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The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

Dir: Reginald Le Borg

The townspeople of Mapleton, Massachusetts are about to suffer a return visit from the murderous mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr).
The mummy of his Princess Ananka is in the local museum and that ever loving High Priest Andoheb (George Zucco) decrees that the remains should be returned to their Egyptian resting place.

He dispatches yet another neophyte Priest, Yousef Bey (John Carradine), to America to resurrect Kharis and steal back Ananka's remains.
But Kharis makes himself known to the townsfolk when he attacks a Professor , due to his need to feed on the scared tana leaves that the foolish Prof was brewing up.

To add even more problems to their plan Ananka’s body crumbles to dust when Bey and Kharis try to steal it.
But Kharis senses that Ananka’s soul has been re-incarnated into a young co-ed (who has had fearful dreams since Kharis was revived) named Amina (Ramsay Ames).
Amina's fiancé Tom (Robert Lowery) and the local Cops must try and hunt down Kharis and Bey to stop any more deaths and to protect Amina from the shambling, lovelorn, horror….

This third sequel to the original “The Mummy” (or the 2nd sequel to the later re-boot) once again ups the pace, ups the mummy action and darkens the mood in comparison to “The Mummy’s Hand” but it’s not quite as dark, well paced or generally as good as the previous “The Mummy’s Tomb”.

The use of stock footage form previous films is thankfully almost non-existent here though (so no time is wasted getting on down to the new mummy action) but slightly lower rent when it is used because in the other films the footage was at least used only in an open and honest flashback context whereas here the footage is used as part of the new plot of the movie (like Zucco walking up the temple steps from “Hand” to represent Carradine’s character supposedly walking to the temple in this and some shots of Kharis shuffling around the countryside) purely for quick fix, cost cutting, reasons.

It’s certainly very nice to see that ‘Universal’ have used the ongoing story of Kharis in an interesting way with some pretty good continuity that truly turns these four films into an epic tale when combined, even if they are only very short films individually.
Although saying that you have to wonder why Kharis is not more singed after the last film and also what George Zucco’s Andoheb (at least we assume it is, although he is billed as just ‘High Priest’) is still doing here, as he seemed to die of old age in the previous film, so I guess he must have just dropped off for a little afternoon nap at the end of his scene in “The Mummy’s Tomb” not actually passed away!
Although Andoheb’s judgment about the Priest he chooses to do his bidding is just as flawed as usual, which is comical but rather worn at the same time, if you watch this films back-to back.

As far as the screenplay goes, the gossip of the scared townsfolk is as fun (and quaintly dated) as always, despite the faster pace here than Kharis’ debut though the film does stop dead now and again for lethargically staged exposition scenes where historians and Cops fill each other in on what’s going on.
The mixture of general rampage plot and the re-incarnation of Ananka idea also means the film is a bit schizophrenic, as the first half is just Kharis doing his throttling thing before the Ananka/Amina plot fully kicks in half way through, as such “Ghost” is weighed down with more plotting and exposition in its main portion than either “Hand” or “Tomb”.

The romance sub-plot is as cliché, saccharine and dated as you would expect (and is saddled with some crap dialogue) but at least this romance angle serves a big purpose in the way the film plays to the audience during the finale, where the previous drippy love clichés (although to be fair they would have played better in the 40’s) become the bedrock of the darker elements to come.
Without the sweetness the bitter would not register as well. Thus mote it be.

Some of the casting is a bit dubious too.
Robert Lowery’s Tom is a very old looking student and his hitched-up high Simon Cowell trousers don’t help matters. Hip this cat ain’t.
A very un-Egyptian looking Ramsay Ames also fails to convince in either acting or looks (although her ‘Goth’ white streaked hair is fun) as the half Egyptian co-ed of Kharis’ dreams.
So really, aside from a suitably cadaverous and menacing Carradine, and even Chaney, none of the acting here is very good, and both Ames and Lowery are particularly, rather damagingly, wooden.

There’s still lots here to enjoy though.
Chaney’s Kharis is played slightly different here, this time the mummy seems to have more human traits in how he acts and reacts (like the scene where he can’t break down a door in the museum) which are obviously put there to make the ‘ageless love’ aspect of the tale carry weight (as, after a break from duty in “Tomb”, Princess Ananka is of course back) as we now see Kharis’ human side show through the monster he now is when he looks at the body of Ananka and her seeming re-incarnation in Amina.
That’s not to say he’s not still a full-on throttling machine though and the numerous stalk ‘n’ strangle scenes are effective enough.

The film is also just as delightfully cold-blooded as “Tomb” in the way it treats returning characters, but “Ghost” is also ruthless (and again damn brave for the time) towards it’s new characters, resulting in a wonderfully surprising (if muddled in the details a bit) finale that goes against all you would expect from a film of this style and era.

Overall then “The Mummy’s Ghost” (no ghost to be seen by the way) is better than “The Mummy’s Hand” as far as action, pacing and plot goes, but not as good as “The Mummy’s Tomb” as far as action, pacing and plot goes.
And that’s a wrap.