Tag: Mary Gordon

The Mummy’s Tomb (1942, Harold Young)

The Mummy’s Tomb is better than its predecessor, without a doubt. Harold Young’s direction is strong. It’s not quite scary, but he’s at least going for scary.

It’s sort of like an episode of “Cheers;” it takes place in small town Massachusetts and there’s a mummy roaming the streets. You can see the “Cheers” gang, having headed out of town for a weekend getaway, where there’s a mummy terrorizing their weekend.

It’s a sixty minute movie–which is some of the reason I watched it–I figured I could handle it. I didn’t account for ten minutes being from The Mummy’s Hand. The most interesting thing about the film is how it takes two of the first film’s principals–Dick Foran, Wallace Ford–and puts them in old age makeup two years after the last film–just to kill them off.

The leading man, John Hubbard, gets third billing (but deserves sixth). Elyse Knox is a decent damsel in distress. Turhan Bey, who barely has anything to do as the bad guy, is at least amusing. His character replays Zucco’s character from in the first film, only in New England instead of Egypt. There’s this secret society of high priests who can get one a job as graveyard caretaker anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, Lon Chaney Jr. isn’t much of a mummy. Apparently, he didn’t like the character, didn’t like the makeup. It shows.

At least it’s only sixty minutes and there is a great crane shot at the end.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Harold Young; screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, based on a story by Neil P. Varnick; director of photography, George Robinson; edited by Milton Carruth; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Lon Chaney Jr. (Kharis, the Mummy), Dick Foran (Stephen Banning), John Hubbard (Dr. John Banning), Elyse Knox (Isobel Evans), George Zucco (Andoheb), Wallace Ford (‘Babe’ Hanson), Turhan Bey (Mehemet Bey), Virginia Brissac (Mrs. Ella Evans), Cliff Clark (Sheriff), Mary Gordon (Jane Banning), Paul E. Burns (Jim, the caretaker), Frank Reicher (Prof. Matthew Norman) and Emmett Vogan (Coroner).

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The Last Ride (1944, D. Ross Lederman)

I’m a fan of Warner Bros.’s old hour-long b-movies, so I found The Last Ride particularly distressing. It’s not poorly directed–Lederman even has one or two really good shots–and the writing, at least scenically, isn’t bad. There are some funny moments and the teaser is excellent. It all falls apart pretty quickly, however (it is only fifty-six minutes). The film’s continuity editing is real sloppy, like they shot scenes based on one script, didn’t shoot the rest of the scenes, and let everything sort of clash. The first time, it’s annoying, but by the second… it’s a significant strike against the film.

There’s also the problem with the script in terms of the characters’ stupidity. They’re real dumb, missing the most obvious things. Makes it real hard to care about them. There’s also the case of the disappearing character–Eleanor Parker disappears after two scenes, Mary Gordon is gone by the twenty minute mark (she has the really good comedic scene)–and these aren’t characters the movie, given how the story develops, can do without. They’re needed to react and to interact and they’re gone (probably off shooting other Warner Bros. pictures, but whatever). Richard Travis manages to hold the film up on his own longer than I thought one person could, but even he buckles under the poor handling of the script’s developments.

Besides Travis (and Tod Andrews in a small role), most of the performances are wobbly. Cy Kendall is good in parts, too much in others. Same with Charles Lang. Parker’s barely in it, Gordon’s expositional introduction of her doing more to establish the character than Parker has time to do. The opening setup is better acted than the rest of the film, by actors who don’t stick around long, only because their story is more interesting–if a lot more sensational–than what follows.

My favorite part is the end, when there are all these leftover lines from when The Last Ride was going to run ninety minutes. The way it ends, it’s like at least fifteen was lopped off… it just stops at the earliest convenient point.