The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
A review, written by: Joshua Taj Bozeman on Dec. 29, 2002

The Mummy's Ghost is a bit better than the movie, Mummy's Tomb, that I reviewed recently. In this story, we see yet another new high priest that will take Kharis on a trip of terror. They travel again to new england, where the goal, this time, is to get the mummified body of kharis' love Ananka. She was buried with a curse upon her, because of her love for Kharis..a forbidden love. Kharis wasn't killed in the previous film like it seemed. They torched him with fire, yet he survived, and is now ready for his new mission...one that has eternal consequences. He must bring back the body of his eternal love, so they both can rest happily ever after. The body of Ananka is in a musem in Massachusetts, and they must go there to retrieve it.

We meet a young couple, Tom (always with his ever trusty dog at his side, it seems) and the gorgeous Amina, who is Egpytian herself. You get the feeling they're very close, and on their way to being married. Amina has been having spells lately...she starts to feel weird, dizzy, she even finds herself sleepwalking, and waking up outside the house where the Mummy takes his first new victim (an archeaologist who has the tanna leaves that, and has discovered that Kharis needs 9 leaves to move about. The mummy is attracted to the tanna leaves, and goes to the house, kills the man, and in the morning, Amina is found outside. She has no idea how she got there. She has been very nervous lately...she has secrets in her past. Secrets that have much to do with her homeland, Egypt. We learn that she will ultimately be the link between Kharis and his love Ananka. Amina is in danger, and Tom might be her only hope...

In the end, the mummy kills more people (go figure, huh), and he finally is told by the priest that he must get the body of Ananka. They go to the museum, but the body disappears before their eyes. The mummy is told that when this happens, it means that Ananka's spirit has left her body and entered someone else...that someone else turns out to be Amina. So, the mummy must go and collect Amina, and bring her back to the priest. The priest, looking over the girl, who is now strapped to a table in his hideout, starts to fall in love with her, and he decides he wants the two of them to live forever by drinking the tanna leave stuff...the mummy comes in, figuring out the trick, and takes the woman away from the priest.

Then starts the chase...a large number of men, along with the police are running into the wooded, marshy area where the mummy has been spotted. Tom is heading the pack, being lead to the mummy's whereabouts with the help of his little dog. They find the mummy, and nearly catch him, but the mummy starts to go into the swamp. Amina's body, limp in the mummy's arms is aging very quickly, clearly she has been cursed as well, and is turning into Ananka. We see the mummy walk into the swamp with the decaying body of Amina, as Tom jumps in to follow...but they sink before he can get to them, and it's all over. This might be one of the very few movies where the monster actually gets away with the girl. The movie ends with Tom crying over his lost love...carried into the swamp by the monster.

I liked this one more than The Mummy's Tomb, which I watched first. The running time was about the same for both movies...I think it was only around an hour. This was probably for the better, because the story, like the previous film, wasn't very drawn out. It was poorly written in the manner that it couldn't have lasted very long, simply because there wasn't much that took place over the hour. Mummy comes to America, mummy kills, mummy tries to get body of his love, mummy finds that his love's spirit is in another body, mummy goes gets new body...the end. Not that it wasn't enjoyable overall...because it was.

Once again, the way movies were filmed back then, it's like entering a totally different world. You feel as tho Hollywood meant something totally different then. A time when the only movies that were made were big movies...this might have been a small movie, but it seems big. It has that whole 1940's feel to it, as you would expect. The direction is nice...lots of dark scenes, shots of the forboding country side where it seems anything could happen.

The movie is really beautiful in general...and the late Ramsy Ames as the female lead is a very nice touch. She was wonderful in the part. Who couldn't help but fall for her. I understand why the high priest decided on making her HIS eternal bride and stiffing Kharis. The actor who plays Tom has some nice scenes too, he's got that young, innocent, down- home charm to him, which seems to prevail in the movies from the 40's. Times were definitely much more innocent back then...

The Mummy's Ghost will probably never be considered one of the best Univeral Monster movies, but it's well made, the story is there, if a little short, and it's entertaining...and again, with Ramsy Ames...you can't lose. 8.5/10