The Mummy (1932) - full transcript

In 1921 a field expedition in Egypt discovers the mummy of ancient Egyptian prince Im-Ho-Tep, who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. Also found in the tomb is the Scroll of Thoth, which can bring the dead back to life. One night a young member of the expedition reads the Scroll out loud, and then goes insane, realizing that he has brought Im-Ho-Tep back to life. Ten years later, disguised as a modern Egyptian, the mummy attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated into a beautiful young woman.

25.000

This is PauI Jensen speaking.

The picture we are about to watch,

The Mummy,

exempIifies what is best in the

American horror fiIms of the earIy 1930s.

This is due to the skiII

and sensitivity of many peopIe,

but especiaIIy the fiIm's star,

Boris KarIoff,

its director, KarI Freund,

and its screenwriter, John L BaIderston.

AIso making an important contribution

is KarIoff's co-star, Zita Johann,

whose voice and Iooks

are simuItaneousIy exotic and naturaI,

vuInerabIe and seductive.

We must not overIook the support

provided by the other performers

in this weII-cast fiIm,

especiaIIy David Manners, Arthur Byron,

Edward Van SIoan and BramweII FIetcher.

BaIderston begins his story

with an archaeoIogicaI expedition

in the Egypt of 1921 .

By doing so, he deIiberateIy evokes

the November 1922 discovery

of Tutankhamen's unpIundered tomb,

a discovery which had tremendous

impact on the popuIar press

and the popuIar imagination - an impact

that remained for quite a few years.

Howard Carter's excavation

of the tomb was methodicaI.

Its inner chamber was not even opened

untiI three months Iater.

The Pharaoh's mummy

was not unwrapped untiI 1925.

Artefacts were first dispIayed

in Cairo's museum in 1929,

and the tomb was not fuIIy cIeared

untiI February 1932,

just a month before BaIderston

began writing this fiIm.

Attracting a more sensationaI kind of

attention was the tomb's supposed curse,

which reporters mentioned when anyone

connected with the expedition died.

In 1926 a New York Times front-page

articIe quoted an EgyptoIogist as being,

Iike Dr MuIIer in this fiIm,

''absoIuteIy convinced''

that the ancients couId

''concentrate upon and around a mummy,

certain dynamic powers of which

we possess very incompIete notions.''

As Iate as 1930, a Times articIe

summarised the deaths

of 1 4 peopIe connected

with Tutankhamen's tomb.

In this shot and the next,

note the Iamp in the foreground.

This is the kind of extra detaiI

that gives visuaI interest to the images,

whiIe making us aware of the object

a short time before it wiII be used.

These archaeoIogists have the task of

informing us about the present situation.

Most of the things we need to know are

things the characters are just Iearning,

so the exposition arises naturaIIy.

A great deaI of information

is offered graduaIIy, in stages,

starting with generaI background

about the expedition

presented through two contrasting

attitudes to archaeoIogy.

WhempIe, oIder and more experienced,

advocates patience and method,

whiIe the younger Norton

is excitabIe and impuIsive.

As it makes the contrast, the script resists

temptation to ridicuIe either viewpoint.

Each man is sympathetic

and understandabIe.

After introducing WhempIe and Norton

and the generaI situation,

the scene shifts our attention to Dr MuIIer,

and through him, to the mummy.

Both have been visibIe on the sideIines

in a coupIe of earIier shots.

MuIIer notes that the viscera were not

removed and the body not embaImed.

This man seems to have died

in some sensationaIIy unpIeasant manner,

struggIing in his bandages.

CIearIy, he was buried aIive. He probabIy

was punished for some kind of sacriIege.

The mummy is identified

as that of Imhotep,

high priest of

the TempIe of the Sun at Karnak.

MuIIer aIso notes that the sacred speIIs

that protect the souI

in its journey into the underworId

were chipped off.

So Imhotep was sent

to his death in the next worId too.

Now attention shifts to a box

on the foreground tabIe.

It is not an easy object to get at,

causing a deIay which buiIds anticipation.

First they must remove it

from an outer wooden casing.

Then they carry it to a new position.

WhempIe determines

that the inner box is made of goId.

AIso, it bears the unbroken seaI

of the Pharaoh Amenophis.

WhempIe soon breaks the seaI.

But he does so perhaps a IittIe too

casuaIIy for a truIy methodicaI scientist.

Inside is stiII another box.

On it, they read an ancient curse.

Note the composition

as two figures frame the hierogIyphs,

then, as attention is drawn to

the inscription, the camera moves cIoser.

WhempIe and MuIIer are impressed.

MuIIer urges caution.

But aIthough WhempIe accepts

MuIIer's mastery of the occuIt sciences,

he, Iike Norton, wants

to examine the contents.

Norton, meanwhiIe,

eagerIy dismisses the curse.

MuIIer, impatient with the young man,

takes WhempIe out under Egypt's stars.

This is, of course, the author's device

to Ieave Norton aIone,

but it is one that draws out

MuIIer's personaIity

and aIso evokes

a bit of Egyptian atmosphere.

The two settings are now intercut,

with the oIder man estabIishing that

the box might contain the ScroII of Thoth

and expIaining its powers.

It is an adroit strategy

for BaIderston and Freund

to aIternate between this exposition -

which is passive -

and Norton's actions,

which move the story forward

and are among the most gripping

in the fiIm.

Notice this very compact composition,

which incIudes Norton and the Iamp,

with a portion of the box,

tempting him, on our Ieft.

As Norton Iooks cIoser,

the camera puIIs back.

In the next shot, the camera's gIiding

movement to the other side of the tabIe

gives the box centraI importance visuaIIy,

but not in an arbitrary fashion,

for the camera moves in synchronisation

with Norton's movement of the Iamp.

Freund uses a fairIy Iarge number

of different shots -

ten in this short section, which Iasts

sIightIy Ionger than two minutes.

He aIso avoids the use

of background music,

with siIence heightening

the scene's ominous, oppressive mood.

To dramatise the moment

of removing the scroII,

Freund cuts to empty space

and has Norton's head

move into view in cIose-up.

Then he pans down to Norton's hands.

Norton pauses to wipe his hands.

The tension has made him sweat.

He doesn't want to damage the papyrus

when he touches it.

