The Mummy
Short description
The Mummy is about an ancient Egyptian priest, Imhotep, who is buried alive for trying to use a forbidden spell to bring his lost love back from the dead. Centuries later, a British excavation in Egypt uncovers his mummified body, and when a member of the party reads a life-giving scroll aloud, Imhotep rises again and takes the scroll with him. Years afterward, calling himself Ardath Bey, he approaches a British expedition and crosses paths with Helen Grosvenor, a young woman he believes carries the soul of the princess he once loved. His pursuit of her drives the conflict.
The film was directed by Karl Freund, following his work on Dracula and before Mad Love. John L. Balderston wrote the screenplay, and Carl Laemmle Jr. produced it for Universal Pictures. Boris Karloff plays Imhotep, with Zita Johann as Helen, David Manners as Frank Whemple, Arthur Byron as Sir Joseph Whemple, Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Muller and Bramwell Fletcher as Ralph Norton, among a credited cast of twenty-four. It runs 73 minutes and mixes drama, fantasy and horror.
On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from more than 29,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.7 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 7.9 out of 10 from 47 reviews places it higher with reviewers than with general audiences.
What's left behind the scenes
- The play by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Shayer, which was originally intended to be adapted into a film, was called “Cagliostro.” It was later rewritten “for Egypt” by John Balderston in order to capitalize on public interest in the discovery of Tutankhamun’s famous tomb.
- The name “Imhotep” was taken by John Balderston from a hieroglyphic inscription – it is the name of one of the ancient Egyptian architects.
- Jack Pierce designed the makeup for the role of Imhotep. Applying the makeup carefully for close-ups took him and Boris Karloff up to eight hours a day.
- The episode depicting Imhotep’s memories of ancient events was intentionally filmed in the style of silent cinema – without dialogue, with characteristic expressive gestures and facial expressions of the characters, and even with a slightly altered filming speed.
- The initial version of the film featured a substantial scene showing a chain of Ankhsenamun's reincarnations across different eras of history. This material was entirely removed from the release version of the film at the request of censors and is considered lost. The only remaining trace of this episode is a mention in the credits of Henry Victor, who never appears on screen, in the role of a “Saxon warrior.”
- Certain situations and mise-en-scènes in the film almost exactly replicate those in “Dracula”—Universal Studio’s first hugely popular sound horror film.
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