film summary
Sub-themes of the mummy seem accidentally manifested in what could have been artsy ways. Andoheb clearly died in the previous film, yet has been "resurrected" here (where he dies again but will appear in the next film, The Mummy's Ghost). Banning and Babe have been aged, so longevity, and even the dead wife, could have resonated but don't, and the time lapse is never justified or explained. The juxtaposition of a mummy shuffling around in New England ought to inspire a frisson of inappropriateness, but the town is too horrifyingly homey, so complacent that hardly anyone ever bothers catching a glimpse of this lumberer. No one is ever even upset about any of the deaths of members of their own families. Ultimately, no one cares.
'I didn't like the part at all,' Chaney told writer Ron Haydock during the mid-1960s. 'There wasn't anything you could do with the Mummy. You just got into the make-up and bandages and walked around dragging you leg. I liked playing the Wolf Man a lot better, and making those Inner Sanctum films. You had a chance to do some acting, and you had dialogue. All they ever wanted the Mummy to do was put his hand way out in front of him and then grab somebody, and start strangling him'"
Even though I distinctly remember the "contract" in the previous film, The Mummy's Hand, sporting a May 12th 1940 date, this 1942 film supposedly takes up the story 30 years later (and believe me, this is not 1970!). Stephen Banning is an old moron now, without much more dignity than himself as a young moron. He sanctimoniously narrates the story of the discovery of Kharis, with the help of bountiful scenes from the previous movie, to his son John, John's girlfriend Isobel, his own sister Jane (Mary Gordon, who played Mrs. Hudson in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films), and a couple others. Banning claims his realization of the crucial secret passage came from potsherds, covering up the fact that these particular map skills actually came off an amulet on the person of the beggar he shot to death. He ends by saying they brought back the remains of Princess Ananka, and Marta (whom he married and now survives), but not the mummy.
The usual stuff takes place as it does in all of these wonderful movies and the mob approaches. The mob pursues Kharis to the Banning home. He zips up the trellis, knocks John down the stairs and then onto a bed while torches fly about. Isobel escapes down the trellis, some shots distract Kharis, everyone gets away, and the mummy is consumed in flames (again).
The newspapers announce "Reign of Terror Ends in Flames," and "Romance Scores Triumph Over Terror Reign," and people throw confetti on John and Isobel. No one has anything to say.