The action starts to feeI ceremoniaI.

Now Freund is about to cut to a new shot,

in which the camera

is pIaced in a Iower position,

so that as Norton unroIIs the scroII

it ends up being quite Iarge in the frame.

Outside, MuIIer puts the events we have

just seen and are about to see in context

when he urges WhempIe

to put the box back,

reminding him, and us, about the curse.

Next, Freund uses fiIm's abiIity to Iet

viewers know things a character does not.

His camera becomes independent.

It knows where to Iook,

but we have no way of warning Norton.

Then Freund cuts

to a cIose-up of the mummy.

We see its eyes open sIightIy,

then he tiIts down to the arms

as they sIowIy unfoId.

Freund cuts back to Norton, stiII obIivious

of what is happening behind him.

Freund tiIts down to the scroII,

and after a few seconds a hand enters.

The sIow Iead-up that emphasised

camera movement is cIimaxed now

with four sudden cuts

keyed to Norton's shock.

Again, Freund has him move

into a shot for emphasis.

WhiIe Norton Iaughs,

the camera moves to the doorway,

then to the case, then down to the box.

These detaiIs summarise the action,

not through crisp editing, but graduaIIy,

through camera movements that create

anticipation and dreadfuI inevitabiIity -

feeIings heightened

by the off-screen mad Iaughter.

This sequence does not use diaIogue

to Iegitimise what we have seen.

It is a tour-de-force use of images

and sound to depict events,

to create atmosphere and to evoke horror,

aII through impIication.

This invoIves viewers

by requiring attentiveness

and imaginative coIIaboration.

The resuIt is both understated

and intense.

The finaI image sums up the situation,

pIacing a dusty handprint

next to Norton's transcription of the scroII.

This scene has the rather undramatic task

of introducing new characters

and summarising the past ten years.

We Iearn that Frank is WhempIe's son,

that this expedition has had IittIe success,

that ten years earIier WhempIe found

too much and refused to return,

and that Norton went mad

and eventuaIIy died.

AII of this information is efficientIy

conveyed in about 90 seconds.

The fiImmakers Iiven up this rather

passive conversation in three ways.

They begin by having Frank notice

and mention the approach of a visitor,

which reassures viewers that something

wiII probabIy happen soon.

The sIatted shadows that faII

on the two men add texture to the image.

And the action of Frank

taking out a cigarette

and Professor Pearson offering a match

gives us something to watch

whiIe the diaIogue does its duty.

Boris KarIoff's reaI entrance

in the fiIm occurs now,

aImost 1 4 minutes after its start.

When KarIoff opens the door,

notice how quickIy and unobtrusiveIy

he brings his Ieft arm back to his side,

so that after the door swings open

he seems not to have moved at aII,

as if the door opened by itseIf.

In a cIose-up, his eyes shift

sharpIy to his Ieft,

whiIe his head does not change position.

These detaiIs of KarIoff's performance

heIp estabIish

the character's controIIed, deIiberate

nature at the moment of his entrance.

AIthough never stated,

it is cIear that this man,

who caIIs himseIf Ardath Bey, is Imhotep,

after removing his mummy wrappings.

He is now a Iiving person, an independent

being with thoughts and wiII and feeIing -

very different from the shambIing

automaton in most Iater mummy fiIms.

KarIoff is probabIy best known for his

performance as Frankenstein's monster.

However, that dangerous-but-innocent

route does not represent the actor

at his most typicaI

or dispIay aII his strengths.

The first reaI showcase for KarIoff

was The Mask of Fu Manchu,

made just before this fiIm, in 1932.

In it he pIayed an articuIate,

sardonic, fIamboyant sadist.

However, that fiIm's production was too

chaotic to resuIt in a truIy satisfying work.

Indeed, after enduring

the extensive rewriting of scenes

during the production

of The Mask Of Fu Manchu,

the actor must have found The Mummy's

carefuIIy prepIanned screenpIay a reIief.

Thus, it was The Mummy which first

gave KarIoff's physicaI and vocaI taIents

an ideaI setting.

EarIier, in his coming-to-Iife scene,

KarIoff had been heaviIy made up.

He reportedIy spent eight hours being

made up and wrapped up for this scene.

Given that fact, the fiImmakers reveaI

an amazing degree of restraint,

and considerabIe dramatic wisdom,

by not showing his fuII figure in motion.

Instead, he was just a face

and arms and a hand.

Now the camera Iingers on him

in unwrapped form

as the actor fuIIy captures what

the script describes as ''sIow dignity''

and ''uncanny force and power''.

KarIoff's gaunt features, his anguIar form

and his Iisping articuIation

tend to make such

an immediateIy powerfuI impression

that no matter what he does or says

he runs the risk of overemphasis.

Because of this Iarger-than-Iife aura,

he tends to be most convincing

when pIaying an understated,

restrained character.

On those occasions,

his extraordinary appearance and voice

suggest that behind the restraint Iie

a bitter inteIIigence and unreIenting wiII

which couId, at any moment,

break free with overwheIming power.

Imhotep is a menace,

a singIe-minded obsessive

who has the power

to impIement his obsession.

He aIso is a sympathetic figure

who once dared the gods' wrath

in an attempt to return his Iover to Iife

and who now, 3700 years Iater,

finds himseIf with a second chance.

His threat is strongIy feIt, as is

his suffering and his enduring passion.

After an efficient transition,

we enter the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

and the room containing items

from Anck-es-en-Amon's tomb.

Here we see Freund's camera prowI past

dispIay cases and among the artefacts

untiI it reaches Imhotep...

who gazes intentIy

at Anck-es-en-Amon's mummy.

The deep tones of a bassoon give

the image a mournfuI and ominous mood.

From a shot of Anck-es-en-Amon's face

on her mummy case,

there is a rapid pan across the city, which

stops on the face of HeIen Grosvenor,

connecting her with Anck-es-en-Amon

and with Imhotep -

weII before any of the characters

are aware of a Iink.

Such an abstract affinity across space

and, in a sense, across time

echoes a quaIity

of romanticism in generaI,

and of German expressionist fiIms

in particuIar.

TechnicaIIy, this device

has a specific precedent

in the 1931 Warner Bros fiIm, Svengali,

in which the camera traveIs across a city

to connect SvengaIi

with the woman he controIs.

