The Mummy
00:34:55
About
Grab your bandages and have a good sarcophagus - we’re watching Universal’s original 1932 version of “The Mummy”. A film in which Zita Johann attempts to break the record for the number of 6’s you can put on your forehead; Edward Van Sloan returns as Van Helsing… er… plays the entirely new character of Dr Muller; and Jack Pierce bakes Boris Karloff for 8 hours at Gas Mark 5. Having hit gold with their adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal decided to add another monster to their roster, and turned to Egypt for inspiration. Returning star Karloff cements his reputation with his baleful portrayal of Imhotep/Ardath Bey, searching for his lost love from beyond the grave. He is ably matched by Zita Johann’s portrayal of Helen and, later, the long dead Anck-es-en-Amon. Makeup maestro Jack P Pierce once again makes a memorable monster, in both his forms. Although this in many ways retreads the story beats of Dracula, it still has its own iconic moments, and it may also surprise new viewers that the shambling figure in bandages they may expect is almost entirely absent. Whilst there are aspects and attitudes of the film that may not sit well with modern sensibilities; it is product of nearly a century ago, and should be taken as such. And as a key film of Universal’s original horror run, it really deserves to be seen. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 93 year old spoilers and join us.
Well, let's see what's inside!
Famous lines
- "Burn the scroll, man. Burn it!" — Doctor Muller
- "I loved you once, but now you belong with the dead." — Helen Grosvenor
- "Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?" — Frank Whemple
- "He went for a little walk! You should have seen his face!" — Ralph Norton
Quotes verified against Wikiquote.
Adam's research
Verbatim lifts from Adam's own words in the episode. Click a timestamp to hear him say it.
- Original script concept and Egyptology influence
This yes, this was this was based on. This wasn't original story. I can't remember, I wish I'd I wish I'd jotted it down because I meant to, it was something I was going to look into anyway, there was apparently originally the script was about a guy, a a genuine figure who was basically a a cultist slash con man. Um and I think they were going with the the myth rather than the truth of this guy. And uh so originally the two people who who wrote the story, that's how that's what they were originally going for. And then because of the interest in Egyptology sort of resonating from from the expedition to uh for Tutankhamun, like Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun was. Or Tutankhamun, I don't know. Judge me either way. But um yeah, so Egyptology was like a big thing and they kind of married that into a similar sort of thing. But effectively, yeah, it is it's like they've rewritten Dracula, but gone, right, we can we'll move the camera around a bit more and Boris Karloff's playing Dracula now not Bela Lugosi.
- Universal's horror film history and Karloff's rise
And you know, because by then also by then sort of because this is this is literally the third of the Universal sort of. Well, the Universal um no, sorry, is the third sort of talkie of Universals horrors. Of like them because obviously they've got the sort of Pantheon for one of a better word of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman. The Mummy, Invisible Man, Phantom of the Opera and so on. And so yes, they've done Dracula, huge success, done Frankenstein, but Bela Lugosi famously doesn't want to do to play the monster in Frankenstein, so Boris Karloff plays it, massive success and at this point Karloff becomes their go-to guy for their monsters, essentially. And so it's. Yeah, it's essentially Boris Karloff playing the Dracula role rather than Bela Lugosi. And everything else is kind of similar in you know, you know, in a way.
- Boris Karloff's mummy makeup process
Um and I think that that is that's that's definitely the that's the most horrific part of the film in the in that sort of sense. Cuz you've got Karloff obviously in the full makeup, which was like that was eight hours apparently. They they literally sort of baked him into like clay and bandages to make him like that. And they like so he's that was his first day was in the full mummy like gear. Um but most of the shots are actually a dummy that they'd done the same process on. So. So it's only really so it's only Karloff particularly when it's the eyes for the actual coming alive. So the other parts of it, that's a dummy of Karloff made up into the into the mummy gear. Which does seem it's like. And then you spent eight hours in makeup to open your eyes.
- Zita Johann's unusual contract and film career
But um, I mean, I don't mean I think the weird thing is cuz she didn't she didn't do a lot of films, she was mostly like a theater actress. And um, she I think she did like about seven or so films cuz basically she was a theater actor, got um, got no like sort of recognized in the theater and then MGM. I think it was MGM bought her like contracted her, but she had a clause and this is how this was unusual for the time, she had a clause that she had script refusal, so if she didn't like the script, she could say, no, I'm not doing that film and basically they kept offering her scripts and in the end they let her out of the contract because she just wasn't doing any of the films. And apparently it was along the lines of like they were saying, why won't you do any the films? She's like, well, why why don't you make any good ones? So. A very good argument, I think, you know. … And so she sort of um, yes, so she was um released from that contract and then she did seven films including The Mummy between 1931 and 34. And then just did a one-off appearance in 1986 in a film called Raiders of the Living Dead that I've never seen, but she came out of retirement did that. And I I'm assuming on the basis of on the basis of being attached to The Mummy because I don't think any of the other films were particularly sort of I think they were big at the time, but I don't think they're sort of ones that have survived. Well, been studied since, you know.
