In Brooklyn with the Bone Washers
The Mummy's Hand (1940)
directed by Christy Cabanne
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
streamed on Netflix
Peggy Moran's angle of repose beside the campfire was the half-full glass of cool water calling my name while I thought of the ways that this movie was better as The Mummy. Just glance at those plots on Wikipedia and tell me Ardath Bey isn't the superior strategist and villain to Professor Andoheb. Bey is undone only by the manifestation and intervention of a god, but not before he selflessly secures the lucrative artifacts of Ankh-es-en-amon's tomb for the cultural trust of the Cairo Museum.
Nor must Andoheb--a mere priest in a long lineage of secret overseers--suffer Bey's early fate as Imhotep. Andoheb is shot down like a common criminal by the most racist member of the archaeologist's gang, while the mummy Kharis (who, like Imhotep, was buried alive in ancient Egypt) endures in a more pitiable incarnation, zombified and controlled through starvation. His eventual end in fire, crumpled on the floor of his lost love's tomb, is pathetic and very sad.
Andoheb won't respect the mummy he took an oath to protect but he at least argues against archaeologist Steve Banning looting the graves of his countrymen. Banning's sidekick gets one good scene before doubling down on his bigotry, and that's a failed effort to cadge free drinks by performing sleight-of-hand on a professional magician in a bar. The magician, charmed (and drunk), agrees to finance Banning's expedition, and helpfully provides his daughter Marta as escort into the desert.
There's something about an unconscious woman in silk pajamas in the arms of a vengeful spirit that's more seasonal to me than dead leaves or dark skies, and Cabanne wastes no time in getting to the details of Kharis's despair, including the removal of his tongue before interment so the "ears of the gods would not be assailed by his unholy curses". It's a violent, romantic, lovely beginning, and carries the baton until Marta can bring it home.
directed by Christy Cabanne
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
streamed on Netflix
Peggy Moran's angle of repose beside the campfire was the half-full glass of cool water calling my name while I thought of the ways that this movie was better as The Mummy. Just glance at those plots on Wikipedia and tell me Ardath Bey isn't the superior strategist and villain to Professor Andoheb. Bey is undone only by the manifestation and intervention of a god, but not before he selflessly secures the lucrative artifacts of Ankh-es-en-amon's tomb for the cultural trust of the Cairo Museum.
Nor must Andoheb--a mere priest in a long lineage of secret overseers--suffer Bey's early fate as Imhotep. Andoheb is shot down like a common criminal by the most racist member of the archaeologist's gang, while the mummy Kharis (who, like Imhotep, was buried alive in ancient Egypt) endures in a more pitiable incarnation, zombified and controlled through starvation. His eventual end in fire, crumpled on the floor of his lost love's tomb, is pathetic and very sad.
Andoheb won't respect the mummy he took an oath to protect but he at least argues against archaeologist Steve Banning looting the graves of his countrymen. Banning's sidekick gets one good scene before doubling down on his bigotry, and that's a failed effort to cadge free drinks by performing sleight-of-hand on a professional magician in a bar. The magician, charmed (and drunk), agrees to finance Banning's expedition, and helpfully provides his daughter Marta as escort into the desert.
There's something about an unconscious woman in silk pajamas in the arms of a vengeful spirit that's more seasonal to me than dead leaves or dark skies, and Cabanne wastes no time in getting to the details of Kharis's despair, including the removal of his tongue before interment so the "ears of the gods would not be assailed by his unholy curses". It's a violent, romantic, lovely beginning, and carries the baton until Marta can bring it home.
posted by NPK at 11:00 AM
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