The Mummy
Directed by Karl Freund
Written by John L. Balderston from a story by Nina Wilcox Putnam
1931/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Helen Grosvenor: Save me from that mummy! It’s dead!
Another great performance from Boris Karloff as a classic Universal monster.
The movie begins at the site of a British Museum archeological expedition. First, they find a mummy and then a cursed scroll that brings the mummy of Imhotep (Karloff) back to life. The sight of him drives one young explorer mad and the mummy walks off into the night. He reappears as modern Egyptian Ardath Bey. Bey points the explorers to the undisturbed tomb of Princess Ankh-es-en-amon containing her mummy. The loot becomes the property of the Cairo Museum.
The action moves to Cairo where Ardath Bey meets Helen Grovsvenor (Zita Johann) who bears a striking resemblance to his beloved Princess. Bey has a mysterious, almost hypnotic, effect on Helen. Both Frank (David Manners), who is sweet on Helen, and Egyptologist Dr. Muller (Edward van Sloan) spend the rest of the movie trying to get to the bottom of things and save Helen.
While some of the acting is pretty ham-handed, Karloff is effective and even moving, Zita Johann is probably the most intriguing of all the Universal horror ingenues, and the cinematography is first rate. I definitely prefer this one to Dracula.