- Zita Johann's beliefs, director conflict, and cut scenes
But yeah, she was um and apparently she was quite she described herself as a mystic and was sort of into occultism and spirituality and reincarnation and that was one of the things she liked about the film. Was because there was um the reincarnation aspect of it. Um and apparently there was meant to be more there was meant to be more um sequences of like her past lives. Um but her and Karl Freund, the director, apparently didn't get on. She said, she basically said that they were filming they did film all this stuff, but end up getting cut out of the film of her character's past lives. And there was a bit where they're like, I think it was like meant to be in Rome and she was acting with lions. The rest of the crew were behind screens and walls and shit like that and the director just sent her out and said, right, you've got to go and play with the lions. Essentially. And then also apparently at one point he said, well, there's a scene we're going to do it and you'll you'll have to be nude for the scene. And she basically called she was like, well, I knew I knew that censorship at the time, there was no way I was going to appear nude, so I just called his bluff and said, yeah, fine, I'll I'll do that and then suddenly mysteriously this scene never appeared and was never filmed and so on and so forth.
- Universal's Mummy sequels list
I think cuz they then I mean they did do um how many more Mummy films did they do? I think they did. Um, so you've got so I'm just I'm just looking at my my universal list here that I printed out for myself. … So you've got The Mummy's Hand in 1940, then The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy.
- Screenwriter John L. Balderston's background and other works
Um, but the actual screenplay was written by a guy called John L. Balderston, um, who was actually present at one of the openings, it was the opening of Tutankhamun's sarcophagus in 1925. He was there on he was a journal he was act not acting as, he was working as a journalist for the paper called the New York New York World, which is I'm assuming kind of where the Daily Planet got his name from, but. … Um, but yeah, so he was actually present during one of those things, so he sort of like was and he brought he also was the script screen writer of Dracula, Dracula's daughter, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire and Mad Love with with Peter Lorre. Peter Lorre, fucking great film, I love that. Um which which incidentally was also Carl Freund, who directed this was also um also directed Mad Love, who was mostly a cinematographer, who was like on Metropolis and Dracula and things like that.
- Director Karl Freund's career and multi-camera sitcom pioneering
But weirdly enough, he also is the guy who pioneered the multi-camera studio filming before an audience for sitcoms. Yeah, because before they were but yeah, so he was the guy who sort of came up with the idea of like, right, we can cover this with cameras, still film it in front of the studio audience, so you get the reactions, you get the laughs as if it's live, but it was he basically worked out how to shoot a play. Essentially, like doing the multi-camera technique because he actually did 152 episodes of I Love Lucy. Which is where he developed it from, you know.
- Historical figure Imhotep
But speaking of names that passed out, did you know Imhotep's real? He was an Egyptian architect from around the 27th century BC. Who was the high priest of Ra and Chancellor of Pharaoh Zoser, who also possibly the architect of his pyramid and he was one of the few non-royal ancient Egyptians to be deified and ended up being worshiped as a god of healing and medicine around 2,000 years after his death. So is Imhotep a real figure that they've just sort of nabbed.
- Mummy character in sequels (Karis) vs. original (Imhotep)
So they've moved away from so technically this is a stand-alone story and the other mummy films are a different story. It's not like Dracula or Frankenstein where the original is then the continuing stories the rest of them. So the subsequent Universal Mummy films are a different mummy, but it's the same one all through them. Um so it's not Imhotep. Um and Ankhesenamun was named after Tutankhamun's wife.
Highlights
Transcript
Show full transcript
Lee Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
Chris I'm Chris.
Adam I'm Adam.
Lee And we're here again for a film that we keep apologizing for the fact that we haven't covered it yet, somehow in 230 episodes or thereabouts, we haven't covered one of the staple trilogy of the original Hammer series. So here we are this evening for 1932's The Mummy.
Adam Yep.
Lee So before Adam and I discuss our past with this film and how we feel about it.
Lee There will be spoilers and swearing. I mean, it's nearly 100 years old. I mean how much are we going to spoil it. But yes, so let's throw it over to Chris. I assume this is your first viewing, Chris.
Adam Bricks.
Chris It is, but wait, just take me back again a second. Have I watched the wrong one?
Chris Did you just said this is Hammer?
Lee Oh, no, it's Universal.
