The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

The 1940s was one of greatest decades for filmmaking and it was also one of the worst. It is common for old codgers such as myself to complain about the endless reboots and sequels that are plaguing the cinema screens today; but this is nothing new and the 1940s was a fairly sequel happy decade. The biggest offender was Universal Studios and their endless monster movie series.  

First, let’s back track a minute: In 1932, Universal released The Mummy, a moody tale of supernatural romance (and essentially a reworking of Dracula) to great success. However, by 1936 Universal’s first cycle of horror movies had come to end with Dracula’s Daughter and the studio moved on to other projects.  In 1938, a Los Angeles theatre staged a triple feature of Dracula, Frankenstein, and King Kong, and the overall results were impressive. Universal capitalized on this momentum by putting into production the terrific Son of Frankenstein. The movie was a success and revitalized Universal’s monster movie brand, and other movies were quickly rushed into production. 

In 1940, Universal released The Invisible Man Returns (starring a young Vincent Price) and The Mummy’s Hand. Both movies were essentially reboots, though The Invisible Man Returns is connected to the original movie; Frank Griffin, the brother of the original Invisible Man, Jack Griffin, helps the protagonist escape from prison.   The Mummy’s Hand is a full fledged reboot; it introduces new characters and divides the Karloff role into two characters, Kharis (the mummy) and Andoheb, a high priest of Karnak.  Andoheb controls Kharis by brewing nine sacred tana leaves and is determined to make sure the tomb of princess Ananka goes undisturbed.  The movie was shot on an extremely low budget; it features a flashback that lifts shots from the original movie that noticeably feature Boris Karloff.  It is a fun little B-movie with a likable cast and few creepy moments, but is a definite downgrade from the original.

In 1942, Universal would release a sequel, The Mummy’s Tomb, which features an even longer flashback and actually lifts footage from The Mummy’s Hand; the first twenty minutes is essentially a recap of the previous movie.  The main difference between the two, other than location (it moves the action to New England) is the presence of Lon Chaney, Jr. in the role of Kharis (Tom Tyler played Kharis in the previous movie).  No doubt this was a publicity move on Universal’s part to capitalize on the Chaney name by showing off Junior’s great versatility as an actor, but there is nothing distinguishable about Chaney’s performance. Universal could have gotten a similar performance out of a stuntman and saved a lot of money in the process. Though, The Mummy’s Tomb may be the horror sequel that started the time honored tradition of killing off the survivors of the first movie; it takes place thirty years after the first movie and both returning cast members, Dick Foran and Wallace Ford, are offed by Kharis. 

Finally, this brings us to 1944 and the release of The Mummy’s Ghost. YAY!!!! The question you might ask is: Why even bother writing about this movie?  It’s, at best, a mediocre entry in a fairly forgettable series, so what could possibly be the appeal?  Spoilers for a crappy 72 year-old movie!!!!

It is true that for three quarters of its running time The Mummy’s Ghost is a fairly standard horror sequel: Kharis plods through the countryside strangling any yokel that gets in his way,l while the local police are completely baffled by the whole thing. Meanwhile, it turns out that pretty college student, Amina, is the reincarnation of Kharis’ beloved princess Ananka. Thankfully, her boyfriend Tom is there to protect her and, more importantly, has convinced the local authorities that Kharis is a genuine threat. They pull their resources together and plan on trapping the monster.  The rest of the movie is just a formality: Kharis meets a fiery end and Amina and Tom live happily together.  Except that this doesn’t happen!  The movie does a complete 180 on us and allows Kharis to walk away with the girl at the movie’s end.  The townspeople set the trap alright, but Kharis doesn’t show up.  While the townspeople are setting up the trap, Kharis has abducted Amina and taken her to his guardian, Yousef Bey (John Carradine). Yousef begins to lust after Amina and wants to preserve her beauty forever by using fluid from the tana leaves.  This royally pisses Kharis off and he strangles Yousef, and then carries Amina away. Tom arrives too late as Kharis and Amina sink to the bottom of the swamp. THE END! The filmmakers make this ending more palatable by having Amina slowly transform into Ananka’s 3,000 year old corpse, but still, for all intensive purposes, Kharis gets the girl at the end. This is a fairly grim ending, especially for 1944. It is on par with having Dracula end with the count running off with Mina, while Jonathan Harker sobs uncontrollably.  It’s completely unimaginable. 

