The Mummy’s Ghost **½ (1944, Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine, Robert Lowery, George Zucco, Ramsay Ames) – Classic Movie Review 3301

Lon Chaney Jnr reprises his role as Kharis the Mummy in this slightly tired but still entertaining sequel to The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), to which it is virtually identical, bar some of the elements of the plotlines being slightly swapped around. Familiar though it may be, it gets a boost from casting John Carradine as the newest high priest Yousef Bey and ravishing Ramsey Ames as the doomed heroine Princess Ananka/Amina Monsouri.

The Mummy’s Ghost is the second of Chaney Jnr’s three Mummy features, followed by The Mummy’s Curse (1944). It was filmed from August 23 to September 1 1943 but not released until June 30 1944 and it is copyrighted 1943.

Director Reginald LeBorg’s 1944 Universal horror movie follows The Mummy’s Tomb by just months or even weeks. It turns out that Kharis survived the house fire in the previous film unscathed and the Egyptian high priest Andoheb (George Zucco) who apparently had died of old age is still alive.

Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher’s new story finds ­­­­­­­the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka’s living guardian mummy Kharis being aided by the High Priest Yousef Bey (John Carradine) in discovering the woman who is the reincarnation of Ananka. On learning that Ananka’s spirit has been reincarnated into another body, the high priest travels to America and kidnaps Amina Mansouri, a young woman of Egyptian descent with an uncanny resemblance to the princess.

Amina is being courted by the hero, Tom Hervey (Robert Lowery), but she starts to have blackouts as she is being gradually taken over by the spirit of Ananka. Yousef Bey now sets about arranging to take the two mummies back to Egypt and unleashes Kharis…

It also stars Barton MacLane as Inspector Walgreen, Claire Whitney as Mrs Norman, Frank Reicher as Professor Matthew Norman, Harry Shannon as Sheriff Elwood, Emmett Vogan as the coroner, Lester Sharpe as D. Ayad and Oscar O’Shea as the watchman.

Apparently it is the only Universal Mummy movie that uses no flashback footage. Acquanetta, cast as Ananka, slipped and fell on her first day of shooting, had concussion and was replaced by Ames. The director convinced producer Ben Pivar of the need to shoot a additional prologue set in Egypt to re-introduce Kharis.

[Spoiler alert] It is notable as a rare vintage Universal horror movie where the heroine dies. Chaney Jnr did all his own scenes in the film, including one where Kharis trashes the Scrips Museum and Chaney Jnr drove his fist through real glass after a prop man forgot to replace it with breakaway glass, and one where he went crazy while strangling Frank Reicher (‘He nearly killed me!).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3301

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