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The Mummy’s Hand
When in Egypt…Fear the DEAD mor than the Living!
Chasing archaeologic glory, Steve Banning sets out on a perilous journey across the haunted sands of the Sahara, to the Valley of the Jackals, in search of the tomb of Ananka, one of Egypt’s richest princesses. But the dangers of the desert are the least of his expedition’s challenges. Since ancient times, Ananka’s tomb has been guarded not only by the fanatic High Priests of Karnak, but also by the living mummy of Ananka’s lover in Egypt of old, Prince Kharis. Under a full desert moon, terror walks on cloth-wrapped feet!
In 1940, Kharis the Mummy was added to Universal’s family tree of monsters when The Mummy’s Hand inaugurated a popular new franchise. While the film followed a current Hollywood trend of adding double-doses of comedy to mystery and horror pictures, it played its monster scenes for full-on Our heroes (and she-ro) change their laugh-a-minute tune when they realize that some ancient curses are still terrifyingly potent, and that the sand is running out for them. Here, for the first time in over 3000 years , is complete Mummy’s Hand coverage, excavated by the best team of Universal Horror archaeologists this side of the Scripps Museum.
"With THE MUMMY’S HAND, the “Scripts from the Crypt” series digs further into 1940s Universal lore, of which Tom Weaver & cohorts might be the reigning authorities. … Weaver overwhelms us with facts, figures, photos and dozens of fascinating side stories. … His co-authors provide good sidebar essay chapters on the actors. Well-known film historian Gregory William Mank contributes an engrossing piece on George Zucco. More solid fact-finding academia comes with comprehensive chapters on mummy movies silent (Gary D. Rhodes) and sound (Frank Dello Stritto)."
- CineSavant
Chasing archaeologic glory, Steve Banning sets out on a perilous journey across the haunted sands of the Sahara, to the Valley of the Jackals, in search of the tomb of Ananka, one of Egypt’s richest princesses. But the dangers of the desert are the least of his expedition’s challenges. Since ancient times, Ananka’s tomb has been guarded not only by the fanatic High Priests of Karnak, but also by the living mummy of Ananka’s lover in Egypt of old, Prince Kharis. Under a full desert moon, terror walks on cloth-wrapped feet!
In 1940, Kharis the Mummy was added to Universal’s family tree of monsters when The Mummy’s Hand inaugurated a popular new franchise. While the film followed a current Hollywood trend of adding double-doses of comedy to mystery and horror pictures, it played its monster scenes for full-on Our heroes (and she-ro) change their laugh-a-minute tune when they realize that some ancient curses are still terrifyingly potent, and that the sand is running out for them. Here, for the first time in over 3000 years , is complete Mummy’s Hand coverage, excavated by the best team of Universal Horror archaeologists this side of the Scripps Museum.
"With THE MUMMY’S HAND, the “Scripts from the Crypt” series digs further into 1940s Universal lore, of which Tom Weaver & cohorts might be the reigning authorities. … Weaver overwhelms us with facts, figures, photos and dozens of fascinating side stories. … His co-authors provide good sidebar essay chapters on the actors. Well-known film historian Gregory William Mank contributes an engrossing piece on George Zucco. More solid fact-finding academia comes with comprehensive chapters on mummy movies silent (Gary D. Rhodes) and sound (Frank Dello Stritto)."
- CineSavant
316 pages, Paperback
First published June 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 30, 2024
Inside the front cover of THE MUMMY'S HAND is a note that the book is dedicated to Peggy Moran (one of the stars of the movie) along with a lovely photograph of her and a quote:
"I'd like to say to all the Mummy fans that I think it's so terribly sweet of you, and I'm so very, very pleased that you liked (it) ... but, it still was a lousy picture." {laughs]
That sentiment seems to have been picked up by Tom Weaver, the main contributing writer, who fills his comments with jokey and lightly cynical remarks about the movie. I suppose he meant it as a "reference" to the late Forrest J. Ackerman who populated "Famous Monsters of Filmland" with non-stop puns. However, Weaver's humor isn't in the same league ... one example was a picture of Tom Cruise yelling into a telephone and captioned, "Show me the Mummy!" ... and, after a while, I began to feel as if he was having a good laugh at me for spending good money to buy a book about such an unworthy movie.
