Universal Studios certainly milked the monster cow through the 1940's. They had several well-received horror movies in earlier years, with Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932) and The Wolfman (1941) being the best remembered, and then chose to create sequel after sequel with the latter two (Dracula - arguably the best of the bunch - having been left out of the sequel business for some reason.) This particular "sequel" isn't really a sequel, of course. It's just another "Mummy come to life" story that has to stand on its own. It can't escape comparisons to the 1932 movie, I suppose, but it is its own movie. Compared to the '32 picture (which I personally didn't think was great) this does some things right and some things wrong.
It opens with a long (approximately 10 minute) narration explaining the background of the story and the origin of the yet to be introduced mummy. The narration was too long. It might have served its purpose a little better if the story had been unfolded in a way that would have let the narration be offered piece by piece rather than in that opening block. After that there's an extended period of what came across more as a comedy than a horror movie, revolving around the two main characters of Steve and Babe (Dick Foran and Wallace Ford) - a couple of out of work archaeologists who stumble upon a treasure. At times it seemed as though I were watching a variation on "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" rather than a quasi-follow up to the original "The Mummy." The cast was weaker than in 1932, and no one brought the presence to this movie that Boris Karloff brought to that earlier movie.
There were some positives, though. I liked the mummy in this one. The problem in 1932 was that the mummy wasn't a mummy. He came back to life then dropped the linen wrappings and fit right into "modern" (ie, 1932) Egyptian society. Here, the mummy is a mummy - and therefore more of a quintessential "monster." Once he starts to play his role (unfortunately, perhaps, restricted largely to the last 20 minutes or so) the nature of this monster adds a horror-type creepiness to this movie (the scene in which his shadow creeps along outside Marta's tent comes to mind.) The climax to this was also pretty good.
There were a lot of plot holes that puzzled me throughout; too many to really go into in detail but I found myself scratching my head too often trying to figure out this or that turn the story took. This was OK. It's not great. It's a B-movie, nowhere near the quality of Universal's earlier horror movies, but still OK.
It opens with a long (approximately 10 minute) narration explaining the background of the story and the origin of the yet to be introduced mummy. The narration was too long. It might have served its purpose a little better if the story had been unfolded in a way that would have let the narration be offered piece by piece rather than in that opening block. After that there's an extended period of what came across more as a comedy than a horror movie, revolving around the two main characters of Steve and Babe (Dick Foran and Wallace Ford) - a couple of out of work archaeologists who stumble upon a treasure. At times it seemed as though I were watching a variation on "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" rather than a quasi-follow up to the original "The Mummy." The cast was weaker than in 1932, and no one brought the presence to this movie that Boris Karloff brought to that earlier movie.
There were some positives, though. I liked the mummy in this one. The problem in 1932 was that the mummy wasn't a mummy. He came back to life then dropped the linen wrappings and fit right into "modern" (ie, 1932) Egyptian society. Here, the mummy is a mummy - and therefore more of a quintessential "monster." Once he starts to play his role (unfortunately, perhaps, restricted largely to the last 20 minutes or so) the nature of this monster adds a horror-type creepiness to this movie (the scene in which his shadow creeps along outside Marta's tent comes to mind.) The climax to this was also pretty good.
There were a lot of plot holes that puzzled me throughout; too many to really go into in detail but I found myself scratching my head too often trying to figure out this or that turn the story took. This was OK. It's not great. It's a B-movie, nowhere near the quality of Universal's earlier horror movies, but still OK.