Lee Universal, sorry, that was my fault.
Lee Yeah.
Chris Oh, okay.
Chris The Hammer one Christopher Lee, which I did, I did nearly watch that and I was like, no, I'm sure they said it was older and it had Boris Karloff and that doesn't add up, so.
Chris I was confused, but.
Lee That's me, my Hammer poster and talking and confusing.
Chris I'm just fucking Hammer. Okay.
Chris So good stuff. Yeah.
Chris so, this this was this was very good on a on a hot Father's Day, the end of the weekend. This was a nice, fairly fairly sedate kind of a horror to watch.
Adam Not.
Chris Not over the top action, but some excellent atmospheric and, you know, like for being 1932, was it? you know, excellent production, realistic in many respects.
Chris And I loved the the the opening sequence definitely sits the scene with seeing the mummy.
Chris Appearing.
Lee Oh yeah, for a minute I thought you meant that model right at the beginning because I love that, you know, when you get the title and it's the revolving thing where it's got the Sphinx and the pyramid and it's all turned it's got the mummy carved on the front.
Lee It's just looks fantastic. I thought you were on about that for a minute.
Chris Yeah.
Chris When and and they show the what was it, the the script, the words that he speaks, which I did say somewhere, but.
Chris yes, that's it. Yeah.
Chris and and so I learned also where the name Imhotep came from.
Chris Which I didn't realize.
Chris I'd heard that over the years in different places, never realized he was.
Adam He just look around you, obviously.
Adam He obviously, yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Adam No, he's the Imhotep.
Lee Yes.
Adam okay.
Adam Because because I take it, Chris, have you did you have you seen the Brendan Fraser The Mummy?
Chris Like I've seen definitely seen the trailers for that, but I don't think I ever watched the film.
Chris I don't remember seeing the entire film.
Adam Cuz I've I've never seen.
Chris So does does that follow?
Chris Okay.
Adam No, no, what it is is basically weirdly I'll take it you've seen it Lee, have you seen the.
Lee I I have seen all of the 90s Mummy, yeah, it was the 90s, wasn't it?
Adam It was. It was the 90s.
Adam And yeah, so they basically do credit this film on there.
Adam No, I don't think it's from what I gather, I don't think it's particularly.
Unknown Nothing like it.
Adam Yeah. Oh, thank you. The other viewer of the Mummy Claire has just gone, nothing like it.
Adam So.
Chris Right.
Adam I think they just they they sort of wanted not wanted the cachet, but they they were like taking right, we'll take the name Imhotep and we'll, you know, that'll go in there and everything and.
Lee Other than other than that it's a crossover between the Universal The Mummy and Indiana Jones effectively.
Adam Yeah.
Adam That's what I thought it was in much more adventurous base.
Adam Which actually I think probably suits Mummy better.
Lee Yeah, it is it is in a weird way, you know.
Lee It was yeah, it was a it was I mean, I I've watched it a few times. It isn't something I would bring to the table to cover in this show because it is a bit a little bit low brow, but I mean, it's a fun film, like if you're, you know, Saturday afternoon, you want something a bit fun and a bit of action. Yeah, it's it's fine.
Lee It's not as dry as this, thankfully.
Lee but yes, sorry, anyway, Chris, yes.
Chris and then the other thing that I didn't realize was that this was a a a romance, a love story.
Chris I did not realize that and it also has a bit of a supernatural power hypnotic sort of vibe points.
Chris Which, you know, may not be so good nowadays, but.
Lee I mean, this is effectively Dracula with a mummy instead of the Dracula.
Chris Yeah.
Lee It's effectively the same story, he has the same powers, just different makeup.
Adam It's romancing, it's romancing the reincarnated figure of his love.
Adam It's and yeah, cuz I saw a lot of people saying that online, you know, like sort of reviews of it and a lot of people say, oh yeah, it's basically.
Adam The Mummy sorry, it's basically Dracula and you've even got the same the same guy who plays Van Helsing's Dr. Müller in this.
Lee That's right, yeah, yeah.
Adam Playing effectively the same role in the story of the of, you know, the the knowledgeable man who who knows what what is actually going on. but yeah, it's.
Chris And so, so is this story was it written by Universal or.
Adam This yes, this was this was based on.
Adam This wasn't original story.
Adam I can't remember, I wish I'd I wish I'd jotted it down because I meant to, it was something I was going to look into anyway, there was apparently originally the script was about a guy, a a genuine figure who was basically a a cultist slash con man.
Lee Okay.
Adam and I think they were going with the the myth rather than the truth of this guy.
Adam And so originally the two people who who wrote the story, that's how that's what they were originally going for.