There were very worthwhile sections. The writings from Gregory W. Mank, Gary D. Rhodes and Laura Wagner were quite good. I also learned quite a bit about most of the main players that I hadn't known before, and there was a bonus I hadn't expected providing information on a surprising number of Mummy silent movies and shorts ... only one of which I'd known about. (Frank Dello Stritto also offered a speculation about the Karloff version that has me wanting to go scurrying back to see it again.)
For me, though, when I buy a book about a specific motion picture, I expect lots of photographs that I hadn't seen before (and there were some nice ones here), and stories about the making of the movie itself (on the set and behind the scenes). There was very little of the latter here, although I really liked the revelation concerning footage from the Boris Karloff version of THE MUMMY brought into THE MUMMY'S HAND containing many outtakes rather than footage from the actual release print.
A large part of the book consists of Weaver extensively detailing the plot, sometimes shot-by-shot. Then, a copy of the screenplay is provided revealing a number of differences. This is followed by a third section that specifies the differences between the screenplay and the theatrical release. Needless to say, there is a great deal of repetition here.
Four books were released in this series, one for each of Universal's post-Karloff Mummy movies during their classic era. Had I read this first one ahead of time, I seriously doubt I would have purchased the remaining three. On the plus side, each of the remaining ones is considerably shorter than this first one. However, Tom Weaver is a featured contributor for two of them. I can only hope that the attitude found in his writing is a bit kinder.
"I'd like to say to all the Mummy fans that I think it's so terribly sweet of you, and I'm so very, very pleased that you liked (it) ... but, it still was a lousy picture." {laughs]
That sentiment seems to have been picked up by Tom Weaver, the main contributing writer, who fills his comments with jokey and lightly cynical remarks about the movie. I suppose he meant it as a "reference" to the late Forrest J. Ackerman who populated "Famous Monsters of Filmland" with non-stop puns. However, Weaver's humor isn't in the same league ... one example was a picture of Tom Cruise yelling into a telephone and captioned, "Show me the Mummy!" ... and, after a while, I began to feel as if he was having a good laugh at me for spending good money to buy a book about such an unworthy movie.
There were very worthwhile sections. The writings from Gregory W. Mank, Gary D. Rhodes and Laura Wagner were quite good. I also learned quite a bit about most of the main players that I hadn't known before, and there was a bonus I hadn't expected providing information on a surprising number of Mummy silent movies and shorts ... only one of which I'd known about. (Frank Dello Stritto also offered a speculation about the Karloff version that has me wanting to go scurrying back to see it again.)
For me, though, when I buy a book about a specific motion picture, I expect lots of photographs that I hadn't seen before (and there were some nice ones here), and stories about the making of the movie itself (on the set and behind the scenes). There was very little of the latter here, although I really liked the revelation concerning footage from the Boris Karloff version of THE MUMMY brought into THE MUMMY'S HAND containing many outtakes rather than footage from the actual release print.
A large part of the book consists of Weaver extensively detailing the plot, sometimes shot-by-shot. Then, a copy of the screenplay is provided revealing a number of differences. This is followed by a third section that specifies the differences between the screenplay and the theatrical release. Needless to say, there is a great deal of repetition here.
Four books were released in this series, one for each of Universal's post-Karloff Mummy movies during their classic era. Had I read this first one ahead of time, I seriously doubt I would have purchased the remaining three. On the plus side, each of the remaining ones is considerably shorter than this first one. However, Tom Weaver is a featured contributor for two of them. I can only hope that the attitude found in his writing is a bit kinder.
Displaying 1 of 1 review