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"The Mummy's Ghost" is a sequel to "The Mummy's Tomb" (1942). In that film Kharis the Mummy (Lon Chaney) perished in a house fire. Also the old high priest (George Zucco) dies of old age while handing over his powers to a new high priest. In this film we find out that not only did Kharis survive the fire unscathed but the old high priest turns up alive and shaking.

This entry has the High Priest Yousef Bey (John Carradine) being assigned the task of going to America to retrieve the mummies of Kharis and his queen Ananka. Hero Tom Hervey (Robert Lowery) is courting a beautiful Egyptian by the name of Amina Mansouri (Ramsay Ames). Meanwhile Yousef Bey sets about arranging to take the two mummies back to Egypt. To this end he unleashes Kharis upon the community to murder anyone who stands in their way.

At the same time Amina starts to experience blackouts as she is being gradually taken over by the spirit of Ananka (the "ghost" of the title) to become the re-incarnation of Queen Ananka. This suddenly becomes a point of issue between Kharis and Yousef Bey until......

Becoming a "B" movie second feature series, the films did nonetheless benefit from Universal's expertise in making this kind of film. Although it features a "B" list cast and runs a scant 61 minutes, it is still an entertaining way to spend an hour.

Lon Chaney would continue in the role of the Mummy in "The Mummy's Curse" (1944) the final film in the series.

The Mummy's Ghost is the third of four movies in the original "The Mummy" franchise.

It follows on from the previous film and yet another high priest has risen our mummy (Played again by Lon Chaney Jr). Once again he is after the reincarnation of his original love. Trouble is this is the third time we've seen the same plot.

I'm not saying The Mummy's Ghost is any worse than the rest, it's just the same thing.

What it does have however is a very shocking and surprising finale that I found very entertaining. Movies from this time tended to be very predictable so this came as a surprise.

For fans this will entertain, but it could easily have been a stand alone movie.

The Good:

Fantastic finale

Well enough made

The Bad:

Some very hammy acting

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Fainting was a big thing for women in the 1940's

Mummy tantrums are hilarious

Ancient egyptian bandages were bullet proof

Third in the Universal Kharis series, continuing after THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942). Despite the increasingly familiar nature of these Mummy sequels, this one still has enough to make it brisk and enjoyable. A significant boost is added in casting John Carradine as the newest high priest who keeps Kharis (Lon Chaney) well fed and back on the march - this time with a new angle in trying to reunite the mummy with his princess Ananka, who is now reincarnated into the form of a sexy modern woman (Ramsay Ames).

For some lucky reason, Chaney thankfully invests some character into Kharis this time, allowing him to become visibly angered, frustrated, and even saddened during the course of the movie. The biggest drawback for this chapter is that Robert Lowery and Ramsay Ames are pretty lousy as the two leading lovers. Universal stock music is used to great effect in many sequences, and there is an offbeat ending that may be the best one of the series.

*** out of ****

"The Mummy's Ghost" is haunting and unforgettable thanks to the appearance of probably the most ravishing starlet to ever grace the screen: Ramsey Ames. She portrays the doomed Princess Ananka/Amina Monsouri heroine with a brooding, tremulous quality and when she sinks into the quicksand at the end with the mummy, you're shocked by watching her age into a 1000 mummy's bride. John Carradine is in great form as the high priest of arkham. Robert Lowery is unusually surly as the boyfriend. Reginald LeBorg directed this l944 classic. He originally wanted Acquanetta as the heroine but this sultry starlet fell and injured her shoulder on the first day of shooting. Ames was criminally ill-used by Universal but looked great in a short bob for the Republic serial, "G-Men Never Forget" in l947. Before she died two years ago from throat cancer, she remembered that Lon Chaney, who played the mummy, created many problems but she wouldn't specify. Other reports have it that Chaney was usually drunk by 12 noon. Ames was terrified he would stumble with her on the long, steep boardwalk to the remote shed and also into the swamp.wonderful atmosphere, classic musical scoring (originally from "Son of Frankenstein). Vera West does brilliant job in designing Ames beautiful white silk gowns.

None of the four Universal Kharis films are particularly great, and to me The Mummy's Hand is the only one that is near-good. This said, neither of them are bad either, and of the sequels to The Mummy's Hand my vote for the best of them goes to this, The Mummy's Ghost.

What makes The Mummy's Ghost the best of the sequels(if not exactly by much) is that it is the only one that tried to do something different. Even if the basic plot is still very flawed and formulaic, The Mummy's Ghost contains by far the boldest and most shocking ending of the four(and in a very good way, it's the highlight of the film), and is the only one to have almost non-existent stock footage material. The Mummy's Ghost does contain some campy fun with John Carradine and a few scenes with Kharis have some creepiness(others however just read of repetitive running around).

There are some attractively made sets, some atmospheric lighting and Ramsey Ames' costumes are to die for, though on the most-part The Mummy's Ghost is not one of Universal's most accomplished-looking films. Three performances register quite well. Best of all is John Carradine, who is deliciously diabolical and although he doesn't feature in much of the film he is still very memorable. George Zucco's role is also brief, but nonetheless played with sinister authority. Lastly, Lon Chaney Jnr's performance as Kharis is more consistent this time round, he intimidates much more and lumbers less, there even was glimpses of effort at giving Kharis a human side despite not having much to work with.

