The Mummy’s Tomb *** (1942, Lon Chaney Jr, Turhan Bey, George Zucco, Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, John Hubbard) – Classic Movie Review 3,299

Lon Chaney Jr takes over from Tom Tyler as Kharis the Mummy in Universal Pictures‘ 1942 horror movie sequel The Mummy’s Tomb.

Lon Chaney Jr takes over from Tom Tyler as Kharis the Mummy in director Harold Young’s 1942 Universal Pictures horror movie The Mummy’s Tomb, a slightly less good but still enjoyable 1942 sequel to The Mummy’s Hand (1940). It also stars Turhan Bey, George Zucco, Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, John Hubbard, Elyse Knox and Mary Gordon.

This time the living Mummy (Lon Chaney Jr) is sent by Andoheb (George Zucco) to America with a high priest (Turhan Bey) to seek murderous revenge on the defilers of the sacred tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka 30 years earlier. The screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher (from a story by Neil P Varnick) revisits the now very familiar characters and plotlines without, alas, adding anything much that is new. It does, though, keep the faith with the Mummy lore, have a decent enough story to tell, have a commendably serious tone, and still have some effective scenes and dialogue, and some good performances to deliver them.

Even with a very short 61 minute running time, it relies heavily on extended flashbacks to its 1940 predecessor The Mummy’s Hand – as well as using footage from the classic Universal 1931 Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein!

The film also includes footage from The Ghost of Frankenstein. The score contains music from The Invisible Woman. And the production reuses the Shelby House on Universal’s backlot built for Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) for the Banning residence.

All this combines to make the movie seem better than it perhaps deserves. It does make the production look good, especially at the fiery climax, always busy and fast moving, and full of Mummy fascination. The archive footage dovetails quite neatly into the new footage, even the rampaging villagers with burning torches from Frankenstein, which must have inspired the fiery climax. The Banning residence burns so brightly that you have fears for everybody’s safety, particularly that of Lon (or stunt double) in that suit of rags.

Unfortunately, the Universal studio’s cost-cutting efforts are not the sign of a genre on the rise, despite the continuing and apparently eternal popularity of the Mummy as a monster. But everyone makes the best of a cheap job. Actors, writers, director are up for it.

Three stars from the previous episode return to provide the links needed for the sequel: a welcome George Zucco as Andoheb, a less welcome Dick Foran as Stephen Banning, and a very unwelcome Wallace Ford as Babe Hanson, the desperately unfunny comedy turn in The Mummy’s Hand. Fortunately all three, even Wallace Ford, have serious roles and are good, but unfortunately they have too little to do and are too quickly dispensed with.

Also in the very good cast are Turhan Bey as Mehemet Bey, Elyse Knox as Isobel Evans, John Hubbard as Dr John Banning, Mary Gordon as Jane Banning, Virginia Brissac as Mrs Ella Evans, Cliff Clark as the Sheriff, Frank Reicher as Professor Matthew Norman, Paul E Burns as Jim the Caretaker, Emmett Vogan as the coroner, and Glenn Strange as Farmer.

It is 30 years after the events of The Mummy’s Hand, and it turns out that Andoheb (George Zucco) has survived his spectacular, apparently fatal fall at the end of the movie, and now plans revenge on the now elderly Stephen Banning (Dick Foran) and his family in Mapleton, Massachusetts, one by one. The high priest Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey) takes an arranged job as a caretaker of a graveyard. The mummy Kharis is fed tanna leaves at the full moon…

Lon Chaney Jr gets above-title star billing, but has more or less nothing to do except shuffle and limp around lamely. He is hardly a frightening monster at all. He moves way too slowly. But he can shin up buildings impressively and appear suddenly in doorways, so he looms and menaces well. He’s an okay presence, if that is indeed Lon in the raggedy man suit, and not a stunt double most of the time.

Turhan Bey is a smoothly menacing presence as Mehemet Bey, a handsome, silky, sexy villain, who plans to make off with the hero’s future bride (Elyse Knox as Isobel Evans), who’d apparently prefer to marry Steve Banning’s dull son Dr John Banning (John Hubbard) to enjoying eternal life (death, that is) with Mehemet Bey.

Lon Chaney Jr and his Kharis the Mummy are very entertaining, but Turhan Bey is the film’s hit actor and his Mehemet Bey is the film’s hit character. Turhan smoothly steals the show.

The film was shot from 1 June 1942 to mid-June 1942 and released on 23 October 1942. It played in a double bill with Night Monster.

The Mummy’s Tomb was Lon Chaney Jr’s first film after renewing his contract with Universal Pictures in February 1942. He returned as The Mummy in The Mummy’s Ghost (June 1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (December 1944). He must have wondered what had happened to his career.

Then Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy put the Universal saga to rest.

Hammer Films took over the moribund Universal franchise in the late 1950s. After the very successful The Mummy in 1959, followed by the successful The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb in 1964 and The Mummy’s Shroud in 1967, The Mummy genre was more successfully revived by Hammer Films in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972) before its eventual flourishing in the age of CGI with The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). Tom Cruise fights the monster in The Mummy (2017). Lee Cronin’s The Mummy premiered in Los Angeles on 9 April 2026, and was released on 17 April 2026 by Warner Bros in the US. 

Turhan Bey died on September 30 2012, aged 90.

The cast are Lon Chaney Jr as Kharis the Mummy, Dick Foran as Steve Banning, John Hubbard as Dr John Banning, Elyse Knox as Isobel Evans, Wallace Ford as Babe Hanson, Turhan Bey as Mehemet Bey, George Zucco as High Priest Andoheb, Mary Gordon as Jane Banning, Cliff Clark as Sheriff, Virginia Brissac as Ella Evans, Paul E Burns as Jim, Frank Reicher as Professor Matthew Norman, Emmett Vogan as Coroner, Harry Cording as Vic, Frank Darien as Old Man. Glenn Strange as Farmer.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,299

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