Adam And then because of the interest in Egyptology sort of resonating from from the expedition to for Tutankhamun, like Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun was.
Adam Or Tutankhamun, I don't know.
Adam Judge me either way.
Adam But yeah, so Egyptology was like a big thing and they kind of married that into a similar sort of thing.
Adam But effectively, yeah, it is it's like they've rewritten Dracula, but gone, right, we can we'll move the camera around a bit more and Boris Karloff's playing Dracula now not Bela Lugosi.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And you know, because by then also by then sort of because this is this is literally the third of the Universal sort of.
Adam Well, the Universal no, sorry, is the third sort of talkie of Universals horrors.
Adam Of like them because obviously they've got the sort of Pantheon for one of a better word of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman.
Lee Yeah.
Adam The Mummy, Invisible Man, Phantom of the Opera and so on. And so yes, they've done Dracula, huge success, done Frankenstein, but Bela Lugosi famously doesn't want to do to play the monster in Frankenstein, so Boris Karloff plays it, massive success and at this point Karloff becomes their go-to guy for their monsters, essentially.
Adam And so it's.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah, it's essentially Boris Karloff playing the Dracula role rather than Bela Lugosi.
Adam And everything else is kind of similar in you know, you know, in a way.
Lee I think one of the things that has to be brought up and I know we always mention it when we mention Universal, but it is a travesty to me again having watched it, especially, so I watched it on its lovely Blu-ray release, which looks stunning.
Lee and you can see Jack Pierce's makeup is absolutely incredible. He's such an underrated part of the whole of horror really, I mean, our.
Adam I think he's a name.
Adam He is definitely a name that is getting forgotten.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Which is a real shame because he is I mean, without him you do not he literally creates the definitive version of Frankenstein's monster.
Lee Yeah.
Adam It's the one that kids still weirdly, the kids still know the design, they probably just don't know it comes from Jack Pierce, but it's that thing of flathead bolts in the neck.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, scars, that's that's him entirely.
Adam And.
Lee He knocks it out the park again with this as well. It's both both when it's Boris Karloff just being aged up and the actual when he is a mummy, they just look incredible.
Adam Because the mummy stuff, I mean, I was that's the one thing I always find with this is I'm always I'm always disappointed that cuz I go to a mummy film to see a mummy.
Lee Yeah.
Adam In the sense of a bandaged corpse chasing people around. Essentially, essentially a slasher movie sort of vibe, you know, with with curse and sort of.
Chris Mummy styling and.
Adam Yeah, and basically ancient Egypt as a backdrop and a slasher film around the curse is what I sort of go to with mummy films.
Adam So I'm always a bit disappointed that he's not bandaged apart from that opening bit, and I think that opening bit is really effective because I love.
Chris Yeah.
Adam When when the guy just breaks and is just laughing.
Adam As it moves as he sees and you don't you see you he sees the hand, we don't see any more of the mummy, but it's just him in hysterics.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Because of it's just broken him.
Adam And that's you know.
Chris Yeah.
Adam and I think that that is that's that's definitely the that's the most horrific part of the film in the in that sort of sense. Cuz you've got Karloff obviously in the full makeup, which was like that was eight hours apparently.
Adam They they literally sort of baked him into like clay and bandages to make him like that.
Chris
Adam And they like so he's that was his first day was in the full mummy like gear.
Lee Yeah.
Adam but most of the shots are actually a dummy that they'd done the same process on.
Adam So.
Adam So it's only really so it's only Karloff particularly when it's the eyes for the actual coming alive. So the other parts of it, that's a dummy of Karloff made up into the into the mummy gear.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Which does seem it's like.
Chris
Adam And then you spent eight hours in makeup to open your eyes.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Jesus Christ, mate.
Lee I get it, but.
Chris But it's.
Adam Yeah, it's so I I'm always slightly because.
Adam There's one there's one other bit in this though, there's in one of the flashbacks there is a spear through someone that is actually pretty gruesome. Yeah, cuz every time I sort of by that point I'm getting a bit drowsy with it as it were because you sort of get as you say, you get lulled.
Lee Yes, I saw that it was torn through.
Adam It sort of gets it's it can be quite slow, it can be quite dry.
Adam And yeah, suddenly in the middle of it you're like, hang on, that blows got a spear through him.
Adam Jesus fucking Christ, that's not.
Lee Yeah, it's.
Adam But yeah, I think
Adam Yeah, so it's again, it's a weird one because the the subsequent mummy films in Universal series and most subsequent mummy movies it it is the figure in bandages, the essentially a zombie.
Adam You know.
Adam
Chris I guess they realized that's perhaps what what people want.
Adam Yeah, I mean.