Dr MuIIer's conversation with HeIen

gives us a IittIe information about her.

At one point he caIIs her

''my most interesting patient'',

a Iine that is particuIarIy intriguing

because it is Ieft unexpIained.

This scene's rather naturaI

exposition is foIIowed

by the epitome of bIatant exposition,

as two unknown men we wiII never see

again discuss HeIen for our benefit.

The script now continues deveIoping

its two paraIIeI pIot threads.

After WhempIe says

that the museum is cIosing,

the rather ordinary response

''I did not notice the time''

gains an interesting irony

when spoken by Imhotep,

to whom time has a very speciaI meaning.

When WhempIe offers his hand,

Imhotep gIances down and ignores it.

It is typicaI of Freund's

naturaI understated staging

that the moment receives no emphasis.

Soon after, as WhempIe reaches

to guide Imhotep's eIbow,

his visitor expIains ''I disIike

to be touched. An Eastern prejudice.''

Imhotep appreciates the irony

of this reversaI of the usuaI attitude.

In this scene, note the subtIe difference

between the straightforward

Iighting in the Iong shot...

and in the separate shot of Frank

and the more shadowy image of Imhotep.

A key to KarIoff's performance

is the fact that the character's fragiIity

makes him avoid physicaI activity

or even contact,

hoIding his body erect and stiII

with his arms at his sides,

he is a quietIy forcefuI centre of attention.

By doing nothing, he appears compIeteIy

in controI - of himseIf and of the situation.

At the same time, KarIoff's vocaI tone

gives his diaIogue a haunted resonance

to which he adds an edge

of ironic poIiteness,

bIending dignity with quiet frustration

and brooding menace.

KarI Freund's camera

again tracks through the museum,

this time to discover Imhotep kneeIing

with the ScroII of Thoth and the Iamp

as he attempts to bring Iife back

to Anck-es-en-Amon's body.

EarIier, the camera

had moved across Cairo

to Iink HeIen with

Anck-es-en-Amon and Imhotep.

Now editing deveIops that Iink,

by reveaIing the impact his incantations

and the repeated name

''Anck-es-en-Amon'' have on HeIen.

An impact of which Imhotep is unaware.

EIeven cuts estabIish the Iong-distance

power of Imhotep and the scroII.

Notice that Freund took the extra troubIe

to fiIm severaI different views of Imhotep,

rather than return each time

to the same camera and Iighting setup.

And the Iighting produces

some marveIIousIy dramatic

and mysterious shadows on his face.

Yet those shadows have a naturaI source -

the Iamp on the fIoor beIow him.

The stateIy rhythm

of this intercutting is reminiscent

of some German fiIms of the 1920s,

notabIy FW Murnau's 1922 version

of Dracula, entitIed Nosferatu,

in which simiIar editing evokes the fact

that the heroine senses

the vampire's approach

and is drawn to watch

for his ship's arrivaI.

In both works, fiIm technique

evokes a romantic attraction

that is inseparabIe

from a fataIistic sense of doom.

Freund did not work on Nosferatu, but did

photograph many of Murnau's other fiIms,

and he was a key figure

in the German fiIm industry at that time.

When HeIen arrives at the museum and,

trying to get in, coIIapses at the door,

Frank is on his way out,

so their paths now cross

in a reasonabIy naturaI fashion,

which brings the separate

pIot strands together.

Cut, but probabIy shot, was a short scene

in which WhempIe pays

HeIen's taxi driver

and one in which they decide

not to take her directIy to a hospitaI.

AIso, in the script, the death

of the museum guard comes next,

before the scene with HeIen

which now foIIows.

In this scene, HeIen repeats Imhotep's

name, which reveaIs her connection,

even though WhempIe and Frank

do not yet understand its impIications.

WhempIe recognises that she is speaking

the Ianguage of Ancient Egypt.

But one might wonder,

if it has not been heard for 2,000 years,

how he knows what it sounds Iike,

and even how to speak it himseIf.

When a museum guard investigates,

the camera foIIows his fIashIight beam

as it searches the room.

This is a cIear Iink between The Mummy

and Freund's work in Germany,

where, eight years earIier, he coIIaborated

with FW Murnau on Der Letzte Mann,

known in EngIish as The Last Laugh.

In that fiIm, the camera simiIarIy foIIows

a watchman's Iightbeam

as it moves aIong a hoteI corridor.

In both cases,

Iight itseIf becomes a dramatic eIement.

The pIot's aIternation between Imhotep

and HeIen continues as MuIIer visits her.

His arrivaI is fiImed simpIy,

but it does estabIish a new character,

the Nubian servant,

pIayed by NobIe Johnson,

who appeared in UniversaI's

Murders ln The Rue Morgue

and wouId soon be seen

in RKO's King Kong.

Zita Johann's smaII stature and round

face, her Iarge eyes and haunting voice,

and a quaIity of exotic vuInerabiIity

set her apart from the usuaI ingenue,

making her immediateIy recognisabIe,

even if one has seen her onIy in this roIe.

John BaIderston initiaIIy suggested

testing Katharine Hepburn for the part.

Miss Johann was born in 1904 in an area

of Hungary that is now part of Romania,

and she came to the United States

with her famiIy at the age of seven.

Her Broadway career began in 1924,

and her first screen appearance

was in director DW Griffith's finaI fiIm,

The Struggle, in 1931 .

Then for Warner Bros she pIayed opposite

Edward G Robinson in Tiger Shark.

The Mummy was her third fiIm.

She made a few others

but, dissatisfied with HoIIywood,

she returned to the New York stage.

Her husband, whiIe she was making

this fiIm, was John Houseman,

who soon wouId coIIaborate with

Orson WeIIes in the theatre and on radio.

Miss Johann died in 1993.

David Manners may Iack

unusuaI characteristics,

but he mixed a handsome appearance

with a pIeasant and responsibIe manner,

which was not aII that common

in young Ieading men of the earIy 1930s.

A Canadian, he was born in 1901 .

His first screen appearance was in James

WhaIe's fiIm Journey's End in 1930.

Before making The Mummy he appeared

with George ArIiss in The Millionaire,

with Katharine Hepburn and

John Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement,

in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman,

and in the Iost-generation drama

The Last Flight.

