The Mummy (1932)

Director: Karl Freund

Starring: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron, Edward Van Sloan, Bramwell Fletcher

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It comes to life!

Plot: In 1921 a field expedition in Egypt discovers the mummy of ancient Egyptian prince Im-Ho-Tep, who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. Also found in the tomb is the Scroll of Thoth, which can bring the dead back to life. One night a young member of the expedition reads the Scroll out loud, and then goes insane, realizing that he has brought Im-Ho-Tep back to life. Ten years later, disguised as a modern Egyptian, the mummy attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated into a beautiful young woman.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

There's one thing that most Mummy pictures drop the ball on and that's lots of great Mummy action. This one gets lots of points because, to the best of my knowledge, it's the film that kicked off a great, albeit limited, movie monster; and who better to be the monster than Boris Karloff?


There's something very alluring and adventurous having these types of films take place in the 1920s and 30s. Maybe it's the outfits and the cars. It doesn't matter because it's enough that I will never miss an opportunity to see a Mummy film I haven't seen before and that's not really something that I can say about vampire or werewolf pictures. Which brings me to atmosphere. THE MUMMY is rich with it, from start to finish. When Universal came out with the very nice box sets of THE MUMMY, DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, etc, I ate em up. Last October I tackled the entire WEREWOLF set and this year I reckon I'll bang through THE MUMMY set. I could do a hell of a lot worse.