Adam Possibly that's the reason I didn't watch The Mummy, the 90s sort of action adventure version is cuz again, I was like, well, you mean the Mummy's not covered in bandages? That's not proper mummy.
Adam And he is he is a mummy, obviously, he is the mummy.
Adam And there's the the sort of but
Adam But yeah, I mean and again, I mean, certainly from a point of view of if you sort of I mean coming to it, coming to it with with a purely modern sensibility.
Adam You've obviously got Boris Karloff from playing an Egyptian.
Adam Zita Johann playing a half Egyptian.
Adam And as Claire said, the only Egyptian thing about us are bedsheets.
Lee Yes, and she just looks like Drew Barrymore.
Lee I realize watching, she really looks like Drew Barrymore.
Adam She does actually.
Adam Yes, she does.
Adam But I mean she she's just strikingly 1930s.
Lee Oh yeah, yeah, you know, she really.
Adam But I mean, I don't mean I think the weird thing is cuz she didn't she didn't do a lot of films, she was mostly like a theater actress.
Adam And she I think she did like about seven or so films cuz basically she was a theater actor, got got no like sort of recognized in the theater and then MGM.
Adam I think it was MGM bought her like contracted her, but she had a clause and this is how this was unusual for the time, she had a clause that she had script refusal, so if she didn't like the script, she could say, no, I'm not doing that film and basically they kept offering her scripts and in the end they let her out of the contract because she just wasn't doing any of the films.
Adam And apparently it was along the lines of like they were saying, why won't you do any the films? She's like, well, why why don't you make any good ones?
Adam So.
Lee I mean that's a good argument.
Lee I I would.
Adam A very good argument, I think, you know.
Adam And so she sort of yes, so she was released from that contract and then she did seven films including The Mummy between 1931 and 34.
Adam And then just did a one-off appearance in 1986 in a film called Raiders of the Living Dead that I've never seen, but she came out of retirement did that.
Adam And I I'm assuming on the basis of on the basis of being attached to The Mummy because I don't think any of the other films were particularly sort of I think they were big at the time, but I don't think they're sort of ones that have survived.
Lee No.
Adam Well, been studied since, you know.
Adam And
Adam But yeah, she was and apparently she was quite she described herself as a mystic and was sort of into occultism and spirituality and reincarnation and that was one of the things she liked about the film.
Adam Was because there was the reincarnation aspect of it.
Lee Yeah.
Adam and apparently there was meant to be more there was meant to be more sequences of like her past lives.
Lee
Adam but her and Karl Freund, the director, apparently didn't get on.
Adam She said, she basically said that they were filming they did film all this stuff, but end up getting cut out of the film of her character's past lives.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And there was a bit where they're like, I think it was like meant to be in Rome and she was acting with lions. The rest of the crew were behind screens and walls and shit like that and the director just sent her out and said, right, you've got to go and play with the lions.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Essentially.
Adam And then also apparently at one point he said, well, there's a scene we're going to do it and you'll you'll have to be nude for the scene.
Adam And she basically called she was like, well, I knew I knew that censorship at the time, there was no way I was going to appear nude, so I just called his bluff and said, yeah, fine, I'll I'll do that and then suddenly mysteriously this scene never appeared and was never filmed and so on and so forth.
Lee I think she's surprisingly close to nude in this.
Chris Oh yeah.
Adam Yes, I mean, you know, he's not when she's in the Egyptian garb.
Adam But also I think that's the bit when she's sort of channeling acts and Amon.
Adam Amon?
Adam Amon.
Chris Ankhesenamun.
Adam Ankhesenamun, thank you.
Adam yeah, when when she's channeling her.
Adam I think.
Lee Ankhesenamun.
Adam Ankhesenamun, thank you.
Chris that's it, that's it.
Adam And but I think you get the that's when she cuz she gets to play at Boris's level at that point.
Lee
Adam Do you know what I mean, cuz everyone else is sort of being everyday and ordinary.
Adam I mean, admittedly, it seems very stilted to us, but it's 1932 as 1932, so it was present day.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And everyone sort of conversation and everything and then obviously Boris Karloff gets to come in and be absolutely fucking strange. And I think she she really is great when she gets that opportunity to sort of match his performance.
Lee
Adam As opposed to everyone.
Adam She's really good in it anyway, but I think that.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah, when she's when she's gets to that point and it's like yeah, her and Carl for at that point, they're they're completely different to everyone else in the film.
Lee Yeah.
Adam but.
Lee It is good to see her see her character change.
Lee You know, the fact that originally she's obviously very skeptical and he keeps saying don't you remember and isn't this sparking anything and then her yeah, her sort of sudden realization after he gives her those visions.