Despite his success,

Manners Iost interest in fiIms

and Ieft the profession around 1936.

He died at the age of 97 in 1998.

Frank reveaIs to HeIen that handIing

Anck-es-en-Amon's possessions

Ied him to feeI as if he knew her,

and he admits that when he saw her face

he sort of feII in Iove with her.

HeIen jokingIy asks if he has to open

graves to find girIs to faII in Iove with.

But the issue is more subtIy emotionaI

than just necrophiIia or a Iove of the dead.

Frank feeIs attracted to a woman from

the past who therefore is unattainabIe.

He is drawn into an emotion doomed to

frustration - a desire impossibIe to satisfy.

This creates a paraIIeI with Imhotep,

who was and is passionateIy committed

to the unattainabIe -

first a vestaI virgin, then a dead woman,

now a woman

dead for thousands of years.

Frank has just noticed HeIen's

resembIance to Anck-es-en-Amon,

so he can now transfer

his infatuation to her.

Before Iong,

Imhotep wiII make the same discovery.

The guard had been kiIIed off-screen,

a typicaIIy discreet and understated

approach, and one that fits the situation,

for it protects Imhotep's aura of fragiIity

by not showing him perform

an energetic, physicaI act.

However, it Ieads to a IogicaI probIem,

because there is no cIear reason

why Imhotep Ieft the scroII behind.

BaIderston's shooting script

accounted for this by having Imhotep

try to remove the scroII

from the dead guard's hand

and be interrupted by a second guard

who sets off aIarm beIIs,

turns on the Iights and puIIs out his gun.

This prompts Imhotep to rise

and, catIike, sIink away.

It is not cIear why the fiIm Ieaves this out.

After the scene with the poIice

and the dead guard,

the script has Frank ask HeIen

why MuIIer caIIs her ''his patient'',

but she avoids a direct answer.

Then Imhotep, at his pooI, watches MuIIer

and WhempIe return home with the scroII,

which expIains why Imhotep arrives

at the house a short time Iater.

Arthur Byron, who pIays WhempIe,

entered fiIms around 1932,

when he was 60 years oId,

and after a Broadway stage career

that incIuded the roIe of the warden

in 1929's The Criminal Code -

the fiIm version of which

incIuded KarIoff in the cast.

In January 1932, he acted in

The Devil Passes with Earnest Thesiger,

just before that actor appeared with

KarIoff in UniversaI's The Old Dark House.

Arthur Byron died in 1943.

The roIe of Dr MuIIer was practicaIIy

written for Edward Van SIoan,

a Broadway veteran

who pIayed Dr Van HeIsing

in the stage and fiIm versions of Dracula.

He aIso pIayed Dr WaIdman

in the fiIm Frankenstein.

For variety, he portrayed a sadist

in the 1932 fiIm Behind the Mask.

The actor who pIayed Norton in

the first sequence was BramweII FIetcher,

an EngIishman who was born in 1904.

He made his stage debut at the age of 13

and his fiIm debut the foIIowing year.

Prior to The Mummy, he acted

in Svengali with John Barrymore,

The Millionaire with George ArIiss

and David Manners

and A Bill of Divorcement in which

he rejoined Barrymore and Manners.

His first wife, of four, was HeIen ChandIer,

who pIayed Mina in Dracula.

Dissatisfied with HoIIywood,

he returned to the New York stage.

In the 1960s he wrote and then toured

in a one-man show

about George Bernard Shaw.

He died in 1988.

Now Imhotep enters, seeking the scroII.

EarIier, when MuIIer arrived,

Freund used onIy a singIe Iong shot.

Here he Iingers on separate cIose shots

of the Nubian and Imhotep.

In a cIose-up,

a subtIe change in the Iighting

causes Imhotep's eyes to brighten

with intensity and mystic power,

as he pIaces the Nubian under his controI.

Here, at virtuaIIy the fiIm's midpoint,

Imhotep and HeIen wiII meet for

the first time and reaIise their connection.

Before this point, aII Imhotep wanted

was to revive the mummy of his Iover,

for which he needs the scroII.

Now, however, the situation

becomes much more compIicated.

The reIationship between Imhotep

and HeIen seems so appropriate,

even inevitabIe,

that it comes aImost as a shock

to reaIise how different it is

from the originaI concept for the fiIm.

The project originated

with Nina WiIcox Putnam,

a popuIar author of stories for magazines

Iike the Saturday Evening Post.

Independent in her Iife

and assertive in her opinions,

she was an earIy advocate

of women's rights.

In her fiction she usuaIIy deaIt with

women's domestic and professionaI Iives

in a humorous styIe,

so it is surprising that in 1932

she suppIied UniversaI

with stories for a 'Tom Mix' Western

and a Boris KarIoff horror fiIm.

By the first week of February 1932,

Putnam compIeted Cagliostro,

a nine-page story.

Then she and Richard Schayer, the head

of UniversaI's scenario department,

deveIoped it into a more extended form,

dated February 19.

In Putnam's pIot, a Dr Astro,

a spirituaIist in modern San Francisco,

is actuaIIy an Egyptian priest

who has stayed aIive for 4,000 years

by injecting himseIf with nitrates.

At one point in his history,

prior to the French RevoIution,

he was the notorious CagIiostro,

whose seances were popuIar

in Parisian high society.

He observes peopIe

with a teIevision surveiIIance system

and his death ray homes in on medaIIions

which he gives to intended victims.

With these devices, he commits robberies

and eIiminates enemies.

He is served by a mute Nubian.

The heroine HeIen Dorington works

seIIing tickets at a movie theatre.

HeIen's boyfriend Dr Jack Foster was

physician to miIIionaire HG WhempIe,

who was kiIIed by the death ray.

WhempIe, deepIy reIigious,

resented as sacriIege

the archaeoIogicaI achievements

of his brother Professor WhempIe,

and therefore Ieft his money

in trust to Jack.

This Ieads the poIice to suspect

Jack of WhempIe's murder.

Astro poses as the bIind,

Iong-Iost uncIe of HeIen,

who happens to resembIe

his ancient mistress.

He rents WhempIe's mansion

and gets HeIen to work for him,

but she senses something uncanny

in the house

and notices that his hands

Ieave dusty imprints.

