Universal Pictures has been dying to resurrect one of its classic horror franchises. Over the past decade, Hollywood has dug up Dracula ("Bram Stoker's Dracula"), Frankenstein ("Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"), the Wolf Man ("Wolf," with Jack Nicholson) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ("Mary Reilly"), with mostly only marginal success. "The Mummy" was the last Universal monster left from the studio's horror movie heyday in the 1930s and '40s.
The 1932 original starred Boris Karloff, fresh from his success a year earlier as Frankenstein's monster, in the title role. His 3,700-year-old mummy is an Egyptian high priest named Imhotep who was buried alive for sacrilege. He is inadvertently brought back to life by a young archaeologist and attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated as a beautiful young woman.Universal made four more Mummy movies, three with Lon Chaney Jr., through 1944. Britain's Hammer Films did a 1959 version, also called "The Mummy," with Christopher Lee in the title role, followed by three sequels.
The latest incarnation stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and Arnold Vosloo. Its storyline is similar to the Karloff original. But the $80 million update's path to the screen was as slow as the somnambulistic Mummy itself.
British novelist and director Clive Barker first envisioned a bloody and futuristic treatment, like his "Hellraiser" films. Next up was Joe Dante, whose horror credits include "Gremlins" and "The Howling." Working with John Sayles, he came up with a contemporary romantic version in which the Mummy escapes from a Los Angeles museum exhibit. Then came attempts by George Romero ("Night of the Living Dead") and Mick Garris ("The Stand" television miniseries). Finally, screenwriter Kevin Jarre ("The Devil's Own") delivered a dark, horrific treatment set during the 1920s frenzy that followed the discovery of King Tutankamen's tomb, like the original.
Director Stephen Sommers ("Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book") toned down the R-rated horror aspects of Jarre's story in favor of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-inspired action, adventure and romance. He also strove to make the film funny but not campy.
In honor of the Mummy's return, we take a brief look back at his cinematic ancestors. A wrapper's delight, if you will.
-- "The Mummy" (1932). Re-released on home video recently, this first-rate horror classic is still remarkably chilling -- thanks to Karl Freund's stylized direction, superb makeup and atmosphere and one of Karloff's very best performances.
-- "The Mummy's Hand" (1940). The first of Universal's "Kharis" series featured Tom Tyler in moldering linen and introduced many Mummy conventions, such as high priests and Tanis leaves. It also combined comedy with chills, as when an old priest says, "Kharis rests on de udder side ub dis mountain."
-- "The Mummy's Tomb" (1942). Chaney went under wraps for this weak sequel to "The Mummy's Hand," in which Kharis is transported to America. After being revived by high priest Turan Bey, he escapes from a New England museum to kill the surviving members of the expedition.
-- "The Mummy's Ghost" (1944). Seemingly unkillable Kharis (Chaney) and mad high priest John Carradine stalk a striking woman (Ramsay Ames) who is the reincarnation of Princess Ananka. The only new wrinkle in this routine chiller is the climactic fate of the heroine.
-- "The Mummy's Curse" (1944). Last seen sinking into a Massachusetts swamp, Kharis (Chaney) and Ananka (Virginia Christine) unaccountably rise from the Louisiana bayou to be sent on a rampage by a pair of high priests. Creepy and fast-paced, despite the screwloose material.
-- "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" (1955). Until now, Abbott and Costello's final Universal horror-comedy was also the last gasp there for the Mummy. The somewhat amusing slapstick adventure finds Bud and Lou in Egypt, running from two mummies -- one real and one fake.
-- "The Mummy" (1959). Hammer licensed the creature from Universal for a lavish updating of the Mummy legend, with Christopher Lee as a terrifying 4,000-year-old Egyptian who rises to take revenge on the archaeologists who desecrated the tomb of his beloved Ananka.
-- "Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" (1964). A handsomely photographed but slow-moving Hammer thriller in which the vengeful Mummy (Dickie Owen) is brought back to Victorian London by a crass American showman. He goes on the usual spree, killing those pesky profaners of the tomb.
-- "The Mummy's Shroud" (1967). Hammer's Mummy series continue to unravel with this bomb about a British expedition returning home with a mummified child pharaoh. They are killed off by the boy's mummy guardian, revived by reading the words on the pharaoh's shroud.
(Two other titles in the Hammer series, "Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" [1964] and "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" [1971] are not on video.)
-- "The Awakening" (1980). Adapted from the same Stoker novel, this early film by "Four Weddings and a Funeral" director Mike Newell has Charlton Heston discovering a high priestess' tomb at the exact moment his daughter is born.
-- "Time Walker" (1982). A low-budget stinker about an alien buried in King Tut's tomb who awakens and wreaks havoc on a Southern California college campus.
Other "Mummy"-related titles available on video include the cartoon, "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too"; a German silent film, "The Eyes of the Mummy" (1918); two Three Stooges shorts, "We Want Our Mummy" (1939) and "Mummy's Dummies" (1948); a pair of dubbed, campy Mexican yarns, "The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy" (1959) and "Rock 'n' Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy" (1964); and the more typical, "The Mummy's Revenge" (1973), "The Secret of the Mummy" (1982), "The Mummy Lives" (1993, with Tony Curtis!) and "Bram Stoker's The Mummy" (1998, with Louis Gossett Jr!).