Lee yeah, I I thought it worked it worked really well. Yeah, and she did do a really good job.
Lee She's
Lee Yeah.
Lee Fantastic.
Lee And again to be opposite Karloff, who obviously was one of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time having just come out of Frankenstein the year before. yeah, yeah, I thought they did she did a really good job.
Adam Yeah.
Adam Well again, they were selling him on just one name cuz at this point it was Karloff in The Mummy.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, so that's.
Chris So so you say so he done Frankenstein before this, what else had he done anything else or was that big enough?
Adam I mean, there was there was a lot of stuff, I'm just having a look at my my roll call, so.
Adam From Universal's point of view, they they did Dracula in 31, Frankenstein in 31.
Adam And then The Mummy.
Adam Then the next next in 33 they do The Invisible Man and then 35 is when Karloff comes back to play the monster for Bride of Frankenstein.
Adam but I mean Karloff was just in tons and tons and tons of stuff.
Adam I mean, I'm sure we've you know, obviously we've we've sort of talked about him on other episodes and stuff.
Adam And yeah, if you other we've covered him, obviously episode 22, Bride of Frankenstein.
Adam Episode 102, The Curse of the Crimson Altar and episode 126, The Raven.
Adam Not as many as I thought.
Adam I thought he.
Lee No, I thought we'd have done more than that.
Adam Yeah.
Adam So that's something that we need to.
Lee Hang on a minute, hang on, if that's the case, does that mean we've not covered comedy of terrors yet?
Adam No, we've never done Comedy of Terrors.
Adam Should we do Comedy of Terrors?
Lee Yes. I keep I keep thinking we've done it and it keeps coming to me and I keep going, we need to no, we've definitely done that. But we didn't done Tales of Terror.
Lee Yes, we did, yes.
Adam Which plays a min, unfortunately.
Adam It's what's his name, Basil Rathbone.
Lee Yeah.
Adam So, but yes, no, we we haven't done a comedy of terrors, as yet.
Lee Right.
Lee That's it, that's locked in then, that's
Chris That's that's the one.
Adam Okay.
Lee I love that film. That that is a film that comes out every six months or so from me, it's just a a solid piece of comedy horror.
Lee Yes.
Lee So so this film again again, what I like about it is the fact that Universal obviously played it safe with Dracula.
Lee Taking an adaptation of a book that had been really big, it done really well on the stage and then they brought it to the cinema.
Lee so then Frankenstein obviously again a big literary piece, they knew it'd have a large following.
Lee So I do like the fact that they took a bit of a gamble with The Mummy and basically said, we're going to do our own we're going to write our own story and try and keep.
Lee I mean, as we said, you know, of the big three or four, I mean, I would say Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and Wolfman are the four big ones.
Lee I know that Phantom of the Opera is in there and The Invisible Man, but I I think.
Adam And the creature as in the Creature from the Black Lagoon, they're all part of that Pantheon, but yeah.
Adam No, I think it's it always was the ranking in my head as a child. He's like, it's like, yeah, it was Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Mummy.
Lee Yeah.
Adam That's they're the ones in all the cartoons.
Lee Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Lee They're the ones they bring back for the Monster Squad and
Adam Yeah.
Adam Which is actually I think the only time we The Mummy that was the only time that we've actually had a pre previously had a Mummy on the show.
Lee Yes, yeah.
Lee You're right.
Adam I mean, apart from when player's been again.
Chris So they did a good enough job to to make it iconic.
Chris Even if part of this film doesn't necessarily stand up quite as much as it may have done at the time when it was released.
Adam Well, I think.
Adam I think it was because.
Chris I only cuz you don't see so much of the mummy.
Adam Yeah.
Adam But I mean.
Adam I think cuz they then I mean they did do how many more Mummy films did they do?
Adam I think they did.
Adam so you've got so I'm just I'm just looking at my my universal list here that I printed out for myself.
Adam So you've got The Mummy's Hand in 1940, then The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy.
Lee Great film.
Adam So I've, you know, I've never seen it.
Lee Oh, I've.
Lee I've never seen me the Mummy.
Lee I've got it because I've got that and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I think on a on a dual disc with both of them on.
Adam Oh, I might I might have it as well then.
Lee Oh, there you go.
Adam I've just I've just never actually watched it.
Adam I'll have to.
Adam I'll have to check it out.
Lee but yeah, and it again, I like this is a slower film, but it is a nice short film. It doesn't it doesn't drag the story out anymore than it has to.
Lee And as you say, I think the reason it landed so well is because it was Egyptology it was such a massive thing at the time.
