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 Steve Banning and Babe Jenson are American archeologists who travel to Egypt to
search for the tomb of Princess Anaka. Clues there lead them to "dark and
winding subterranean passageways, indecipherable hieroglyphics, and finally a
3000-year old mummy who is being kept alive by a secret formula guarded by a
sinister high priest." Steve and Babe get their backing for the expedition from
a magician and his daughter. The mummy is described as going on a "killing
rampage during each full moon." Adjectives they use to describe this film are
"acclaimed," "effective," "frightening," and "chiller." 1940, 70 minutes, VHS
The Mummy's Hand is the first in a series of sequels Universal puked out on an
unsuspecting public in the 1940s (as if WWII wasn't bad enough). This isn't
really a sequel except in name only. None of the original characters return
and we get an entirely different Mummy. At least this time, the Mummy shambles
around a lot strangling the dopes that violate his tomb. The movie begins in
this tomb where one of those old high priests, who's only job seems to be to
hang out in tombs and awaken mummies for murderous rampages periodically, is
about to croak. That's also in the job description. You have to be ready to
die, that way you can pass on all the ominous warnings and curses to the new
guy. This serves as a good way to inform the audience of what's going to
happen and to catch up some of the lollygaggers who maybe didn't make through
all of the last Mummy movie. For those of you nostalgic for the original
movie, this one has something for you! The filmmakers generously included in
the opening several minutes a flashback. It's an interesting flashback in that
footage from the first Mummy movie is used. That footage is of the flashback
that Boris Karloff had while he was holding his girlfriend prisoner in his
double-secret lair. This is the footage of ancient Egypt where girl dies,
priest misses her, priest steals sacred scroll to bring her back to life,
priest is caught, and priest is buried alive. You know the drill. The best
part is that though they use this footage, all the closeups were redone without
Boris, but with a new guy. It's kind of like when Coy and Vance Duke took over
for Bo and Luke when they went on strike. Flash to the marketplaces of Cairo where our main characters, Steve Banning (a
great name for a Mummy-hunter) and Babe Jenson (a great name for the wacky and
irritating comic-relief sidekick) are kind of down on their luck. You see,
they just can't seem to make that great find and now the head of Steve's museum
is
sending him nasty cables promising him that when Steve gets back he's going to
be busted back down to head bonewasher! How embarrassing! So they're looking
around the marketplace and Steve buys an ancient vase that has a big hole in
it. He's sure that it contains a map to Princess Anaka's tomb. Babe buys a
dancing hula girl statue that he names "Poopsie." Steve and Babe hightail it
to the museum and have a professor buddy of theirs check it out. He says its
the real deal, but then they show to the Egyptian museum guy. He is the same
fellow that was just promoted to high priest in the first scene. He takes a
look at it and goes, "nah, that definitely isn't a vase with a map to the
secret tomb of Anaka that is guarded by a murderous mummy. Where'd you get
that idea?" Then he "accidentally" drops it on the floor. "Ah, so sorry!"
Steve and Babe leave in a bit of a huff. Steve is convinced it's real so he
heads out to look for financing for his trip. Where does he go to look for
idiots that would blow their money on some half-baked mummy-hunting scheme?
The local watering hole of course! Now who do they meet there, but a magician
who is just itching to "invest" his money in this outfit. A magician? This
allows Babe all kinds of opportunities to try the "disappearing rock trick."
Naturally he screws it up and almost always swallows it. Whew! I'm wiping
sweat off my brow from laughing so hard.  So they head out on their quest and start digging. From some unknown reason
Babe is put in charge of setting up the dynamite. Well, there's a big
explosion and everyone comes running. The side of the mountain has been blown
away and there is the door to a tomb. There's a seal with a bunch of threats
and product warnings, but those are promptly ignored and they open it up.
Inside they find a mummy, but it is not Princess Anaka. There is also a bunch
of tana leaves. This something new to the Mummy movies. There's these stupid
leaves that the high priest cooks up into a real special liquid that he feeds
to the Mummy. In this movie our mummy is named Kharis. The high priest can
give a little
to Kharis to animate him, but still leaves part of body paralyzed. This is why
he shambles about menacingly, because his right side isn't revived. Certain
numbers of tana leaves affect the Mummy differently. The more he gets the
more powerful he becomes. The tana leaves also only work to make the Mummy
alive during a full moon. You kind of get the feeling that eventually the
Mummy's going to be out and about doing his business one night and run smack
dab into a certain hairy fellow by the name of Larry Talbot. These new
additions to the Mummy mythos are utterly unnecessary and completed retarded.
