Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”
I watched the Svengoolie movie “The Mummy’s Tomb the other night. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a mummy movie (unless you count the one in which Brendan Fraser appeared in 1999 and I didn’t pay much attention) and most of the hour-long film shared my TV screen with the local weather report, which happens sometimes. This time it was about the snowfall, which dumped 5 inches on Iowa City. We spent about a couple of hours clearing it the following day with the help of Sena’s favorite tool, the cordless electric snow shovel and me with the brand new 48’ snow pusher plow.
Anyway, “The Mummy’s Tomb” is a relatively short movie made in 1942 and starred Lon Chaney as Kharis the mummy. He had no lines because he had to keep mum, evidently. There was plenty of stock footage from “The Mummy’s Hand,” released in 1940. Just so you know, I’m aware of the 1932 film “The Mummy” with Boris Karloff as the mummy, but I’m not planning to watch it unless, of course, it appears on the Svengoolie show.
There’s this character named Babe in “The Mummy’s Tomb” who evidently was also in “The Mummy’s Hand” and the two had different last names and the 1942 version of Babe was more serious.
This movie is a sequel to “The Mummy’s Hand” and they killed off Kharis in that one but resurrected him in “The Mummy’s Tomb” although didn’t give the monster new bandages. Kharis limps around and never uses his right arm early in the show yet is nimble enough to carry Isobel Evans (Elyse Knox) in his right arm while climbing a flower trellis. This is the first clue that Kharis had a personal trainer and despite being thousands of years old, he perked right up after only one bottle of Nugenix Total-T thanks to Frank Thomas and Doug Flutie.
Hey, remember Flutie’s historic last second 64-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan in the end zone in the 1984 Boston College vs Miami game? It’s not mummified ancient history, but it’s more fun to watch than this movie!
Where was I? Oh yeah, it was difficult to tell if Isobel fully appreciated this because she fainted as soon as she saw Kharis and remained pretty much unconscious the whole time Kharis was carrying her around (so much for Frank’s “she’ll like it too” promise).
The funny thing is Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey) doesn’t get this because he develops a huge crush on Isobel and orders Kharis to fetch her for him. This happens more than halfway through the film but until then, Mehemet’s main goal was to get revenge on the guys who were responsible for “killing” Kharis the first time around. Mehemet has the power to control Kharis, yet pulls a gun on John Banning (John Hubbard) who is the son of Prof. Stepen Banning who started the whole business of desecrating the tomb of Kharis and can by god whip John any day of the week in a game of checkers.
This turns out to be a wrong move because the sheriff just shoots Mehemet, and that’s the end of the boss of Kharis.
The smartest person in the movie is Professor Norman (Frank Reicher) who figures out what the substance is on the throats of Kharis’s victims (myrrh, cedar oil, Nugenix-Total T) proving that these items were used in the embalming process of mummies, thus proving that even scientists can be guilty of fraud.
So, there you have it. Towards the end of the movie, Kharis learns how to play checkers and whips the pants off John Banning. So there, only one spoiler in this review of a movie which I would give a 2/5 shrilling chicken rating.
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