Lee This is where they were doing the Mummy unwrapping in London, in Leicester Square and stuff in the theaters where you'd basically go and watch them get an actual Egyptian mummy that they've brought all the way from Egypt and just unwrap it on stage and you would just pay to see it unboxed basically, which is weird, I don't know why, but I mean that was a thing.
Adam Well, like I say, I mean the two the two people who wrote the story, Nina Wilcox Putnam was a novelist and comic writer as well as a screen writer.
Adam And Richard who had worked on the Frankenstein script.
Adam So.
Adam You know, but they they were the ones who came up with the concept with the story and quite frankly, to a certain extent, they were the ones who obviously watched Dracula and went, you could probably do that again.
Lee Yeah.
Adam To a certain extent, you know.
Adam but the actual screenplay was written by a guy called John L. Balderston, who was actually present at one of the openings, it was the opening of Tutankhamun's sarcophagus in 1925.
Lee Wow.
Adam He was there on he was a journal he was act not acting as, he was working as a journalist for the paper called the New York New York World, which is I'm assuming kind of where the Daily Planet got his name from, but.
Adam but yeah, so he was actually present during one of those things, so he sort of like was and he brought he also was the script screen writer of Dracula, Dracula's daughter, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire and Mad Love with with Peter Lorre.
Lee Oh, Peter Lorre.
Adam Peter Lorre, fucking great film, I love that.
Adam which which incidentally was also Carl Freund, who directed this was also also directed Mad Love, who was mostly a cinematographer, who was like on Metropolis and Dracula and things like that.
Lee Yes, I saw that.
Adam But weirdly enough, he also is the guy who pioneered the multi-camera studio filming before an audience for sitcoms.
Lee Oh, really?
Adam Yeah, because before they were but yeah, so he was the guy who sort of came up with the idea of like, right, we can cover this with cameras, still film it in front of the studio audience, so you get the reactions, you get the laughs as if it's live, but it was he basically worked out how to shoot a play.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Essentially, like doing the multi-camera technique because he actually did 152 episodes of I Love Lucy.
Lee Oh God, that's a lot.
Adam Which is where he developed it from, you know.
Lee Yeah.
Adam and
Adam What weirdly enough speaking of sitcoms, I was going through the list of Jack Pierce's credits.
Adam they include 104 episodes of Mr. Ed and I'm now thinking was that the fucking best makeup?
Adam Did he make the guy up to look like a fucking horse to get that gag because I mean at that point the man's surpassed himself.
Adam Do you know what I mean?
Lee I mean, Jack Pierce is just.
Lee I mean, it's one of those we could almost do an episode just talking about the things that that man has has done.
Lee And yeah, as you say, and nobody really talks about him, you know, everyone talks about the actors and stuff and the directors, but nobody talks about Jack Pierce and as you say, he's just given so much and he's his work is still in the zeitgeist now, 100 years later.
Lee and he's absolutely fashioned the way that we see all of these creatures, yeah, so for nobody to know who he is really, you know, within reason, it's yeah, it's a travesty really.
Adam Cuz I heard about Jack Pierce through other makeup artists talking about.
Lee Yeah, me too.
Adam You know, it's the it's that sort of thing of, you know, people like Tom Savini and stuff because they were they knew they knew who to look for and what they'd but yeah, as you say, it's like a sort of it's a name that's kind of passed out.
Adam But speaking of names that passed out, did you know Imhotep's real?
Adam He was an Egyptian architect from around the 27th century BC.
Adam Who was the high priest of Ra and Chancellor of Pharaoh Zoser, who also possibly the architect of his pyramid and he was one of the few non-royal ancient Egyptians to be deified and ended up being worshiped as a god of healing and medicine around 2,000 years after his death.
Adam So is Imhotep a real figure that they've just sort of nabbed.
Chris Yeah.
Chris They've sort of turned him into the opposite of who he really was.
Lee But yeah, so they they had him in this day and said he was he was from the Temple at Karnak, which I am very glad to say I've been to.
Chris
Lee So yeah, it's it's it's it's exciting when I was there.
Lee So if I remember correctly, there's a temple at Luxor and the temple at Karnak, they are miles apart.
Lee It was like 20 minutes on the bus to get from one to the other. and they had just discovered that there is a direct line from Karnak to Luxor and it's it's lined with Sphinxes the whole way and the whole thing is buried under sand and they just discovered it and we're trying to unearth it, so it's a whole straight road lined with Sphinxes for like 20 miles or something and they've just they'd only just discovered it about 16 years ago, I think.
Lee yeah, so yeah, it's incredible.
Adam But yeah, but so yeah and the follow-up films are all the the Mummy is Karis.
Adam So they've moved away from so technically this is a stand-alone story and the other mummy films are a different story. It's not like Dracula or Frankenstein where the original is then the continuing stories the rest of them.
