The Mummy's Ghost is a lean-mean Universal programmer from long ago

The Mummy's Ghost, 1944, Universal, 61 minutes, B and W. Directed by Reginald Le Borg. Starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Kharis, John Carradine as Yousef Bey, Ramsay Ames as Amina Mansori, Robert Lowery as Tom Hervey, Frank Reicher as Prof. Matthew Norman, Barton MacLane as Inspector Walgreen, and George Zucco as Andoheb, High Priest of Arkan. Schlock-Meter rating: Eight stars out of 10.

The Mummy's Ghost is pulp horror at its finest. I confess to loving this lean, mean never-a-wasted-minute B programmer from Universal. There's no excess fat to trim from this film. It's like watching a good comic strip -- every scene is key to the horror tale. The film never takes itself too seriously, but at the same time does not descend to camp level. It's a damn good hour's entertainment. Film students who want to see how a good B film could provide fun to 1940s movie-goers should make The Mummy's Ghost required viewing. It would have been great to view this in a theater with say, House of Frankenstein.

Here's the plot: Egyptian cult disciple Carradine is commanded by a high priest (Zucco, in a wonderful small part)to revive mummy Kharis and find the long lost princess Ananka, Kharis' love who was taken from his tomb. This leads them to a small university community (Mapleton) where a professor of Egyptology revives Kharis with boiled leaves of tanna. The professor is murdered for his troubles, and soon Kharis and Carradine narrow their search to a pretty coed (Ames) with Egyptian blood, who it is suspected, is the reincarnated Ananka. Her boyfriend (Hervey) tries to protect her from both the mummy Kharis and suspicious townfolk who suspect she's part of the latest round of mummy murders. The ending is dark, which is surprising for a horror film of that era, but still very effective.

The Mummy's Ghost is one of a several-part Universal 1940s series offering that featured the mummy Kharis and his search for revenge and his lost love. Ghost was the second-to-last of the series. Chaney was Kharis in all but the first film, The Mummy's Hand (in which Tom Tyler was an effective Kharis). Surprisingly, Chaney is the weakest link in this otherwise tight, effective thriller. He shambles around awkwardly and inspires few shivers. Carradine and especially Zucco are very good as cult disciples. All in all, a great little film and definitely worth owning as an example of entertaining by-the-numbers B-movie filmmaking. Warch the trailer below.

-- Doug Gibson

A trio of Inner Sanctum films with Lon Chaney Jr.

By Doug Gibson

I have always wanted to sample Universal's "psychological mysteries" that called itself the Inner Sanctum films. When I was a youngster I watched "Calling Dr. Death" in the middle of the night but I recall nothing other than Lon Chaney Jr. seemed mentally tortured throughout. I finally grabbed the six-film DVD set from my co-blogger Steve Stones and watched three of the films, the aforementioned "Calling Dr. Death," "Weird Woman," and "The Frozen Ghost."

They're not bad mystery programmers (the three I saw timed in at 63, 63 and 62 minutes). What struck me in all three films is that one could take way the picture and the audio dialogue would work for radio, with minor shifts, such as reading newspaper headlines. By the way, a strange little man-head in a crystal ball introduces all the films. Although it must have been a given for viewers, 70 years ago Inner Sanctum was also a popular radio show.

Chaney is also miscast. He appears, respectively, as an academic, medical professional and suave rich man who dallies in mind-reading. He's also allegedly appealing to nearly all his pretty female co-stars. The truth is while Chaney was always a better actor than many have given him credit for, he was already starting to morph into the brutish, lumpish figure he would become for the last 20 years of his life. He doesn't pull off "suave," sophisticated" or the "ladies man persona." Of course, there is irony here -- if Chaney had not starred in this mystery series, the films would be largely ignore; there would be no recent Universal DVD release.

So, here are capsule reviews of the three films I viewed:

WEIRD WOMAN, 1944: This was my favorite of the three I viewed. Directed by Reginald LeBorg, Lon plays an academic who while on "safari," picks up an marries a cute woman (Anne Gwynne) who was raised by natives and believes in white magic. When the pair returns to university life, Lon's angry ex-girlfriend, played well by Evelyn Ankers, does a little bit of "gaslight" on Lon and his bride, pitting students, colleagues and colleagues wives against the pair. Among the supporting cast Elizabeth Russell, who was great as Lugosi's insane wife in "The Corpse Vanishes," plays the ambitious wife of a weak university colleague of Lon and Evelyn's. This is a good watch despite the fact that Lon best acting is when he is violent, rather than thoughtful or intellectual. The film never drags, and Ankers' acting is excellent at the climax. (Above is a strong scene with Gwynne and Russell from the film.)

THE FROZEN GHOST, 1945: In this entry, directed by Harold Young, Lon plays Alec Gregor, rich man who enjoys performing as conjurer "Gregor the Great." One night, his drunken plant in the audience annoys Lon so much that he wants him to die. While Lon is "hypnotizing" him, the plant falls dead. Despite evidence the death was natural, Lon goes semi crazy and ends his show as well as his relationship with his wife-to-be, played by Evelyn Ankers. Somewhat improbably, Lon is sent by his business agent, Millburn Stone, to live with Valerie Monet, played by Tala Birell, who runs a wax museum and carries a torch for Lon. She lives there with her pretty niece, Elena Verdugo, and creepy wax dummy creator, played by Martin Kosleck. Meanwhile, once-intended Ankers tries to see Lon again. Eventually, things get a little weird as Valerie Monet disappears, and apparently there's a plot to drive Lon into the loony bin and gain access to his money. The film gets convoluted near its end, but Kosleck is great in his role.

CALLING DR. DEATH, 1943: This is the worst of the trio I sampled. Lon plays a tortured neurologist who pines for his pretty nurse Patricia Morison. The problem is, he's married to a callous sociopathic gold-digger wife, Ramsey Ames, who blatantly advertises her infidelity to him. One weekend, when Ames is away, Lon follows her. He loses all memory of the weekend, waking up in his office. His wife is murdered that weekend. A persistent detective, J. Carrol Naish, continues to torment Lon, even as another man, David Bruce, is arrested, convicted and sentenced to die for the crime. Desperate to know if he killed his wife, Lon asks his nurse to hypnotize him and then interrogate him. Unfortunately, this film, directed by LeBorg, plods, and Naish's character is unprofessional and annoying. When the "twist" ending is announced, there's a hole in its logic that a viewer could drive a Hummer through.