The Mummy's Curse 5

Update: In passing, have to note that I just read a later interview with the late Virginia Christine, in which she admitted that Chaney was essentially "stoned" out of his mind the entire time the film was being made, and, during the scenes where his Mummy had to lift and carry her, she always worried that he was going to drop her and break a few of her bones.

OK...objectively speaking, there's no way this is a 5-star picture, but it's haunted me since I first saw it in childhood, and it remains one of my favorite old-time horror films. The Mummy series was never considered Universal's most successful or inspired productions, and it's easy to see why...outside of the first entry that starred Boris Karloff, it featured Lon Chaney Jr. (or, in one installment, cowboy star Tom Tyler) in bandages and a rubber mask, stumbling along after victims with all the speed of an arthritic turtle; as kids, we used to joke that you could jog a mile or 2, catch up on your sleep, read the newspaper, have a bite to eat, and then get up and run away again just as the Mummy crept up on you (any victims of the Mummy seemed to run blindly into his outstretched paw, or to sit there paralyzed as he crept up toward them; maybe they had a death wish). Still, there was always something inherently creepy about this ancient re-animated corpse moving about in the modern world with malevolent intent and an abiding love for his long-dead Ananka. Problem was, Universal never really did anything with this promising theme. The plots never varied. There were always tiresome flashbacks of Kharis as a living human defying the Gods, and suffering their eternal curse as a result (all in the name of love). A fanatical Egyptian would revive Kharis in modern times with Tana leaves (do they harvest those with the opium and heroin?), Mummy and fanatical Egyptian would attempt to bring the reincarnated Princess Ananka back to Egypt, the fanatical Egyptian (George Zucco, Turhan Bey, John Carradine) would be killed, or would betray his Mission and then be killed, and Kharis and Ananka would go down in flames, or sink into a bog, or something equally inane (although the final scene in "The Mummy's Ghost" was actually pretty effective). The plot of "Curse" isn't really any different, but it has certain little touches and flourishes that are still creepy to this day. For instance, there's a scene where Ananka, played by a young and lovely Virginia Christine ("Mrs. Olson" from the Folger's Coffee commercials) rises up mummified from a Louisiana swamp, and it's one of the more powerful, haunting images to ever appear in a Universal horror movie. Or the scene where Chaney, as Kharis, attacks an older woman. She beats futilely on his chest, and puffs of dust arise from his bandages as she does. A small touch, perhaps, but if the rest of the picture had been as inventive, it might justly be considered a classic of 1940's horror. There are bad elements throughout, of course. Some of the "acting" is awful (Kay Harding as the non-mummy "love interest", for example, can't act at all, but at least she's very attractive). The depiction of blacks in a movie has never been more demeaning or embarrassing (the terrified black laborer character...I think his name was "Goobie"...keeps repeating throughout the picture, "The Mummy is on the loose, and he's dancin' with the Devil!", which was good for a eye-rolling laugh or 2 before total exasperation set in). Peter Coe (who was a good friend of schlock director Ed Wood) doesn't make much of an impression as the fanatical Egyptian, but his assistant, played by the always enjoyable Martin Kosleck (Kosleck, a Jew, left Germany when the Nazis came to power, and he ironically spent much of his Hollywood career playing Nazis), manages to make far more of an impression, even though the script gives him little of substance to create a character with. At the end of his life, Kosleck (a homosexual) claimed Lon Chaney Jr. was a total drunken, belligerent SOB, one who allegedly delighted in referring to him as a "sawed-off Nazi c**ksucker". Virginia Christine, on the other hand, remembered Chaney as a polite, thoughtful professional. Again, it's not a great picture. It's really not even a good picture, but it is, to me at least, a fascinating, low-budget failure that I've come back to watch countless times, always with great enjoyment.