There are, of course, more modern versions of The Mummy (1932).  The one with which I am familiar stars Brendan Fraser as the American member of the French Foreign Legion, Rick O’Connell, and was made in 1999.  And that is all you will get of that story, for now.  Perhaps I will circle back to it sometime soon.  In the meantime, I would like to continue my coverage of the original creature features that gave rise to Universal’s roster of classic monsters.  Having watched a few of these now, they also underscore how unoriginal is Hollywood, a fact I have mentioned more than a few times.  With some varying degrees of embellishment, the 1932 and 1999 stories are largely the same.  They also hint at what I suspect is, to be polite, a recency bias on the part of modern audiences.  For example, I would be willing to bet that there are many who think that Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) is an original film.  The same could probably be said of the 1999 The Mummy.  Anyway, on with the 1932 review.

Stock footage sets the scene in Egypt in 1921 when The Mummy, named Imhotep, is found by a team of archaeologists led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron).  With the bandaged corpse sitting in the room, Sir Joseph, along with his assistant, Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher), and a friend and colleague, Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan), examine the various artifacts recovered from the tomb.  Among them is a sealed case.  Ralph and Sir Joseph are eager to open it, but seeing the warnings inscribed upon it, Dr. Muller strongly urges that not only do they leave it undisturbed, but that they re-bury it.  Dr. Muller and Sir Joseph go outside to discuss this further, leaving Ralph alone with the box.  Curiosity gets the better of the young man.  Under the lid, he finds the Scroll of Thoth, which he translates and reads aloud.  Doing so awakens the title body and reduces Ralph to madness, before it walks out just as Dr. Muller and Sir Joseph return to investigate the commotion.  We then jump ahead ten years and Sir Joseph’s son, Frank Whemple (David Manners), is following in dad’s Egyptology footsteps.  He and his partner, Professor Pearson (Leonard Mudie), have not had much luck in finding anything of note until they are approached by a tall man calling himself Ardath Bey (Boris Karloff).  It is actually Imhotep in disguise, but he does not reveal this to the two English archaeologists.  Instead, Imhotep shows them a funerary fragment from the final resting place of Princess Ankh-es-en-amun (Zita Johann), and indicating that the site is nearby.  Once shovels are put to dirt and they go down a few feet, they find an undisturbed chamber.  Frank has his father brought back to Egypt for this momentous occasion, and soon the discoveries are on display in Cairo.  The night of their unveiling, there is a party nearby attended by many British dignitaries, including the daughter of the governor of the Sudan, the half English-half Egyptian Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann).  If you are confused by the actress playing two characters, standby.  At the museum, Imhotep murders the night guard so that he can be alone to read from the Scroll of Thoth.  His words appear to drift across the distance and are heard by Helen while she is dancing.  Entranced, she abruptly leaves the party and makes her way to the museum.  She is found there by Dr. Muller and Frank, speaking in ancient Egyptian and banging on the locked door before she faints.  She comes to in the Cairo home of Sir Joseph with no recollection of what has happened to her.  Given his knowledge of what took place ten years ago and her hypnotic ramblings, Dr. Muller suspects it is the curse they had awakened.  His theories receive a boost when Imhotep, again in the guise of the seemingly friendly Ardath, visits.  Once more, Helen looks to be under his spell, wanting to follow him as he leaves.  She is stopped by Frank, who in the brief time they have known each other, has fallen in love with her.  Hey, things were different in the 1930s.  Seeing the attraction, Dr. Muller gives Frank an amulet to protect the young man from coming under Imhotep’s sway.  They cannot save Helen, however, who slips out of the house the next day and finds herself visiting Imhotep.  While there, she is shown the past, when in Ancient Egypt she had been Princess Ankh-es-en-amun, and they had been lovers.  Her stupor is broken by the sound of her dog being killed, and she hurries back to Sir Joseph’s house.  Once there, she begs Frank to stop her from leaving the house again no matter what she says.  He promises to do so, and is on station later that night.  Remember that little protective amulet I mentioned?  Well, our Frank does something he likely thinks is an act of gallantry and attaches it to her bedroom door.  This is the opportunity for which Imhotep has been waiting.  The ancient Egyptian sorcerer casts a spell on Frank that causes the would-be guardian to have some kind of episode and pass out.  With Frank out of the way, Helen is drawn to Imhotep.  Dr. Muller arrives in time to revive Frank, and together they head to the museum where they are sure they will find Imhotep.  Indeed, he is there with Helen, who now fully believes that she is Princess Ankh-es-en-amun.  For the sake of ease of typing, I will continue to refer to her as Helen, if you do not mind.  She is going along with the ceremony until he makes it known that she will have to die in order to be completely resurrected as his true Egyptian lover.  She rebels against this, forcing him to use more magic to sedate her.  She is about to be done in when Dr. Muller and Frank get there, interrupting the procedure.  Helen then appeals to Isis.  The answer comes in the form of the Scroll of Thoth being burning and Imhotep rotting before their eyes.  In short, the day is saved.

It is easy enough to say while watching The Mummy that one should not mess with ancient curses.  You do not need to be a practicing Catholic like me to know that they never end well, for anybody.  Of course, the good guys win in the end.  At the same, I am sure they would all say that they wish they had never opened that case, said those words, etc.  In a broader sense, the film is full of rituals and themes upon which the Church would frown, to say the least.  What is a little more edifying is the concern that Dr. Muller and Frank have for Helen’s soul.  Something awful is happening to her that, when she is in her right head, does not want to experience.  All this points to the question of how much your soul makes up who you are, your identity?  The Church has a beautiful answer to this, but in short, it is that your soul is everything.  “Everything” is a big word, but an apt one.  Our bodies are what we typically use to attach any meaning to whoever or whatever it is we think we are.  Our clothes, the way we comb our hair, our speech, and so on, all convey a great deal of meaning.  God sees beyond these material things, which is what we are, and looks at something deeper, our souls.  They are indelible, and will either live forever with Him in Heaven, or be destroyed in the fires of hell.  The latter of these things is the soul’s separation from God, which is why those wanting to save Helen from Imhotep are saying more than what they probably intend.

Like others of its ilk that I have recently discussed, The Mummy can be campy.  Also, like The Invisible Man (1933), there are some neat early special effects when Imhotep is finally destroyed, turning into a desiccated skeleton.  For this non-horror lover, this is all perfectly acceptable Halloween fodder.