Main Cast: Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, George Zucco, Cecil Kellaway, Wallace Ford
Release Year: 1940
Country: US
Run Time: 70 minutes
Plot
Egyptian mystic Andoheb (George Zucco) is ordered by his High Priest (Eduardo Ciannelli) to stand guard over the sacred mummy of Kharis (Tom Tyler), who thousands of years earlier was entombed alive for falling in love with Egyptian Princess Ananka. Kharis can be revived or neutralized at will through the simple expedient of burning a handful of tanna leaves, a plot device that is hammered home on several occasions. Meanwhile, perennially broke archeologists Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford) persuade itinerant magician Solvani the Great (Cecil Kellaway) to finance an expedition in search of Ananka's sarcophagus. Solvani's daughter Marta (Peggy Moran), suspecting that Steve and Babe are a couple of con artists, tags along with them to Egypt. Also on hand is the ubiqutious Andoheb, in his daytime guise as professor of Egyptology at the Cairo Museum. After ordering Kharis to bump off expedition members Dr. Petrie (Charles Trowbridge) and Ali (Leon Belasco), Andoheb turns his attentions to the beauteous Marta, with whom he hopes to live "in eternity" with the aid of those handy tanna leaves. But when he kidnaps Marta, Andoheb breaks his sacred trust, and thus must pay with his life at the hands of the vengeful Kharis. Much of Hans J. Salter's pulsating musical score was lifted from Son of Frankenstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Cowboy star Tom Tyler certainly makes a strapping Mummy, perhaps more so than Lon Chaney, Jr. who replaced him in the following three films and who was chosen more for his exploitative name than for any thespian talents. Not that acting had much to do with playing a dead guy rolled up in bandages, but like Boris Karloff before him, Tyler manages to portray emotion with his eyes only. Universal spared every expense in making this "sequel" to the 1935 Karloff classic The Mummy, using leftover sets from Green Hell (1939) and quite a bit of footage from the original. None of that really matters, however; The Mummy's Hand is still fine pulp fiction acted by a stock company that had done this sort of thing many times before. If the film lacks the truly scary moments of the original, it compensates by repeating the now familiar story slightly tongue-in-cheek. Leading players Dick Foran, Wallace Ford, George Zucco (despite being shot three times at close range) and, via stock footage, Peggy Moran all returned for a second helping in The Mummy's Tomb (1942) which, to his detriment, transferred Kharis from his Egyptian haunts to modern-day America. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
The Mummy's Hand is a (1940) black-and-whitehorror film, produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. Although it is sometimes claimed by fans as a sequel or follow-up to the 1932 film The Mummy, it does not continue the 1932 film's storyline, or feature any of the same characters, and its plot suggests rather an unacknowledged remake of the earlier mummy film. It was the first of four films featuring the mummy Kharis.
Storyline
The Mummy's Hand tells the story of a down-on-his-luck archaeologist and his friend that are attempting to leave Cairo and return to New York. While at a street market, the archaeologist buys an old broken vase that may hold the mystery of the location of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka's tomb. After receiving funding from an eccentric magician, the Great Solvani (Cecil Kellaway), and his daughter (Peggy Moran), they set out into the desert only to be abandoned by their workers once a tomb is found. To make matters worse, the group is terrorized by a sinister high priest (George Zucco) and the living mummy Kharis (Tom Tyler) who are the guardians of Ananka's tomb.
Kharis is used as an assassin by the high priest, with a liquid made from brewed leaves of the tana plant. A small amount of the fluid is placed near each intended victim, with Kharis then released to kill. This motif was used in another Zucco film, "The Flying Serpent," with a prehistoric monster-god, Quetzecoatl, in place of Kharis, and its feathers used to point out the next victim. Bela Lugosi used perfume in "The Devil Bat," proving that monsters are malleable when it comes to target identification.
The plot is exposed, Kharis "killed," and the evil priest shot dead, although he'd show up for the next two films in the series, conveniently dying in each after exposition for those new to the franchise history.
Trivia
As part of his Mummy makeup, Tyler had been asked to wear dark contact lenses, but could not tolerate them. Thus, Tyler's mouth and pupils were "blacked out" after the film was made to give the Mummy a more other-worldly appearance. (The trailer, however, lacks this effect.)
During a flashback sequence, scenes from the 1932's The Mummy were used to tell the new story, which closely resembles the back story used in the first film. Shots in which Boris Karloff is clearly identifiable were replaced by inserts featuring Tyler, but most still feature Karloff, who was not credited.
