Cemetery, and So Resolutely Committed to His Unholy Task That He Literally

cemetery, and so resolutely committed to his unholy task that he literally goes down swinging (at least his left arm does) as Universal’s most hallowed vigilantes—torch-bearing villagers—consign him to a fiery, temporary doom. One can easily imagine a lively, All Hallow’s Eve night crowd blowing the roof off the Rialto as the Mummy refused to die, defying the torch-tossing mob, making his last stand with almost Terminator-style staying power. Yet Chaney despised the job. Perhaps he sensed a Kharis curse awaiting him—for rarely has an actor hated a horror role as young Lon did that old Mummy. However, before dwelling on that unpleasant prejudice, let’s salute the film itself—indeed, horror “B’s” rarely come better. The premise dynamically works. Old Andoheb (Zucco), back from The Mummy’s Hand, so wrinkled and palsied he seems a mummy himself, dispatches new young high priest Mehemet Bey (an effectively oomphy Turhan Bey) to take Kharis across the sea to Mapleton, Massachusetts, to destroy the infidels from the 1940 film. Revenge showcases the Mummy as he shuffles past is always sweet in melodrama, but it’s a bit tombstones, under the Mapleton Cemetery gate, problematic here—since 30 years supposedly and through the New England countryside (with have passed since The Mummy’s Hand, Kharis has some of the shots, including the fiery climax, the unsporting mission of killing old people. actually night-for-night shooting). Happily, the oldsters include The Mummy’s Hand The death scenes just keep a-coming, and the alumni Dick Foran (as Prof. Stephen Banning) episode where the Mummy slays old “Babe” and Wallace Ford (as Babe Hanson—his name begs some exposition. Wallace Ford was more was Babe Jenson in The Mummy’s Hand), both in responsible than anyone for the stardom of Lon Jack Pierce age makeup; Peggy Moran’s Marta Chaney; they had costarred in the West Coast (shown in a touched-up photo as a woman of company of Of Mice and Men in April 1939, and maturity) has gone on to her reward. Banning Ford (who’d played George on Broadway) had resides in Universal’s old “Shelby mansion,” patiently coached Chaney how to portray the a southern-style domicile with second-level tragic Lennie (played in New York by Broderick porch balcony, where Kharis will make his fiery, Crawford). Come the United Artists 1939 climactic last stand. (The house, originally built film version, and director Lewis Milestone cast for Universal’s 1927 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was Chaney as Lennie but selected Burgess Meredith equipped to go up in special effects gas jet for George. The Mummy’s Tomb was a reunion flames, and it burned in various movies.) Both for the Of Mice and Men pals, and Chaney’s Ford and Foran die as victims of Kharis, and so Kharis killing Ford’s Babe is a The Mummy’s Tomb does venerable Mary Gordon as Foran’s older highlight—a rowdy brawl, both actors throwing sister. (Ms. Gordon had suffered an even more themselves into the scene with gusto, Ford at one dramatic demise in Bride of Frankenstein—tossed point busting a block of wood over Chaney’s into the windmill ruins by Karloff’s burned and head. It’s hardly Of Mice and Men, but it’s sure bitter Monster.) in hell ornery. Elyse Knox is a sumptuously blonde and lovely At any rate, back to the question, Why did Isobel, our leading lady, and Turhan Bey Chaney so hate the Mummy role? Well, as we an especially lusty villain as Mehemet Bey, know, he disliked the character’s lack of dialogue, our requisite concupiscent high priest, who and he suffered in the mask and costume. In dispatches Kharis to kidnap Isobel on the eve addition, Chaney and Jack Pierce were already of her wedding. Harold Young directs with pace antagonists, and Lon probably resented again (if little panache), and the cinematography playing a role that put him at the makeup man’s of George Robinson (cameraman on Son of not-so-tender mercy. Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, But there was likely more. The studio was hawking and many other Universal classics) powerfully Lon as the virtual Hollywood reincarnation of his father, who of course had starred as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera on Universal’s hallowed grounds; the actor was now “Lon Chaney,” not “Lon Chaney, Jr.” Lon Jr.’s smash hit as The Wolf Man had led him to believe he probably had a chance of matching or even topping his father, whose complex relationship with his son is still a sad mystery. In The Mummy’s Tomb, was Chaney Jr. hypersensitive about playing a totally unrecognizable lump—a role “the Man of a Thousand Faces” wouldn’t have deigned to touch with the proverbial ten- foot pole—and felt the formidable shadow of Chaney Sr. was somehow laughing at him?.

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