This ending should be shocking but the problem is that Ramsey Ames (as Amina) is not a particularly good actress.  She’s an attractive woman to be sure (most Hollywood starlets are) but her personality doesn’t register onscreen and she doesn’t do herself any favor with her stiff line delivery (Virginia Christine fares much better in the role in The Mummy’s Curse).  Robert Lowery is affable enough, but is fairly forgettable.  It doesn’t help that the two actors are upstaged by a dog; Tom has a pet dog named Peanuts, who can detect evil a mile away. This wouldn’t a problem if Kharis were an interesting villain but he is a complete bore. He also isn’t much of a menace: Kharis’ victims could easily outpace him if they just walked away at a brisk pace, instead of just screaming their heads off;  Kharis walks with a limp and has one good hand, yet is some how able to get a drop on armed civilians.  It is rather appalling direction by Reginald Le Borg, who takes the direction “Kharis walks through the streets” literally. 

John Carradine fares much better as Yousef Bey;  a priest of Arkham and Kharis’ protector.  Carradine’s performance reminds me of a televangelist that  often gets caught with his pants down; he begs forgiveness for his sins but indulges in them nonetheless.  Bey has lived a fairly rigid existence, devoid of any sex and pleasure; therefore, when he sees an attractive woman up close, it makes sense that he would have a crisis of faith. He doesn’t want to offend his Gods, but holy crap, there’s a hot girl in the same room as him. What should he do? Carradine is appropriately creepy and helps liven up the proceedings. He is the only interesting character in the entire movie. 

There is also a fairly interesting meta moment in The Mummy’s Ghost; an elderly watchman is listening to a horror radio program and the ominous narrator intones, “Did you ever meet a killer, my friends? You will tonight. A killer is at large, my friends. He enters the darken study of Doctor X, the mad doctor of Market Street. In the darken shadows of the room the doctor waits. There’s a scuffle. Screams. Gunshot.  Crash.”  Seconds later, the Mummy breaks into the museum and a scuffle breaks out with the watchman, followed by screams, a gunshot, and a crash. It’s interesting to see self awareness in an older horror movie. It’s become a staple in modern horror movies, but in the 1940s a knowing wink to the audience was  unheard of.  

Credits
Cast:  John Carradine (Yousef Bey), Ramsey Ames (Amina), Robert Lowery (Tom Hervey), Lon Chaney , Jr. (Kharis), Barton MacLane (Inspector Walgreen), George Zucco (High Priest – Andoheb), Frank Reicher (Professor Norman), Harry Shannon (Sheriff), Emmett Vogan (Coroner), Lester Sharpe (Doctor Ayad), Claire Whitney (Mrs. Norman), Oscar O’ Shea (Watchman), Martha Vickers (Girl Student).

Director: Reginald Le Borg
Screenplay: Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher, Brenda Weisberg.
Running Time: 60 min.

Fashion Model (1945)

Fashion Model is not a particularly good movie, but it gets a few novelty points by making its protagonist, Jimmy O’ Brien, a clumsy stock boy, rather than a hard nosed detective.  Jimmy and his fashion model girlfriend, Peggy, work at Madame Celeste’s fashion store, and both of them are suspects in a murder investigation.  It all begins when Jimmy finds the corpse of model, Yvonne, in a dumbwaiter; stumbling upon corpses proves to be a talent for Jimmy, as this happens three times in the movie.  The police are notified and Jimmy is immediately the top suspect.  It doesn’t help that Peggy resented Yvonne for trying to steal Jimmy away from her.  To make matters worse, a security guard overheard Jimmy say that he was going to strangle Yvonne just so he and Peggy could be rid of her. Of course, the security guard failed to recognize the sarcasm in Jimmy’s voice – he only said to it to quiet down Peggy, who was berating him for talking to Yvonne.  Jimmy’s luck gets worse as the movie progresses; thankfully, Peggy is able to solve the mystery, sort of.  The correct phrasing would be that she accidentally stumbles upon the killer, and, luckily the police, at Jimmy’s insistence, manage to arrive just in the nick of time to save her.  The killer’s motivation is a rare broach that, accidentally, has made its way into a jewel box belonging to the store.  

