The Mummy’s Curse ** (1944, Lon Chaney Jr, Peter Coe, Virginia Christine, Addison Richards, Kay Harding) – Classic Movie Review 3302

Director Leslie Goodwins serves up yet more Mummy mayhem, this time set in the swamps of Louisiana, in his acceptable 1944 Universal horror movie sequel, the fifth and last proper movie in the original Mummy saga – at least until Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955).

Lon Chaney Jnr reprises his role as Kharis the Mummy for a third and final time in this fairly lame sequel to The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), which starts 25 years from the end of that film and recycles footage and plots from the earlier Mummy movies, ending up the least enjoyable of all of them. The flashback sequence features footage of Boris Karloff and Tom Tyler as Kharis from the first two films.

However, Chaney Jnr, Virginia Christine (Princess Ananka), Addison Richards (Major Pat Walsh) and Kay Harding (Betty) are strong assets in the cast. Although unfortunately, a bland performance from Peter Coe as the high priest Dr Ilzor Zandaab gets in the way of having a good scary time. Where was George Zucco, absent for the only time in the Kharis series?

In the screenplay by Bernard Schubert, an irrigation project in the rural bayous of Louisiana unearths Kharis the living Mummy (Chaney Jnr), who was buried in quicksand 25 years earlier, and archaeologists dig up Kharis and Princess Ananka (Virginia Christine) and take them to Cajun country for a series of experiments and tests. That turns out to be a bad mistake, because of course they pretty soon go on the rampage yet again.

Also in the cast are Martin Kosleck, Kurt Katch, Dennis Moore, William Farnum, Ann Codee, Holmes Herbert, Charles Stevens and Claire Whitney.

It was shot from July 2 to August 8 1944 and released on December 22 1944 as a pre-Christmas treat.

According to Virginia Christine, Chaney Jnr was inebriated during most of the filming. When he carries her up the steep, crooked and worn steps of the shrine, she said he was weaving, going from side-to-side on the uneven steps. She was attached to a harness that went around his neck and her waist and fearful what would happen if Chaney fell. But the director stopped the shoot and replaced Chaney with a stand-in.

The notable sequence in which Princess Ananka rises from the dead in the swamp is slightly under-cranked, which speeds up the action, giving an eerie quality to her movements.

Chaney’s mask (preserved by Bob Burns), the only surviving example of Jack P Pierce’s Mummy make-up, is on permanent display at the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle, Washington, in its Horror Movie History exhibition.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3302

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/