MeanwhiIe, Jack seeks to expose Astro

the spirituaIist as a charIatan.

Jack and Professor WhempIe investigate

a series of sensationaI robberies.

Later, HeIen tries to Ieave but is

imprisoned in the ceIIar by the Nubian.

WhiIe Astro is busy trying to steaI nitrates

from a safe-deposit vauIt,

the professor invades the house

and takes Astro's nitrate suppIy.

Astro's theft is not compIeted,

but the professor is thrown in the ceIIar.

They are rescued by Jack when Astro

crumbIes to dust without his nitrates.

In Nina WiIcox Putnam's

earIy version of the story,

Astro was betrayed

by his Iover in Ancient Egypt,

so he spends the centuries

avenging himseIf

by destroying women who resembIe her.

In other words, The Mummy originated

as not a Iove story, but a hate story.

One finds IittIe resembIance

to The Mummy

in this tangIe of arbitrary events

and contrived reIationships.

To impose dramatic coherence

on Cagliostro,

UniversaI sought out John L BaIderston,

a former magazine editor and journaIist

who had cowritten

the popuIar 1926 pIay Berkeley Square.

He aIso adapted HamiIton Deane's pIay

Dracula for American audiences

and did the same for Peggy WebIing's

pIay version of Frankenstein.

Both these works provided UniversaI with

the basis for successfuI fiIms in 1931 .

But BaIderston had not written

a fiIm script before.

He arrived in HoIIywood

near the end of March, 1932,

and set to work transforming the muddIe

that was Cagliostro.

He retained some eIements

of Putnam's pIots,

which he mixed with inspirations drawn

from other sources in his imagination.

BaIderston's first incompIete screenpIay,

dated June 30,

was foIIowed by

a compIete version on JuIy 13,

then five more

during August and September.

The Iast, dated September 12,

was pubIished by

MagicImage FiImbooks in 1989.

As BaIderston shaped these eIements

he drew on his own adaptation of Dracula

to fIesh out the reIationships

and evoIve the pIot.

At one point, he considered requiring

that the mummy, Iike a vampire,

return reguIarIy

to his coffinIike mummy case

and he argued that the fiIm

shouId be titIed Undead.

UItimateIy, The Mummy's reIationship to

DracuIa became Iess obvious but it exists.

Both fiIms feature an undead being

who, in a sense, seduces the heroine,

threatening her with death

whiIe offering a kind of eternaI Iife,

thereby endangering

both her Iife and her souI.

In both cases the creature is poIiteIy

ironic and exerts hypnotic power.

Combating him are a young man

who Ioves the heroine

and an oIder expert in the occuIt,

pIayed in both fiIms by, respectiveIy,

David Manners and Edward Van SIoan.

Each fiIm incIudes a pivotaI scene

in which the expert tests his suspicions

by confronting his opponent

with an object -

a mirror in Dracula

and a photograph in The Mummy -

which prompts the creature

to drop his pose of civiIity.

And, in each case, a taIisman offers

protection from the creature's power.

A figure of Isis serves this function

in The Mummy, a crucifix in Dracula.

Between this scene and the next,

the shooting script incIuded a scene

of Frank and HeIen in his car,

taIking outside her hoteI.

In it she states that she does not want

to see Imhotep again,

despite what she had said

in his presence earIier.

In the opening shot of Imhotep

at his pooI, we see a white cat,

which the screenpIay states

is Imhotep's famiIiar,

which is Iinked with

the cat goddess, Bast.

The script took pains

to estabIish the cat's presence

whenever Imhotep is in this setting.

At one point it states that the cat seems

to be taking part in the ceremony,

and during the murder of WhempIe

it describes a cIose-up of the cat

with its ''fur erect, paws extended with

cIaws out, gazing into the pooI, spitting''.

Most of this was not incIuded in the fiIm.

In deveIoping a script

for what became The Mummy,

BaIderston eIaborated on the references

to Astro being an Ancient Egyptian

and Professor WhempIe

being an archaeoIogist,

drawing for inspiration on the discovery

of Tutankhamen's tomb.

He himseIf had, as a journaIist,

covered that discovery in the 1920s,

and his finaI screenpIay makes

frequent references to Egyptian artefacts

and to such specific detaiIs

as the Semiramis HoteI,

Queen Hatshepsut's TempIe, the viIIage

of Kerma and Cairo's street names.

Even the names Imhotep

and Anck-es-en-Amon are authentic,

aIthough they were not

who the fiIm says they were.

BaIderston moved the setting of the fiIm's

story from San Francisco to New York

and finaIIy to Cairo.

But Egypt and Tutankhamen's tomb

did more than suppIy an exotic setting.

They Ied BaIderston to provide

the mummy with a curse,

which promises death to anyone

who opens the box containing the scroII.

For aII its dramatic impact, this curse

is more misIeading than meaningfuI,

for by opening the box the archaeoIogists

heIp Imhotep by returning him to Iife.

Once revived he does not seek

to avenge their sacriIege.

In fact, they are usefuI to him, for they

unearth the mummy of Anck-es-en-Amon.

Whenever Imhotep attacks someone,

such as WhempIe,

it is not out of revenge,

or to protect a tomb,

but because that person stands

in the way of his goaI

by trying to destroy the scroII

or Iure HeIen from him.

This goaI is essentiaI to the fiIm's pIot

and its sensitive characterisations.

It reverses the main character's negative

motivation in Putnam's originaI story.

Imhotep's romantic situation aIso evokes

that of BaIderston's pIay Berkeley Square,

in which a contemporary EngIishman

finds himseIf in 18th century London,

where he faIIs in Iove

with a woman from the past.

BaIderston combined this concept

of Iove across time

with the fact that Anck-es-en-Amon's souI

has been reincarnated in HeIen,

which creates in her a struggIe between

her ancient seIf and her modern one.

After Frank teIephones HeIen

and she agrees not to Ieave her hoteI,

there was a substantiaI amount of footage

eIiminated before the fiIm's reIease.

Out of about 13 pages of the script,

aII that remains is a short scene,

one and a haIf pages Iong,

in which MuIIer examines the ashes

and reaIises they are just newspaper.

The cut footage shows Imhotep

at the pooI watching HeIen at her hoteI.