It would have been interesting to see what Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, or any other master filmmaker could have done with material, but in the hands of William "One Shot" Beaudine, it becomes a rather inane comedy mystery, with the emphasis on the former.  There is no attempt by Beaudine to develop any sort of suspense, instead everything is played for laughs. The audience never really fears for Jimmy and Peggy, because any sort of tension is diffused by bad jokes and silly sight gags. It is also amazing how chipper Peggy and Jimmy remain throughout the movie, despite the corpses they keep stumbling into.  Hell, even the denouement is played for laughs; the killer, after being put in handcuffs, quips that prison life can’t be any worse than living with his domineering wife.  

Peggy and Jimmy are not exactly the brightest bulbs in the pack, but fortunately, for them, the detectives (O’ Hara and Grogan) on the case are even dumber than they are.  Granted, the thick-skulled detective isn’t anything new to the comedy-mystery genre, but these guys are extraordinarily dumb. How stupid are they? Well, let’s just say that Jimmy and Peggy are able to elude them by posing as store mannequins.  This is actually the centerpiece of the entire movie; Fashion Model is 61 minutes long and, at least, ten of those minutes are devoted to Peggy and Jimmy acting like the mannequins. The scene ends with an absent minded window dresser putting them up in a display window. This, naturally, draws a crowd of onlookers, which in turn makes O’Hara and Grogan wonder what all the commotion is about. Finally, a light bulb goes off in O’Hara’s head, and he realizes that these mannequins are actually the murder suspects that he is after. He is able to nab Jimmy, but Peggy manages to get away.

This isn’t the first time that O’Hara and Grogan are fooled by a fairly transparent disguise; earlier in the movie, Jimmy, is locked up in jail, and Peggy is able to break him out by donning the disguise of an elderly woman. She walks into the police station and, in a creaky voice, claims that she is Jimmy’s grandmother. When Grogan goes to check on Jimmy, she sets fire to a newspaper and then lets out a huge scream.  This distraction last long enough that Peggy is able to get Jimmy out of jail, while Grogan stands there looking completely dumb founded. 

Fashion Model should be an embarrassingly bad movie, but it is greatly blessed by its likable leads, Robert Lowery and Marjorie Weaver; they both give it their all, despite the silly material they have to work with. Weaver and Lowery have great chemistry, and it’s easy to imagine a franchise being centered on these two characters. Does Jimmy keep his day job as a stocker? Does Peggy retire from modeling? Do they become private detectives? Do they get married? These questions would remain unanswered as Fashion Model  would prove to be Marjorie Weaver's last starring movie role; she has five acting credits after this film, three of which are television appearances.  Robert Lowery is, probably, best known for playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in the 1949 serial Batman and Robin, but he would go on to having a fairly successful television career. Director William Beaudine had a fairly prolific career that spanned over six decades and includes over 300 movie credits. Granted, none of them are any good, but still that is quite an achievement. Edward D. Wood, Jr. is a far more celebrated "bad" movie maker and he didn't even come close to matching Beaudine's output.

Fashion Model was released by Monogram; a studio that made low budget movies from the 1930s – 50s. Fashion Model is, arguably, one of the their better movie, which should give you an idea just how bad Monogram's output was.  A movie like Fashion Model could never be made today, largely for the fact that modern audiences could never accept a complete numbskull like Jimmy as the protagonist. If Fashion Model were remade, Jimmy would, obviously, be transformed into a brooding bad ass and Peggy would be a super sexy lingerie model (played by Kate Upton) with ninja like abilities. The violence would be more gratuitous and the comedy would be non existent, which isn’t necessarily bad thing. Still, there’s an innocent charm about Fashion Model; sure, it ultimately fails at what it tries to accomplish, but I would rather watch a light hearted mystery than a dreary action movie.

 

Credits
Cast:  Marjorie Weaver (Peggy), Robert Lowery (Jimmy), Tim Ryan (Inspector O’Hara), Lorna Gray (Yvonne), Dorothy Christy (Madame Celeste), Sally Yarnell (Marie), Edward Keane (Jacques Duval), Dewey Robinson (Detective Grogan),  Jack Norton (Herbert), Harry Depp (Harvey Van Allen), Nell Craig (Jessica Van Allen), John Valentine (Davis), Cedric  Stevens (Jeffries).

Director: William Beaudine
Screenplay: Tim Ryan, Victor Hammond.
Running Time: 61 min.