As part of my 're watch movies I have not seen in years' program, I sat down last week to view the 1932, Karl Freund production of The Mummy. Last time I saw this one -- the movie, not the mummy -- was the summer of 1985. I was in film school, I was younger, happier, talked less...Okay, then.
I was a little surprised at how mellow the film was, even based on what I know about the Universal horror pictures from that era. On those terms The Mummy played a laid back game. It really is a love story more than horrific thrills... thrills which are there at the very beginning -- the first reel -- but which dovetail to a romance, of sorts. All played with skill by Boris Karloff.
Director Freund is German cameraman Freund; shooter of great films as The Last Laugh (1924), Variety (1925), and Metropolis (1927). That background shows in his directing, and he wasn't just a technician -- he cared about a story.
2 comments:
Yes, it's a love story, and more dreamlike than horrific. I saw this at the Nostalgic Cinema on 16mm in 1989, and while I didn't think it was of the top drawer of Universal's horror films of the 1930s, I've never forgotten that moment early on where that guy goes insane when the mummy first appears.
I agree, it is not "top drawer of Universal's horror films". Yes, the scene you mention is great: The mummy walks out of the room/vault and the guy laughs uncontrollably.
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