Universal Horror presents us this 1932 film, which was the Trope Maker for the undead Mummy genre.note
We open in Egypt (where else?), at a British excavation site. A mummy of high priest Imhotep (Boris Karloff) has been found and with it the scroll of Thoth, a key to bring back the dead. After one foolhardy assistant reads the scroll, the mummy comes alive, then proceeds to snatch the scroll and shamble away, leaving the assistant a mess of mad laughter.
Cut to ten years later, a mysterious man named Ardeth Bey assists archaeologists in uncovering the tomb of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon. However, he doesn't do this out of kindness, as he has plans of his own...
The Mummy was directed by Karl Freund. It was semi-remade in 1940 (The Mummy's Hand, which itself spawned several sequels), 1959 (The Mummy, a Hammer Horror production featuring Christopher Lee as the title creature and based more on the 1940 film than the 1932 original), 1999 (The Mummy), and 2017 (The Mummy).
It is one of many films included in the "Universal Horror" canon, and the first to be an original story rather than based on a novel after Dracula and Frankenstein showed how successful such films could be the previous year.
This film has the examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Not the character himself as he's present for the entire film in human form, but the classic bandaged version of the Mummy featured in all of the posters is on-screen for about a minute.
- Ancient Egypt: Featured comparatively briefly in Imhotep's vision of the past.
- Ancient Tomb: Princess Anck-es-en-Amon's tomb, but we never get to see inside it.
- Anti-Villain: Imhotep. In the end, all he wants is to be reunited with his love.
- Artistic License – History: Princess Anck-es-en-Amon is portrayed as the daughter of the Pharaoh Amenophis (Amenhotep) III. In real life, she was his granddaughter.
- Buried Alive: Imhotep's punishment for the sacrilege of trying to bring the dead back to life.
- Brown Note Being: Whemple's assistant experiences instant insanity, left Laughing Mad after catching a glimpse of the mummy's shambling corpse.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: A truly odd example. Imhotep, prior to having rejuvenated after the time-skip, was designed to look like the mummy of Seti I but ended up looking like the mummy of Ramses III instead.
- Curse of the Pharaoh: Explorers find the remains of a High Priest named Imhotep who was buried alive in the desert. His casket contains a warning that death will meet anyone who opens the casket. This is ignored by the explorers and the priest is brought back to life when one of the explorers reads the Scroll of Thoth which causes the mummy of Imhotep to resurrect. Imhotep then proceeds to try to revive a dead lover (which was why he was buried alive as it was sacrilege), killing anyone who gets in his way.
- Damsel out of Distress: Practically a Ur-Example. Unlike her counterparts in other classic horror films, Helen does not need any of the male leads to save her from Imhotep; she manages to defeat the monster all on her own.
- Darker and Edgier: After the tremendous success of Dracula and Frankenstein, this film was subjected to far more lenient censorship from the studio. Thus, it goes quite shockingly explicit in depicting the horror of Imhotep's being mummified alive, plus an early line that his "viscera" were not removed.
- Deus ex Machina: Seemingly literally. Helen prays to Isis to save her, who then lights the Scroll of Thoth on fire, reducing Imhotep to dust for blasphemy.
- Evil Sorcerer: Imhotep.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Helen explains where she was after her walk, she discusses what she saw and did... and Anck-es-en-Amon's past life memories start seeping in...
- Eye Awaken: When Whemple's assistant starts reading the translation of the scroll of Thoth, Imhotep opens his eyes slowly.
- Fainting: After failing to get inside the museum, Helen faints.
- Fanservice: Zita Johann as Helen wears some low-cut dresses, and as Princess Anck-es-en-Amon wears a skimpy outfit that would never have been possible just a couple of years later under The Hays Code.
- First Installment Weirdness: This first Universal Mummy movie is about a mummy named Imhotep who acts more like an Evil Sorceror than a traditional Mummy and wants to revive his lost love. All of the sequels are about a more traditional lumbering mummy named Kharis.
- For Science!: When Frank is telling Helen how he unwrapped Princess Anck-es-en-Amon's most personal possessions, she cringes, exclaiming "How could you?" "Had to! Science, you know," Frank peppily replies.
- Also, when Frank is complaining to his father about letting the Egyptians keep any artifacts they find instead of being allowed to take them back to London, his father admonishes him by saying they are scientists, not looters.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Whemple's assistant doesn't take it well when he sees Imhotep's shambling corpse."He went for a little walk! You should have seen his face! HAHAHAHA!"
- Hates Being Touched: Imhotep. Probably because he's all dry and dusty.
- Have a Gay Old Time:
- When the archaeologists are discussing what Imhotep could have done to be punished like he was, one of them suggests "Maybe he got too gay with the vestal virgins in the temple.''
- When Frank is hitting on Helen, she responds with "Don't you think I've had enough excitement for one evening, without the additional thrill of a strange man making love to me?"
- Have We Met?: Imhotep says this to Helen when they meet, as he wants to know if she remembers anything from her past lives.
- Hypnotize the Captive: Imhotep uses his magic powers to lure Helen to him, and later to get Princess Anck-es-en-Amon to submit to being killed.
- Ignored Expert: Dr. Muller. He even asks why they bothered inviting him if they weren't going to listen to any of his advice.
- Implacable Man: As long as the Scroll of Thoth tethering him to life exists, Imhotep is completely invulnerable.