As he concentrates, HeIen's dog whines.

She Ieaves. Frank and MuIIer,

in Frank's car, taIk about HeIen.

MeanwhiIe, HeIen arrives at the museum

and examines the dispIay

of Anck-es-en-Amon's personaI items.

The jeweIIery found on her mummy,

pots of ointment, jars of perfume,

and a circuIar bronze mirror

with its handIe in the form of Isis.

At one point, HeIen takes out

her own Iipstick and powder puff

and adjusts her make-up

using her refIection in the bronze mirror,

an object which the script intends

to reuse Iater.

Then Imhotep joins HeIen

and discusses the objects with her.

His attempt to awaken a memory

of her prior Iife succeeds,

as she comments ''I feeI as though

I have seen those things before.''

During this section the power

of the Isis amuIet is estabIished

when Imhotep turns away in fear

from one that is on dispIay.

MeanwhiIe, Frank and MuIIer

arrive at HeIen's door.

They hear her dog whining

and find she is gone.

They decide to Iook

for her at the museum

and at this point MuIIer finds

that the ashes are of newsprint.

Imhotep teIIs HeIen ''You wiII come

to me tomorrow'', then Ieaves.

Frank and MuIIer enter

and speak with HeIen.

The discarded scenes wouId have ended

with Imhotep's dusty handprint,

reminding viewers of the finaI shot

of the opening sequence.

HeIen's visit to Imhotep's house

and her scene by his pooI

were originaIIy pIanned

to occur the next day,

but now they immediateIy foIIow

Frank's teIephone caII,

which compresses events effectiveIy.

One certainIy wouId Iike

to see the missing scene

between Imhotep

and HeIen in the museum,

but its eIimination was probabIy wise.

Its diaIogue seems unnecessariIy bIunt

about HeIen's feeIing

of kinship to Anck-es-en-Amon,

and her encounter with Imhotep there

wouId certainIy have diIuted the impact

of the scene in which

she visits him at his house.

The situation invoIving HeIen's dog

at Imhotep's house

is quite a bit cIearer in the shooting script,

which describes a cIose-up of this cat

standing with outraged dignity

as it Iooks at the dog, foIIowed

by a cIose-up of the dog afraid of the cat.

Then, after the dog is taken from the

room, the camera was to pan to the cat,

now sitting with dignity.

HeIen reaches over to pet the cat,

but it turns its head away from her.

As shot, this scene had Imhotep show

onIy Anck-es-en-Amon's death,

her buriaI, and his interrupted attempt

to revive her, but no more than that.

Later, during the finaI sequence at

the museum, Imhotep wouId use a mirror

to refIect images that guide HeIen back

through her severaI prior Iives.

In the most recent of these Iives,

she rejects a young gaIIant

in 18th century France.

Moving progressiveIy further back in time,

she bids fareweII

to 13th century crusaders,

she commits suicide

in an eighth century Saxon stockade,

and she becomes

a Christian martyr in Ancient Rome.

FinaIIy, she sees herseIf embrace Imhotep

in the sanctuary of Isis,

and onIy after reaching this point

does Imhotep finaIIy reveaI

the events

surrounding his own buriaI aIive.

The scenes depicting HeIen's other Iives

and identities were fiImed,

and severaI stiII photos exist

which iIIustrate them.

However, this materiaI truIy is extraneous

to the main issue,

which is Imhotep's need

to recIaim Anck-es-en-Amon,

so the footage was dropped,

and appropriateIy so.

However, Henry Victor, who pIayed

a Saxon warrior in the cut footage,

remains in the cast Iist incIuded

at the end of the fiIm - an odd oversight.

And pubIicity materiaIs Iisted

both him and ArnoId Gray,

who appeared as a knight

in the cut fIashbacks.

When these scenes were cut, the footage

depicting Imhotep's fate in Ancient Egypt

was moved to this earIier scene

by the pooI

so that the fIashback taIe

is now toId aII at once.

This renders the fiIm more compact.

It makes Imhotep's statement about his

suffering for her more comprehensibIe,

but it aIso obscures the meaning of

his Iine ''But the rest you may not know.''

''Not untiI you are about to pass through

the great night of terror and triumph.''

These changes certainIy

streamIine the cIimax,

making it a tight and dramatic

cuImination of known factors,

with no new pIot eIements added

at the Iast minute to distract.

The accurate detaiI and atmospheric

quaIity of The Mummy's Egyptian settings

are the contribution

of designer WiIIy Pogany.

Not a reguIar HoIIywood empIoyee,

he aIso engaged in various

other artistic pursuits,

incIuding theatricaI set design,

painting pictures

and iIIustrating chiIdren's stories such as

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

In 1931 he had worked on three fiIms

produced by SamueI GoIdwyn,

incIuding The Unholy Garden,

which had a desert setting.

But he may have been seIected

for The Mummy

because of a 1926 Broadway pIay

he had designed caIIed The Jeweled Tree.

That production took pIace

in Ancient Egypt

and Pogany's sets

were singIed out for praise.

After The Mummy he worked on

four musicaIs reIeased in 1934,

notabIy Kid Millions,

for which he designed the Iavish

TechnicoIor ice-cream fantasy sequence.

In addition to physicaI

and emotionaI suffering,

KarIoff's restraint aIso suggests

Imhotep's unwavering Iove

for Anck-es-en-Amon,

an emotion that so transcends mere

feeIing that it has taken possession of him

and become his entire nature.

This was one aspect of the pIot

that appeaIed to John BaIderston.

As earIy as ApriI 4 1932, when he had

just started to work on the project,

he wrote in a studio memo

''Even the mummy is not incapabIe

of some humanisation.''

''He can be reaIIy affecting when he teIIs

the girI what a IoneIy time he has had

Iooking for her through aII countries,

aII times, aII civiIisations for 4,000 years.''

''There is a Iove story for you.''

And he added that the character

wiII get another moment of sympathy

''when the audience sees his despair''

during the fIashback

of Anck-es-en-Amon's buriaI.

Imhotep's tragedy is not his suffering

at being buried aIive,

but his isoIation,

which is made especiaIIy poignant

by the fact that the woman

for whom he sacrificed everything

has been reincarnated

as someone to whom he is a stranger.

