The Mummy

(1932) ****1/2

The timing of the release of The Mummy could hardly have been better. The previous decade had witnessed the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and interest in Egyptology (which even now, in my mid-40s, I still can't believe is an actual word) was sky-high. It was two years before Hollywood really started cracking down on Hays Code violations, and it was late enough in the timeline of commercial filmmaking that the tech had gotten really good.

It was also the threshold moment when Boris Karloff became a colossal film star, just a year removed from his breakout role in Frankenstein. I spent much of the film imagining what it must have been like to be a child in the 30s, awestruck watching Imhotep's mighty frame projected onto the 40 foot screen at Grauman's Egyptian Theater. He towers over his co-stars both literally and figuratively, his eyes mesmerizing with phantom electricity, controlling the action with quiet menace even in scenes he's not present.

It's hard not to find a little distracting the rather canned romance forced into the movie. Co-star David Manners, who plays main protagonist Frank Whemple (and who also played Jonathan Harker in Dracula), sparkles with insubstantial white-savior energy, and watching him ladle himself all over damsel Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), one rather hopes that Imhotep gets the girl in the end. Mere days after meeting her, he's gushing, "I love you so," to the woman. Seriously, I'm as careful as they come about dropping L bombs on my girlfriends too soon. The idea of throwing it on the table before like date 3 is major eye-roll stuff.

I met you like an hour ago. The fuck out my face.
And while I'm on the subject of weird airspace violations, oh my god, EVERYBODY in this movie stands way too close to each other. I understand you gotta lean in close if you're telling someone a dirty secret, but the standard conversational stance in this movie is like 6 inches from the other guy. It's weird as fuck. And like, I don't care what kind of secret you got to tell me; if you're putting your hand on my lapel like this it better be because we're about to make out. Otherwise, you better be ready to swallow some of your own teeth.

Of course, these are all idle observations, none of which ruined the movie for me in any way. I approached The Mummy the way I approach any of these classic Universal pics: with nostalgia not just for the ancient story it's telling, but for an age of filmmaking in which the films and the performances were gigantic.