The Mummy's Hand

Around 1940, Universal began a new series of "B" horror films. Most ran just over an hour and featured the studio's cast of monsters. "The Mummy's Hand" (running 78 minutes) and better than most of the series, brings back the Mummy, who had last appeared in 1932 with Boris Karloff in the title role. This time the role is filled by veteran western performer Tom Tyler who gives a chilling performance as Kharis the mummy.

Dick Foran (also a veteran of ridin' the range) as an out of work archaeologist and Wallace Ford as his partner (and comic relief) set out to finance an expedition to find the lost tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess and all the riches therein. Along for the ride are Cecil Kellaway as the expedition's backer and Peggy Moran as his daughter and Foran's love interest. The venerable George Zucco plays the High Priest and villain of the piece. Eduardo Ciannelli has a nice bit as the old High Priest who hands over his power to Zucco.

The film suffers from its "B" mentality and budget limitations but the mummy sequences are among the best that Universal has ever done. The temple setting is also very impressive. Universal would replace Tyler as the Mummy with Lon Chaney Jr. for three subsequent and inferior sequels.

Still and all, "The Mummy's Hand" ranks as a pretty good "B" horror film.

MORD39 RATING: *** (of ****)

THE MUMMY'S HAND is my favorite mummy film and easily the best in the Universal "Kharis" saga.

Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, Cecil Kellaway, and Peggy Moran make a very pleasant group of amateur explorers as they search out the tomb of Princess Ananka in Egypt. What they stumble upon instead was the first (in a now played-out) deadly mistake: a living mummy.

Kharis is a bandaged monstrosity kept alive by a high priest (George Zucco in his most sinister role) and is a protector for his long-lost love. When Zucco feeds him a fluid brewed from nine tana leaves, Kharis is kept stalking and dealing death to those who dared enter his lair.

Tom Tyler is for my money the best choice to portray the mummy. He creeps and crumbles perfectly, even gaining effect from his dark, staring eyes in chilling close-ups.

Some fans complain about the intrusive comedy during the film, and while I too am unforgiving of such practices, in this case I think they help the festivities rather than detract from them. All in all, THE MUMMY'S HAND remains one of the better efforts from the 1940's and definitely the best of the Kharis pictures.

The producers of the original `Mummy' film obviously had not thought about a sequel. They turned the mummy, Kharis, into a pile of dust at the end and destroyed the Scroll of Toth, which the mummy used to invoke his murderous spells and control the partially reincarnated Princess Ananka.

The `Mummy's Hand' was made eight years after the original had burned the storyline bridges. Therefore, the writers had to start over and hope we weren't really paying much attention to the continuity. Not surprisingly, lots of cut footage from the original film was thrown in to set up the story. This time around, instead of a scroll in a stone chest, we now have an urn full of tana leaves.

This loose sequel introduces the value of the fluid of the tana leaf to give the mummy power (carried on into subsequent mummy films) and the mummy's murderous nightly romps to eliminate those who would find and violate the tomb of the Princess. The principal investigators this time are Dick Foran, the hero and straight man, and Wallace Ford, the formula sidekick who wisecracks his way through the movie with typical nervous bravado. The rest of the mandatory characters are the evil high priest, the older scientist, an attractive female and of course, the mummy.

This movie takes on the familiar 40's mystery formula: murders mixed with comedy relief. The original film was a classic, but the `Mummy's Hand' and the mummy films that followed through the mid 1940's quickly reverted to type. They looked more like entries in a B-movie serial than the subsequent chapters of a classic horror film story.

One of a long long list of remakes of the original The Mummy (1932) and the first of 4 movies within the first Mummy franchise.

Now what struck me immediatly was the fact that the production values and general appearance of the movie are considerably weaker than the original which you wouldn't expect since it was made almost a decade later.

Second though advertised as a horror it most certainly isn't, this is closer to a comedy by far especially since our two leads crack wise from start to finish and much of it is really quite ahead of its time.

Once again we see an expedition go terribly wrong as a mummy rises from the dead and.........you know the rest.

Though it all looks pretty terrible the acting and writing is better than the original and though I'd certainly not say The Mummy's Hand is a good film I can definetly see the appeal.

The Good:

Some great characters

Some great writing and great comedy

Has a real charm

The Bad:

Looks even more dated than the 1932 original

Fall apart in the final act

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Even our comedic leads were more convincing than Tom Cruise in the 2017 remake

The other three Universal Kharis films succeeding were pretty uninspired and uneven, though not without their good parts, however The Mummy's Hand while less than perfect and not exactly great is actually rather decent. Universal are nowhere near at their best here and The Mummy with Boris Karloff also from Universal from eight years earlier is the better film, but of the four Universal Kharis films The Mummy's Hand is easily the best of the four and the only one to come close to a good film.

It does start off rather sluggishly and takes too long to get going, it's all relevant but one does wish that the film got to the point quicker than it did. Two performances didn't come over so good, Wallace Ford's bumbling gets irritating after a while and Eduardo Ciannelli is for my tastes rather stiff. And I do have to agree about some of the comedy, some of it is witty and amusing but too much of it was intrusive and unnecessary so it felt more annoying than funny.

Visually however The Mummy's Hand is a solidly made film, the best-looking of the four Universal Kharis films most certainly, everything's professionally shot, moodily(appropriately) lit and crisply edited, the sets are suitably atmospheric and it's clear what the time and place is meant to be. The score fits well and is haunting, again the best score of the four films, being very stock in the other three. The story while not much new is interesting and doesn't try to do anything too simple or complicated, while it has more than one type of film genre it didn't feel muddled or have the feeling of not-knowing-what-it-was-trying-to-be and once it gets going it is quick moving and is pretty exciting and atmospherically spooky. The direction is decent and while none of the performances are award-worthy the performances are solid enough, George Zucco's excellent(brimming with sinister authority) performance standing out. Cecil Kellaway is very likable and Tom Tyler is surprisingly good as Kharis, he's actually genuinely unnerving(particularly the eyes). Dick Foran is amiable and Peggy Moran brings charm and spunk to her role.

Overall, a decent if not great film and easily the best of the Universal Kharis films. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox