The Mummy's Hand

Christy Cabanne, 1940

The Mummy series is really the nadir of the classic Universal monster stable. Every one of the other sequels has embodied some degree of suck, so I wasn't expecting much here. As it turns out, though, it's actually a little bit good. To be honest, it's also not really a sequel - it has nothing in common with The Mummy other than the presence of a mummy, and all of the later sequels follow from this one. In fact, pretty much the entirety of the mummy lore comes from this movie.

It basically plays like an old adventure serial more than a horror movie. The mummy itself doesn't come into play until halfway through, and there's a strong overtone of scoundrel-y adventure. Think more Indiana Jones, less The Shining. There are no less than two comic relief characters among the principal cast, and amazingly, both are fairly amusing. I would even go so far as to describe Cecil Kellaway's "The Great Solvani" as wonderful, especially during the drunken conversation with his daughter in the hotel room, where he seems to compulsively perform magic tricks.

The ending is tremendously lame, as our hero defeats the mummy by dropping a bowl of fire on him while he laps up spilled tea from the floor. No, I'm not kidding. Even before that, the mummy never really exudes much of a sense of menace. And while the comic relief is solid, and George Zucco's villainous Andoheb is suitably menacing, the leads themselves are dull, dull dull.

Still, better than anything that followed it.

5.5/10