This weekend’s release of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is the latest in the long-running sub-genre of mummy movies, and you can watch one of the originals, 1940’s The Mummy’s Hand, in the latest Everything Action Theater.
After the success of Son of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man Returns, Universal was looking to make a follow-up to another Universal Monsters classic, 1932’s The Mummy. While it reuses footage from the original Boris Karloff film, The Mummy’s Hand doesn’t feature any characters or plotlines from it. This time around, a pair of archaeologists, Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford), secure funding for an expedition to find the lost tomb of the Egyptian Princess Ananka. Ananka’s tomb is protected by the mummy Kharis (Tom Tyler), formerly a prince who loved Ananka and tried to revive her by stealing magical tana leaves. He was captured before he could complete the ritual and buried alive, becoming an immortal protector who kills anyone who enters the tomb.
The movie was followed by three sequels: The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse, where the legendary Lon Chaney Jr. took over as Kharis. You can check out The Mummy’s Hand below via “Dr. Frankenstein” on YouTube.
