The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 1 minute, rated 5.8 by 2560.
Genre: Horror.
Verdict: Horrible, all right.
This waste of time is a sequel of The Mummy’s Hand (1940) with about fifteen minutes of footage from the earlier film inserted, and at the end further footage from — believe it or not — Frankenstein. All expenses spared. Junior Chaney gets the first of three outings in a wraparound linen suit. Universal made two more Mummies but not a single Daddy. How fair is that?
It open with a flashback to the earlier film and then we discover that the Mummy is still looking for that lost contact lens, shuffling around, stooped, and lost.
In a lifeless production Turhan Bey brings a little spark to the role of the mad priest. While George Zucco reprises his role in the inserted footage, but he is offed before he can do much for this title. Both are good players but they have nothing to play here.
Loved the idea that Bey checked the Mummy as excess baggage when he took it Stateside to exact revenge on the violators of the Mummy’s Tomb. No doubt he had to claim it at the outsize booth where golf clubs, skis, and the roll-down screens of sales reps accumulate. The rent-a-mob from Frankenstein settled things at the end.
It was released on 23 October 1942 during the Guadalcanal Campaign where Jack went into the water while secret meetings and arrangements were afoot for Operation Torch in North Africa. On the Eastern Front, Hitler ordered that the Hotel Astoria in Leningrad be spared to host a victory dinner after the Nazis occupied that city. There is a plaque in the lobby explaining this which we saw in 2016.