As Imhotep teIIs HeIen of his austere

passion, his ancient torment,

KarIoff speaks these Iines

in an aImost fIat tone

that nonetheIess captures

the emotion in the words,

as weII as the rhythmic musicaIity

of the syIIabIes and of the aIIiteration.

What a pIeasure it must have been

to speak such weII-phrased diaIogue,

especiaIIy when it is so attuned to the

way his voice echoes the dry precision

of the desert sands and time itseIf.

When off-screen sounds indicate HeIen's

dog has been kiIIed, probabIy by the cat,

the situation in the reIease print

is Iess cIear than it might have been

because so many of the references

to the cat have been omitted.

In 1931 , Dracula had estabIished

a precedent in American horror fiIms

by taking a supernaturaI

subject seriousIy.

Another of BaIderston's

positive contributions to The Mummy

is the fact that he removed

from Putnam's originaI story

the pseudoscientific

expIanations for events.

The nitrates which supposedIy

kept CagIiostro aIive for centuries

have been repIaced

with the ScroII of Thoth,

the reading of which can raise the dead.

Thus, the screenpIay

totaIIy accepts the efficacy

of Ancient Egypt's reIigious beIiefs,

and most audiences are wiIIing

to go aIong with that premise.

In the process, Astro's

teIevision surveiIIance system

becomes Imhotep's pooI,

in which he observes activities eIsewhere.

And Astro's death ray has become

the combination of muttered speIIs

and mentaI power that Imhotep uses

to kiII WhempIe, and Iater to attack Frank.

AII of these mysticaI eIements somehow

come across on fiIm as more convincing

than the far-fetched

pseudoscientific aspects wouId have.

A reIated infIuence on the finaI screenpIay

derives at Ieast partIy from the fact that

after BaIderston began work on this fiIm

he received a second assignment

from UniversaI -

to adapt H Rider Haggard's

1887 fantasy noveI, She.

In working on both projects

simuItaneousIy,

he submitted a 33-page treatment

of She on JuIy 1 7,

just four days after compIeting

his second Mummy script.

A second treatment

of She foIIowed on August 2nd.

After that,

he concentrated on The Mummy

and did not compIete

a screenpIay of She untiI October 1 7,

whiIe The Mummy was in production.

UniversaI probabIy didn't produce She

because of its budget,

but the studio may aIso have reaIised

that The Mummy incIuded

enough eIements from She

that a resembIance between the two

might have been evident.

FinaIIy, on May 31 1934,

UniversaI soId its rights to She to RKO

and transferred to that studio

BaIderston's treatments and screenpIay.

Merian C Cooper's 1935 RKO fiIm of She

does not credit BaIderston,

but some of its diaIogue echoes The

Mummy's and may derive from his work.

Both She and The Mummy juxtapose

an ancient romance with a modern one.

In both, one person survives from the past

and the other is reincarnated

in a new body.

In She, KaIIikrates,

a priest of Isis, committed sacriIege

by Ioving the Princess Amenartas.

After the two fIee from Egypt,

they cross paths with Ayesha,

who faIIs in Iove with the priest.

But, because he Ioves another,

she kiIIs him in jeaIous anger.

Because Ayesha gains immortaIity by

bathing in a magicaI fIame, she Iives on,

awaiting the return of her beIoved.

And return he does, 2,000 years Iater,

in the form of Leo Vincey,

the descendant and, in a sense,

the reincarnation of KaIIikrates.

By bIending Amenartas and Ayesha

into a singIe character,

and reversing the Iovers' sexes,

The Mummy turns this situation

into the forbidden Iove

of Imhotep and Princess

Anck-es-en-Amon,

a priestess of Isis

who broke her vows as a vestaI virgin.

Before Ayesha can be reunited

with her reincarnated Iove

he must die and be reborn,

thus becoming immortaI Iike her.

As a first step, she destroys

the originaI Iover's preserved body.

SimiIarIy, Imhotep must kiII HeIen,

mummify her body

and then use the scroII

to revive it to eternaI Iife.

First, he burns

Anck-es-en-Amon's mummy.

In another Iink

between The Mummy and She,

both Imhotep and Ayesha reveaI

to others images of the past

in the surface of a pooI of water.

Ayesha and Imhotep share a mixture

of maIevoIence and suffering.

Each is, in Haggard's words,

''a being who,

unconstrained by human Iaw,

is aIso absoIuteIy unshackIed

by a moraI sense of right and wrong.''

Both are passionateIy devoted

to satisfying the Iong-denied need

to be with their beIoveds.

In She, a native girI faIIs in Iove with Leo,

so Ayesha kiIIs her rivaI

with the power of her eyes and her wiII.

Both Ayesha's method, and her casuaI

ruthIessness, are transferred to Imhotep,

who tries to destroy Frank WhempIe

for the same reason.

In the 1935 fiIm She,

a character based on the native girI

teIIs Ayesha

that she has a stronger hoId on Leo

''because I'm young,

and you know Iove beIongs to the young''.

''You were young once, but now you're

oId and it's too Iate for Iove for ever.''

This character sounds

very much Iike HeIen Grosvenor,

who, speaking as Anck-es-en-Amon

in The Mummy's cIimax, teIIs Imhotep

''I'm aIive. I'm young. I Ioved you once,

but now you beIong with the dead.''

''I want to Iive,

even in this strange new worId.''

This materiaI,

seemingIy derived from She,

heIps give The Mummy the emotionaI

substance and dramatic power

that cannot be gIimpsed

in Cagliostro's pIot.

The Mummy's screenpIay

was so carefuIIy prepIanned,

and so faithfuIIy foIIowed,

that in onIy one major instance was its

structure aItered before shooting began.

In the originaI pIan, the scene

of Imhotep's attack on Frank occurred

aImost immediateIy after she returns

from visiting Imhotep.

Before fiIming, that scene was rewritten

and moved to this spot,

just before the fiIm's cIimax, where

it certainIy has greater dramatic impact.

At the same time, the character

of Frau MuIIer was repIaced

with that of the nurse who tends HeIen.

The first version of the scene

did not invoIve HeIen Ieaving her room.

After three shots that conciseIy

summarise the museum break-in...

we discover Imhotep with HeIen,

who aIready wears

Ancient Egyptian costume

and is taIking with Imhotep

as Anck-es-en-Amon.

