I'm a little under the weather, so this will be quick. Like several other movies I've watched recently, THE MUMMY'S HAND is really a pulp adventure yarn masquerading as something else, in this case a horror movie. Although it's definitely creepy in the late stages after the Mummy (played pretty effectively by cowboy actor Tom Tyler) and starts shambling around and killing. Before that we've got two-fisted archaeologist Dick Foran, his sidekick/comedy relief Wallace Ford, the stage magician who finances their expedition (the great Cecil Kellaway), his beautiful daughter Peggy Moran, and George Zucco (who else?) as the High Priest of Karnak (Sim-sallah-bim!) who wants to stop the Americans from finding the ancient tomb of Princess Annanka. Some of the movie does resemble an early version of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. The acting is no great shakes, but journeyman director Christy Cabanne (whose career goes all the way back to 1912!) keeps things moving along fairly well. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not a great film, but certainly fun.
2 comments:
Watched this one not too long ago myself. I'm not a huge fan of the tendency to shovel "comic relief" characters into horror movies in the '40s (it was going on in the '30s as well, but more frequently on Poverty Row than in Universal) but I enjoy Wallace Ford too much as an actor to hold "poopsie" against him here.
For me Wallace Ford will always be the taxi driver from that great scene in HARVEY, one of my all-time favorite movies.
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