- Kick the Dog: Helen and her German Shepherd go on a walk that ends up at Imhotep's house. The dog doesn't come back.
- Laughing Mad: The assistant is left a cackling lunatic after seeing the mummy shuffle out of its sarcophagus.
- Living Statue: A statue guarding the scroll of Thoth comes alive to show its displeasure of Imhotep stealing it in the past.
- The stature of Isis raises her arm at the end in response to Helen/Anck-es-en-Amon's plea, setting the Scroll of Thoth on fire and reducing Imhotep to a skeleton.
- Loophole Abuse: As an Egyptian, Imhotep is spiritually forbidden from digging up Anck-es-en-Amon's tomb. But he has zero problem with showing the British where it is and letting them dig it up for him.
- Love at First Sight: Frank is pledging his love to Helen within a couple of hours of meeting her.
- Love Makes You Evil: Imhotep after all these years until his resurrection is still genuinely in love with Anck-es-en-Amon/Helen and he's prepared to kill the man she loves and everyone who represents an obstacle between him and her.
- Magic Mirror: Imhotep has a pool of water that can reveal scenes from the past and be used to spy on people in the present.
- Mummy: Imhotep is an Evil Sorcerer who learned magic to make himself undead, survived being Buried Alive as a mummy and was prepared to turn Anck-es-en-Amon into a mummy before he was defeated. Unlike the mummies that appeared in the later Universal Horror Mummy films, Imhotep only appears as the archetypal shambling, bandaged corpse for a few minutes, and spends the rest of the film out of bandages and able to pass as a living man.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Imhotep attempts to do this to Frank.
- No Immortal Inertia: Imhotep decays into a pile of bones when Anck-es-en-Amon defeats him.
- Our Liches Are Different: While technically a mummy, Imhotep acts more similarly to a lich than to a stereotypical mummy due to Early-Installment Weirdness in modern mummy lore. He's an undead Evil Sorcerer with an object (the Scroll of Thoth) as his tether to the world of the living, and uses magic as his primary weapon. He is also invulnerable to physical attacks as he says to Müller.
- Past-Life Memories: One of Helen's past lives was Princess Anck-es-en-Amon, Imhotep's beloved, whom she bears an uncanny resemblance to. Unfortunately, this results in Helen developing a Split Personality in the last quarter of the film.
- Protective Charm: The amulet of Isis, which protects its wearer from Imhotep's powers.
- Psychic Strangle: A variant—Imhotep can use his magic to reach out and cause heart attacks.
- Reincarnation: Helen is the reincarnation of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon.
- Reincarnation Romance: The female lead and title character are Star-Crossed Lovers from Ancient Egypt.
- Replaced with Replica: Imhotep swaps out the scroll of Thoth with a newspaper, which he sets on fire before running off with the scroll.
- Sadly Mythtaken:
- Reincarnation was not a belief in Egyptian Mythology, which had a fairly detailed afterlife. Furthermore, the Egyptians believed in a soul having multiple parts, one of which remained with the body after death (which was why mummification was so culturally important to them in the first place).
- Bast is referred to as “the goddess of evil sendings” and is invoked by Imhotep to kill people, whereas in myth Bast is a protectress against disease and evil spirits.
- Say My Name: Imhotep chants Anck-es-en-Amon's name as a mantra to draw her to him in the museum. It doesn't work because the door is locked.
- Soft Glass: The glass containers of the museum are made of it.
- Soul Jar: While not literally carrying Imhotep's soul, the Scroll of Thoth is Imhotep's tether to the world of the living. He dies when the scroll is incinerated. It's the only way to defeat him.
- Soulless Shell: The whole reason Imhotep is after Helen is to avoid this. He says he can revive Anck-es-en-Amon's body at any point, but she would just be a mindless husk since her soul has already been reincarnated. He insists that it was her soul he fell in love with and not her body, and burns her mummy just to prove his point.
- Split Personality: In the second half of the film, Helen's body is fought over between two personalities: her past life Anck-es-en-Amon, and her present life as Helen. At stake is which personality she gets to be for the rest of eternity.
- Super-Strength: Imhotep bends and breaks metal bars from the museum offscreen.
- Unbuilt Trope: This movie is the Trope Maker for the whole Mummy genre, but many of the typical Mummy tropes are not present here. Far from being a lumbering brute wrapped in bandages, this mummy can pass for a normal, if unusual, human. He rarely physically attacks people, but instead uses psychic powers to mind-control and kill them from a distance. He also doesn't really care about tombs being defiled, and in fact assists the British archeaologists. He merely wants to be reunited with his lost love, and is willing to do anything to make it happen.
- Underboobs: Princess Anck-es-en-Amon in a daring outfit; see Fanservice above.
- Villain Protagonist: Imhotep gets the most screen time and development.
- Whole-Plot Reference: A creepy undead being fixates on a young woman and attempts to conquer her using his hypnotic powers. The young woman's colorless boyfriend and his older advisor battle to save the woman's soul. Sound familiar, Dracula fans? In case anyone was in doubt about this, Universal used the same actors to play the male romantic lead and the older man who helps him defeat the monster.
- Not to mention the same theme music — the main theme from Tschaikovsky's Swan Lake.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Imhotep the Mummy just wants his girlfriend back, even if he has to kill her current incarnation to do it.
