Universal Studios Monsters - 1942 - The Mummys Tomb

Of all Universal’s classic monsters, the Mummy was surely the one treated with the least respect, being mercilessly put out to graft in its third outing, The Mummy’s Tomb, simply to earn the studio money. This seems a pity after the remarkable beginnings endowed upon the character in Karl Freund’s exotic and mysterious original, The Mummy (1932), in which Boris Karloff brought genuine pathos to the Mummy’s Tomb was Lon Chaney Jr’s first incarnation as the incarcerated Kharis and, given the oftentimes appalling scripting by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, and lacklustre direction by Harold Young, it’s easy to understand his displeasure at both the role and the movie. Swathed in yards of bandages, he was given little more to do than lunge through the scenes, reduced to an ancient Egyptian killing machine, affording him little opportunity to stretch his talents. Jack Pierce’s make-up took into account the fiery demise of Tom Tyler’sKharis in The Mummy’s Hand (1940), suitably depriving the evil embalmee o