{"id":4113,"date":"2024-09-18T20:56:14","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T20:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4113"},"modified":"2024-10-12T20:52:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T20:52:38","slug":"the-mummy-1932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/18\/the-mummy-1932\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mummy (1932)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Mummy<\/strong> (1932)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 73 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (terror and off-screen violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Karl Freund\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John L. Balderston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Dietrich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Charles Stumar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 1932 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron, Edward Van Sloan, Bramwell Fletcher, Noble Johnson, Kathryn Byron, Leonard Mudie.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0With the new reboot of The Mummy opening this week, I decided to rewatch the Mummy Trilogy (1999-2008) even though they have nothing to do with the new movie. When I finished with those, I decided to revisit the 1932 version of The Mummy<\/strong> starring Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) in the title role. It\u2019s a classic and for good reason; it\u2019s eerie as hell! Inspired by the opening of King Tut\u2019s Tomb in 1922, it manages to be scary without the aid of expensive special effects and unnecessary noise. Back in the 30s, audiences were still in awe of moving pictures with sound. Also, filmmakers still knew how to use silence to great effect; it was only five years since sound was introduced to film.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story opens in 1921 with Sir Joseph Whemple (Byron) and his friend Dr. Muller (Van Sloan) looking over the artifacts they uncovered during an archeological expedition. Chief among them is the mummy of a priest named Imhotep who was executed for trying to resurrect his forbidden lover Princess Ankh-es-en-amon. He was mummified alive, a terrible way to die. An assistant (Fletcher), despite warnings to the contrary, reads aloud from the Scroll of Thoth and awakens Imhotep who immediately escapes and disappears, taking the Scroll with him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ten years later, a creepy guy calling himself Ardath Bay approaches Whemple\u2019s son Frank (Manners) and Professor Pearson (Mudie) with information leading them to the location of Ankh-es-en-amon\u2019s tomb. Okay, we all know it\u2019s Imhotep in human form. He still intends to bring his true love back from the dead. That\u2019s when he sees Helen (Johann), a woman he believes to be the reincarnation of Ankh-es-en-amon due to the strong resemblance between the two women. Now he has a vessel for the soul of his soon-to-be-resurrected lover. That is, unless the guys stop him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Karl Freund keeps The Mummy<\/strong> simple which is what makes it so effective a horror film. He relies on mood and atmosphere to drive the movie. The Mummy<\/strong> positively overflows with both. The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous. Freund uses the score sparingly; quiet can be much more unnerving than a score that tells you how you\u2019re supposed to feel. Karloff is incredible as Imhotep\/Ardath Bay\/The Mummy. He was such an iconic actor. The rest of the cast does a fine job as well, especially Johann as Helen\/Ankh-es-en-amon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think The Mummy<\/strong> is a great old horror film, but I can see where today\u2019s audiences wouldn\u2019t like it. It moves slowly and contains not a single CGI effect. The makeup job on Karloff is terrific; I actually prefer that to digital renderings of ancient beings with scary appearances. I can\u2019t say how the new movie will turn out; that it stars Tom Cruise isn\u2019t very encouraging. However, I can say that the original version of The Mummy<\/strong> is worth seeing at least once so you can see how horror films are supposed to be done.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mummy (1932)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 73 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (terror and off-screen violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Karl Freund\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John L. Balderston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Dietrich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Charles Stumar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 1932 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron, Edward Van Sloan, Bramwell Fletcher, Noble Johnson, Kathryn Byron, Leonard Mudie.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-these-are-some-classic-flicks","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-Mummy-1932-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5493,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions\/5493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}