relief stressed out from THE MUMMY'S HAND, TOMB has all the familiarities from other Universal horror films from the 1940s, especially the stock musical score by Hans J. Salter. Although THE MUMMY'S TOMB did not become a top of the line Mummy show, it did lead the way to the next installment of THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944), considered by many to be the best of all the "Kharis" thrillers.

Footnote: For anyone paying close attention to detail, it should be noted that since the first Kharis film installment obviously takes place in 1940, then this sequel, which looks very much like modern-day 1942, is set thirty years into the future, namely 1970. Otherwise if this is 1942, then the earlier film should have taken place in 1912 with actors in futuristic 1940s attire.

Other than local television presentations prior to 1985s Fright Night/Chiller theaters, and availability on video cassette and later DVD format, it's cable broadcast history consists of the Sci-Fi Channel (1990s) and American Movie Classics (2000-2002).(**)

1940's "The Mummy's Hand" featured western actor Tom Tyler as the undead pile of bandages. Tyler (listed eighth in the credits of 'Hand') obviously wasn't being prepped to carry Universal's horror banner into the remainder of the decade. So, after the success of "The Wolf Man"--and much to his displeasure--Lon Chaney Jr. had to slouch through the gauze for a remarkable 'three' sequels--the remarkable part being that Universal could squeeze so much milk from this particular cash-cow.

Tomb opens with an ample amount of stock footage from 'Mummy's Hand' recapping the important events from that chapter. Seeing old footage in these mummy flicks is no big surprise--the fact that the filmmakers were not shy about reusing the close-ups of Tom Tyler (in makeup) as Kharis did puzzle me. Exactly how thin was the budget for 'Tomb' that some new close-up shots of Chaney as Kharis couldn't be cut into the picture?

George Zucco returns as high priest Andoheb, proving to be nearly as bulletproof as the mummy, having escaped the events of the last movie with 'only' a crushed arm & a full head of hair (maybe he rubbed some tana on his scalp). Also returning is what was already becoming a tedious plot device: The new priest put in charge of Kharis--apparently raging with suppressed libido--becomes enamored with some American skirt & usually suffers some violent (and well deserved) death.

However, it all speeds along at a quickie pace (all of Chaney's mummy pictures barely eclipse the 60 minute mark) and it's supplied with the usual atmosphere & mood music that at this stage of the game make it a good enough occupier of one's time. Of the quartet of Kharis films, 'Tomb' would be my favorite. It's certainly a more atmospheric piece than its predecessor and not bogged down with any of the inane comic relief.

Normally, you can never go wrong with a Universal monster movie. Whether it's the originals or the slightly less prestigious sequels in each franchise, they always provide suspense, atmosphere, good performances, and overall great entertainment. Well, at least that's what I firmly believed until I watched "The Mummy's Tomb". What a dreary and uninspired sequel this was! The poster proudly exclaims Lon Chaney Jr. As the mummy, Kharis, but it might as well have been nameless extra #17 they wrapped in bandages for the role. The plot is a lousy recycling of the previous sequel, "The Mummy's Hand", with a lot of footage shameless re-used. The only remotely interesting character is depicted by George Zucco, but his role as evil High-Priest is cut too short and then he gets replaced by the very uncharismatic Turhan Bey. He resurrects Kharis, and sends him off to kill the archeologists (and their families) who desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian Princess Ananka during an expedition 30 years earlier. The film moves forward like Kharis does, namely lifeless and at an intolerably slow pace.

Obviously not one of the classic Universal horror films but is ridiculous fun. Poor Lon's limping mummy lumbers along at a snail's pace while potential "victims" wait in terror. Word of advice people: RUN!

This entry in Universal's classic Mummy series is often dismissed for having too much stock footage from the previous entry, The Mummy's Hand, of which this is a sequel of, but I think The Mummy's Tomb improves on The Mummy's Hand in more than one counts. 1) The cinematography, esp. the lighting is much more sophisticated here. 2) The priest's infatuation with the white woman is better developed. In the previous entry, it was too sudden. Here, it is anticipated. 3) The iconic scenes of mummy-carrying-away-the-damsel-in-distress are longer. Setting the plot in an American town with a history of witch-hunts was also a nice touch. The movie would be even better if they had made more use of the cemetery setting. The downside for me is the ludicrous resort to torch(!)-carrying, rather than say flash-light carrying, masses in the finale.

This takes places 30 years after "Hand" which means it should happen in 1970--but there's clear references to World War II! This has Kharis (Lon Chaney now) coming to Mapleton Massachusetts to kill the desecraters of an ancient tomb. How Kharis survived after being burnt to death in the previous movie and why he waits 30 years is never explained. With him is Mehemet Bay (Turhan Bay) to feed him tana leaves and order him about.

It's pretty silly since the plot makes little sense and there are loopholes galore...but it sometimes works. The makeup on Chaney is effective, it moves fairly quickly, the acting isn't bad and it all leads up to a fiery climax. All in all an OK Universal horror film.