Adam So the subsequent Universal Mummy films are a different mummy, but it's the same one all through them.
Adam so it's not Imhotep.
Adam and Ankhesenamun was named after Tutankhamun's wife.
Lee
Adam oh yeah, that was the other thing, you know, I said that they had stuff cut out where they were doing her reincarnated lives.
Lee Yeah.
Adam yeah, there was stuff cut out there, but they were there was two people are still in the credits from them.
Lee Oh, really?
Adam So there's lots of uncredited people that you see on the screen, but there's two people you don't see who get credit, which is quite.
Chris Yeah.
Chris It's ridiculous.
Adam But I mean, I mean, I would say certainly anyone coming to it, it's like yeah, you're going to see you're going to see some dodginess there.
Adam I mean, I love the bit where it's like the guy going, I mean, what a dirty rotten trick that we've got to keep the the stuff we've dug up out of the Egyptian museum.
Lee Yes.
Adam Yes, you fucking thieving bitch. about science, my ass. You cheeky bastard, yes, you do keep it there. So.
Adam Because there's there's you know, and there's a lot sort of that there's a lot there's a lot of problems in that sort of sense, but they are literally the problems of 1932.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know, this is this is something so old that it's like, well, of course the heroes are the.
Adam Because you know, you know there's that thing about they said the only way they should do a sequel for Indiana Jones now is that it's his son going back or his grandson rather going back and giving back all the treasures that he's nicked from various places.
Chris Yeah.
Adam It'd be the right way to do the hero story at that point.
Adam But because let's face it, Imhotep, despite his sort of undying love and I mean, let's let's face it, quite creepy.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Very.
Adam You know, it's very creepy, it's like, let it go, mate, you know, it's been a while.
Lee Old dude after this woman who's probably in her early 20s doesn't doesn't bode well.
Adam Who who reminds him of her, you remind me of her, boy.
Adam And
Adam Yeah, it's so.
Adam There's there's about essential dodginess as well.
Adam But I think that he does have a very good point about well what the fuck are you doing picking shit out of.
Adam Out of our tombs.
Adam And that's what I like with Müller when he comes in and he's like, you're not going to open that, that's sealed, you know, that's that's sealed under curse.
Chris Yeah.
Adam What are you fucking mental?
Chris Yeah.
Lee See that's the thing, I think all the stuff should be given back.
Lee But what's even worse is the stuff before the British started going and taking it, where just random people would break into the tombs and then just flog it to somebody with some money.
Lee And all that stuff has obviously never resurfaced.
Lee So it's all stuff.
Adam Oh.
Lee Absolutely.
Lee Some of it was sold stuff and brought it over here and we definitely need to give it back.
Lee But if they hadn't.
Lee We'd never see any of this stuff because it'd just be flogged on the black market as a coffee table or fuck knows what.
Lee And it.
Adam Yeah.
Lee It would.
Lee Be long gone.
Adam Oh, absolutely.
Adam Grave robbing is grave robbing, no matter which way you look at it.
Adam So it's
Adam No, there's a lot there's a lot to be seen, I mean, I I get the thing, it's.
Adam You know, but again, it's like, yeah, we're we're we're here from a scientific point of view.
Adam And it's like, yeah, your backers aren't though, aren't they?
Lee No, exactly, yeah.
Adam You know, and it's but anyway.
Adam I mean this is.
Adam Let's face it, there was no way that a film from 1932 starring a white man as an Egyptian was not going to have a certain level of problematic, shall we say.
Chris Yeah.
Lee but yeah, as I said, it doesn't it it yeah, it is a bit its age.
Lee But I think it's a great film and it's definitely one to to check out as part of that that very early again, it's the first first time we see a character who has lasted and is still in the in the pantheon of creatures 100 years later.
Lee
Lee So, for our next episode, as we've just discussed it, we are going to cover Comedy of Terrors.
Adam Yes.
Lee So back with Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre, it's incredible.
Chris Yeah, I've just looked up the cast. That is a a full cast.
Adam It's it's a it's a bloody good.
Lee Yeah.
Adam We we're obviously we're obviously feeling our age and embracing our the the the the the.
Chris And it's a comedy.
Adam The elder statesman of horror, shall we say.
Lee Yes.
Lee Yeah, yeah, such a such a fantastic film.
Lee But I shall save all that for the next episode.
Lee Right, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
Lee go and check out all of our previous episodes.
Lee go and listen to not for everyone podcast and Eric and all that other fun stuff that we we devour ourselves.
Lee And we'll be back in a Fortnight's time for Comedy of Terrors.
Lee Thanks very much. Good night.
Chris Good night.
Adam Good night.