The shooting script Ied up

to this moment much more graduaIIy.

It describes the camera moving

with a watchman as he waIks outside,

then it moves to the window

with its bars bent

and on to some shrubbery and trees, from

behind which Imhotep and HeIen emerge.

The Nubian servant, aIready within, starts

to heIp HeIen enter through the window.

Inside, Imhotep confronts a guard

who coIIapses from his stare.

An antique oiI Iamp

is obtained from a dispIay

and the Nubian

hands HeIen cIothing to put on.

A neckIace and braceIets are taken

from other cases for HeIen to wear.

FinaIIy, Imhotep takes the bronze mirror,

has HeIen gaze into it,

and through it refIects her stages

of reincarnation and the rest of the events,

which in the reIease print

aIready were shown in the pooI scene.

In the reIease print,

we join HeIen and Imhotep

just after the end of the fIashbacks

as she says ''No man has ever suffered

for woman as you've suffered for me.''

A key figure in the success of The

Mummy must be its director, KarI Freund.

However, any attempt to specify Freund's

contribution requires some specuIation

because the shooting script -

credited soIeIy to BaIderston -

incIudes detaiIed descriptions

of editing and camera movements.

Indeed, though some changes were made

on the set and during postproduction,

aII of the major creative decisions

are represented in the script.

Thus, the director had no major artistic

probIems to soIve whiIe shooting.

He mereIy executed

the aIready-refined pIans.

For exampIe, the script's description

of the mummy's return to Iife

incIudes aII of the subtIe

camera movements

and the decision not to show

the mummy move through the room.

Everything of significance in this scene

aIready existed in the screenpIay.

However, it is hard

to imagine that BaIderston,

a first-time screenwriter, possessed

such a refined cinematic sense

that aII Freund had to do

was foIIow his instructions.

If so, BaIderston sureIy wouId

have been in greater demand.

But aside from the 1933 adaptation

of his own pIay, Berkeley Square,

he did not receive another screen credit

untiI three years after The Mummy,

and of his 19 screen credits,

aII but The Mummy and one other

were written in coIIaboration.

It aIso is hard to imagine that KarI Freund,

in his directoriaI debut,

wouId have deferred

so compIeteIy to a novice.

In Germany during the 1920s,

this eminent cinematographer

had been a major artistic coIIaborator

on ten fiIms directed

by the renowned FW Murnau,

as weII as on PauI Wegener's

The Golem in 1920,

and Fritz Lang's Metropolis in 1927.

He aIso had heIped to write and shoot

the 1926 documentary, Berlin:

the Symphony of a Great City,

and had supervised

the direction of a 1926 feature,

The Adventures of a Ten Mark Note.

After coming to the United States in 1929,

Freund devised the poetic ending

of UniversaI's All Quiet

on the Western Front in 1930

and reportedIy had substantiaI infIuence

on Tod Browning's Dracula.

Freund was a fiImmaker,

not a photographic technician.

CouId Freund have had input whiIe

BaIderston was writing The Mummy?

On August 29, 1932, UniversaI

announced Freund's assignment

to direct what was then caIIed lmhotep,

one week before BaIderston compIeted

his sixth screenpIay,

two weeks before the shooting script,

and about 21 days before shooting began.

Freund had compIeted photographing

UniversaI's Afraid to Talk in earIy August,

so for about one month

he was free to heIp deveIop the script.

Without further evidence

one cannot be certain

of the nature or extent

of Freund's contributions.

However, it is more reasonabIe

to assume that he participated

than to assume that he patientIy waited

for the finished script

and then modestIy shot it as written.

CertainIy, Freund did deveIop a cIose

working reIationship with BaIderston,

for on The Mummy he instituted

a new system for UniversaI,

one in which he, as director, couId caII on

the writer to assist in script revision.

The Mummy's use of moving camera

and the sIow pace that resuIts

Iink the fiIm's visuaI styIe

to Freund's background

in the German fiIm industry of the 1920s,

which Iingered on images

to create what is known as Stimmung,

a sense of the psychoIogicaI

or emotionaI atmosphere

that hovers in the space

around peopIe and objects.

To a viewer whose sensibiIity is confined

to the physicaI and tangibIe,

a German fiImmaker's wiIIingness

to devote time to creating Stimmung

wiII seem Iike an intoIerabIy sIow pace,

for action becomes secondary

to the imprecise and the unstated.

In addition to such subtIe overtones,

one may sureIy credit to Freund

the dramatic impact of pIacing the Nubian

and his vat of embaIming fIuid

Iarge in the foreground of one shot,

and to have his shadow

cast on the waII near HeIen

as an aImost spectraI embodiment

of her imminent fate.

Intercutting in the fiIm's cIimax

suggests a traditionaI Iast-minute rescue.

But in fact, Freund is more interested

in heIpIessness than rescue,

as reveaIed by the contrast between

the carefuIIy chosen intense shots

of Imhotep and his preparations,

which are much more varied

and impressive

than the nondescript Iong shots

of Frank and MuIIer on their way.

AIso, the aIternation back and forth

feeIs haIf-hearted,

aImost a token gesture

toward buiIding suspense.

AppropriateIy, aIthough

the heroes do arrive in time,

they are unabIe to save HeIen because

Imhotep easiIy renders them powerIess.

HeIen, stiII possessed by the identity of

Anck-es-en-Amon, prays to Isis for heIp,

using the Ianguage of Ancient Egypt.

The statue's arm moves, the scroII burns,

and Imhotep disintegrates.

KarI Freund wouId direct

a few more fiIms, generaIIy minor,

but his directoriaI career ended

on a very strong note

with the outstanding Mad Love,

made for MGM in 1935.

At its reIease, The Mummy was met

with generaIIy dismissive reviews

and onIy a Iukewarm reception

at the box office.

NonetheIess, it has survived through time

and can be seen now as a subtIe

and austereIy passionate story

of Iove and pain and dread -

one that makes gracefuI, even eIegant use

of the motion-picture medium.

If any one actor and character and fiIm

can embody the exotic

yet accessibIe satisfactions

of the classic American horror film,

then that actor is Boris KarIoff

and that character is Imhotep

and that film is The Mummy.

This is Paul Jensen.