The Mummy's Curse (1944) review

5. The Mummy’s Curse (1944)

Directed by: Leslie Goodwins

Produced by: Oliver Drake

Screenplay by: Bernard Schubert

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Coe, Virginia Christine

Not even six months after the release of “The Mummy’s Ghost,” Universal rushed out “The Mummy’s Curse,” the final film of the Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) series. That’s insane to think about, a major film studio taking less than six months to make an entire movie; needless to say, it was a different time. This is the “Mummy” film I have the least to say about; it’s logistically off the rails, the characters are flat, and there are few interesting developments, just occasionally sprinkled with solid camerawork and ideas. It takes place 25 years after the last movie, with the swamp Kharis and Princess Ananka (Virginia Christine) sank into being drained for an irrigation project, which upsets the superstitious locals. Kharis’s body is found by Ragheb (Martin Kosleck), a disciple of the high priest Zandaab (Peter Coe), who’s posing as a museum representative looking for the mummies. Meanwhile, Ananka rises from the excavated swamp as a young woman with amnesia. So Zandaab and Ragheb use the tana leaves to revive Kharis and reunite him with his princess…again.

Okay, so once again, they feel the need to give the story a massive time jump; it’s not inherently a bad idea, as I can appreciate the concept of establishing an urban legend vibe that the locals have this shared fear of. But it’s so distracting to think about, considering that “The Mummy’s Tomb” was 30 years after 1940, and this is 25 years after that, which would set this film in the mid ‘90s. And again, there’s nothing in the setting to indicate that it’s anything other than 1944; but at least there are no World War II references this time. However, just consider where it takes place; the previous films were explicitly set in Massachusetts, while here we get a strong vibe of Cajuns and bayous that’s clearly meant to be Louisiana. That’s like having a “Dracula” film at his castle in Transylvania, and then in the sequel, the castle is suddenly in Tokyo. But I have to admit, the swamp itself is rather photogenic, making for some classic shots with dark fog.

In fact, the film itself is better for how it looks than how the story plays out. By far, the best shot—maybe even the best shot of the whole series—is when Ananka rises up out of the mud; I can’t do it justice, just watch and embrace how detailed, beautiful and creepy the visual is. I also really like the shot of Ananka with Kharis in the tent, and we see the shadow of the latter’s arm reaching for her; that’s a German Expressionist touch if I’ve ever seen one. This isn’t a bad movie to put on if you just want something to look at for an hour; but the story itself feels very cheap and dull, and that translates to Kharis’s look. Rather than the usual makeup, Jack Pierce fashioned a mask for Lon Chaney Jr. because it was much less arduous and time-consuming; the mask is apparently Pierce’s only surviving work, preserved by horror archivist Ben Burns III on permanent display at the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle. Burns is kind of a legend of the industry; he’s turned down half-million dollar offers for the original 18-inch armature model of King Kong, believing it belongs as part of Hollywood history.

Anyway, one major downside of the movie is that it’s not even clear who the main protagonist is. A long chunk of the run time is spent on Kharis chasing Ananka, and though Virginia Christine—whom you may recognize as Mrs. Olson from the Folgers commercials—is clearly making an effort to give her depth, everything about the character is mistakenly downplayed. She should be interesting, a reincarnated mummy princess in a lost time, with a mysterious psychic link to an undead monster; but she’s more used as a prop for other characters, like a local named Cajun Joe (Kurt Katch), museum representative Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore), and his random love interest Betty (Kay Harding), whose uncle Pat Walsh (Addison Richards) leads the irrigation project. Nobody really leaves much of an impression; it’s all just a bunch of dumb attitudes and phony accents.

At the end of the day, “The Mummy’s Curse” is simply more of the same crap we’ve seen already: flashbacks of the mummification, Kharis going around clumsily killing people, a beautiful woman being chased, Egyptian high priests being sneaky, etc. The climax at least features a fun little fight between the differing parties, but it still goes out awkwardly, with Kharis meeting his own demise by ripping apart a wall of an old monastery, causing the whole place to fall down on top of him, all the while Ananka is found mummified in the next room. Even though I don’t think the Kharis movies are great, one quality they share is they’re all consistently short, clocking in at barely an hour long. And when you think about it, they all still left some sort of impact; when Hammer produced their 1959 remake starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, it seemed to take elements from each movie as far as setting, story and characters, with the exception of this. It’s not a terrible film, just kind of a stale and unnecessary one, albeit with a few redeeming factors.

My rating: 5/10