I never did figure out why Im-Ho-Tep from The Mummy was able to assume the
form of a leathery-looking Egyptian instead of a mummy. He also didn't have to
worry some
moon-cycle either. This new model, Kharis, seems like a step down if you ask
me, shambling around, forced to do the bidding of some high priest and looking
all moldy and stinky.
Steve and Babe's professor buddy is left in the tomb alone with the Mummy and
then
the high priest materializes. He tells the professor to take the Mummy's pulse
and as he does so, the high priest pours some magic tana juice into the Mummy.
The Mummy comes alive and strangles the professor, then he and the high priest
disappear. Steve and Babe show up and find the professor's body. They
exclaim, "the professor's dead and the Mummy is missing!" Now you or would
have immediately thought upon seeing all this that some high priest must have
shown up, dumped magic tana juice on the Mummy and that the Mummy came alive and
strangled the professor and then immediately caught a bus back to Princess
Anaka's super-duper-secret-no-mummy-hunters-named -Steve-and-Babe-allowed tomb.
Yes that's obvious to any observer. But Steve and Babe look at other and
wander if maybe one of the Egyptians workers did it. What's really cool about
it all is the next scene. Babe is sitting by the fire with the magician and
one of the Egyptian workers and Babe is practicing his disappearing rock trick
again. Of course he chokes on the rock and everyone has a good laugh. Too bad
about the professor, huh? You would think that after an unexplained tragedy
like that (the unexplained death of the professor, not Babe's continuing
inability to master even the
simplest of parlor tricks) that they would pack up their Fisher-Price Mummy
Digging Kits and go home and lay the good professor to rest. They don't. They
don't even refer to the professor's death and no mention is made of what
happened to the professor's corpse. Around this time Steve and Marta, the
magician's sexy daughter/assistant, start making goo-goo eyes at each other.
She thinks she's figured out where the Princess' tomb is and draws a bunch of
diagrams in the sand to describe it. The Mummy is out of control at this
point. What with this being a 70 minute thriller, he gets plenty of face time
at the end. Soon the Mummy is running around the tents strangling Egyptians so
Steve and Babe stand guard over the magician and Marta's tent. Unfortunately
they are only guarding the front of the tent and the Mummy sneaks into the
tent through its back flap! My god! That creature's positively diabolical,
old man! He tries to choke out the magician and manages to steal Marta and
carry her off.  Steve and Babe strap on their guns that they've brought along on this
expedition (archeology is a dangerous business!) and decide they need to go
after this Mummy character since he's ripped off a sexy broad.Kill our
professor buddy, knock off an Egyptian, but do not steal our sexy broad! They
start running around and shoot a beggar that's been skulking about the camp
with the high priest. Then Steve and the Babe split up. Steve is going back
to the tomb they uncovered to locate the secret passageway the Mummy must be
using. The Babe is sent to the other side of the mountain to see if he can
find Princess Anaka's tomb. If it was that easy, why didn't they do a little
recon before they started digging? Steve jacks around with the crypt the Mummy
was living in and eventually finds the secret 3000 year old garage door opener
that works the hidden passage. The Babe is walking around the other side of
the mountain and happens to run into these gigantic stairs that cover pretty
much the whole mountain. Quite the secret tomb. He runs up them and there is
that smart-alecky high priest. Gunfight! Babe takes one in the shoulder and
the high priest takes about six in the gut and then has a spectacular fall all
the way down the stairs. Once he finally bumps to a halt at the bottom in a
heap, he manages to gasp something or other. I was concerned about the Babe so
I forget what he said. Back to Steve who has found his Marta strapped on an
altar (when looking for girlfriend abducted by monster always check altar
first) and engages the Mummy in some hand to bandage combat. The Mummy slaps
him down good and goes after the keg of tana juice. If he drinks all that,
well I don't even want to think about it! Babe shows up and shoots the keg out
of the Mummy's hand so the Mummy drops to the fall and starts lapping up the
tana juice like he's some kind of dog. That's when the ever-opportunistic
Steve takes a torch and sets Kharis on fire while he's laid out on the ground!
Pathetic! Getting burned up while your licking the floor of some dirty, smelly
tomb! This was a pretty ridiculous offering, but was easy to sit through what
with it's fast paced shenanigans. This time you get your money's worth in the
Mummy department. Where the first one concentrated on character and
atmosphere, this one tries to get by on action and monsters. The characters
are strictly of the flimsy cardboard variety and the additions about the tana
leaves and full moon seem to be unnecessary hokum, but if you're watching this,
you probably don't mind a certain amount of hokum. Me? I demand it! More
hokum, please! What's that? There was another Mummy sequel released in 1942?
Hand over that moldy bastard!
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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