However, apparently The Mummy's Ghost was made very quickly and it does show in some shoddy editing, some terribly staged close-ups of Kharis and Kharis basically looks like a man very poorly wrapped up in bandages. While Chaney, Zucco and Carradine fare well, the rest of the cast on the other hand are bad. Ramsey Ames' alluring appearance and beautiful costuming are not enough to make up for how she spends her whole screen time looking bewildered and on edge, while Robert Lowery is hopelessly wooden to the point he veers on irritating. The chemistry between the two of them is non-descript.

The story does try to do things differently, but still manages to be on the paper-thin and formulaic side, with much of the plot reading of a series of familiar plot devices routinely handled. It also takes too long to get going, with an incredibly dull first third to the extent that the final fifteen minutes feels like a real relief, and is let down even further by tediously padded out college scenes(that are poorly played and add very little to the storytelling) and a sickeningly saccharine and passionless romantic subplot that seemed to only be there for the sake of it. The college and romantic scenes also suffered from the worst of the film's erratic(mostly lethargic) pacing and incredibly trite dialogue. The direction shows little care and style, with occasional glimpses of atmosphere that stops it from falling into ineptitude, and the characters are even more thinly written than the story, and some like Lowery and his friends are annoying.

All in all, has a lot lacking but has just enough to make it watchable. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This mummy film is one of a series of four produced by Universal Pictures in the 1940s--well after their original film starring Boris Karloff. While none of these films opened up a lot of new ground, they were good escapist fun--for kids and adults willing to suspend reality and have a good time. I personally LOVE these old Universal horror films--even the lesser ones like this film. This one's plot isn't so special (except once again the mummy somehow makes it to America), but it stands out due to the acting of George Zucco and John Carradine--two wonderful veteran horror actors who played up the campiness of the film and made it far more entertaining.

The film looks a lot less impressive than the newest mummy films from Hollywood, but they still managed to be fun. Plus, the newer films, in my opinion, lack fun because they are so special effects-driven. See this film and have a good old fashioned time.

In The Mummy's Hand, George Zucco's Egyptian High Priest character very definitely was shot four times, and fell down a flight of stone steps and died. In The Mummy's Tomb, he supposedly was only shot in the arm once in the last film, but he died in this one from old age, having fulfilled his priestly responsibilities by passing on the mantle. He's back again here, inexplicably. Here, he doesn't die, which is funny since he doesn't return for the next film.

The Mummy's Ghost takes places, like The Mummy's Tomb, thirty years after The Mummy's Hand. If that film took place in 1940, this film should be set in 1970, but as in Tomb, no effort is made to create the appearance of it being set in the future.

The mummy was shot and burned in Hand, shot and burned in Tomb, and yet he's back again in this one, his bandages not even singed. In fact, he's even got his left eye back, when in Hand it was all black and in Tomb a crusty mass. Where's the script girl!?

In this one, a young university student is dating an Egyptian named Amina. A priest is sent from Egypt to retrieve Kharis and Ananka's bodies. As in Hand, Kharis can be lured by Tana leaves, something they forgot in Tomb. However, Ananka's body collapses when touched, and she is somehow reincarnated into Amina. She seems unaware of this, apart from getting a white streak in her hair that spreads.

Another odd change is that the priests are priests of Arkam now, rather than Karnak.

This wasn't terribly good, though it does have a somewhat bold tragic ending. At only an hour long, it's not a waste of time at least.

Lon Chaney doesn't say much to me as the mummy.The old high priest is still alive(yet again he thinks he's dying though)and he passes the job of feeding Kharis to one of his students again.This time their job has something added to it.Now they're going to get princess Annaka back to life.But along the way,they run into an unexpected suprise...........

A "tough, old bird" may not be an apt enough description of George Zucco's high priest character in the Mummy series. Somehow, still alive and shaking, he passes on the priesthood of what is now referred to as "Arkham" to Yousef Bey (John Carradine) & once again feels the need to recap the mummy's life history, which has been altered since "Mummy's Tomb". Now the story goes that the once exalted Princess Ananka died an accursed death and that Kharis was buried with her. Now it's the task of Yousef to go to Mapleton and bring the royal dead of Egypt back to their homeland.

Meanwhile, the wafting scent of tana leaves in the air attracts Kharis to the home of one Professor Norman. As Kharis shambles his way towards the cup of life, a young dish named Amina Mansouri (Ramsay Ames) gets a chance to show off her talents in filling out a nightgown as she sleepwalks her way to the very same house. Anyone else notice that black cat that ran in front of Ames during this scene? I believe that's called foreshadowing.

The reincarnation angle from the original Karloff "Mummy" gets dusted off. The spirit of Ananka has left its mummified shell & taken residence in the body of Amina. Now Kharis must go about what must be for him a pleasant task of carrying off yet another woman clad in white (it's the only activity that gets his "dead" arm to work) and hope that another high priest won't succumb to any lascivious thoughts lurking in the back of his mind.

But, that's not how things work out, for the life of an undead character stuck in repetitious sequels penned by unimaginative story writers is a hard one. The only merciful thing to do would've been to let Kharis & his Princess drown in eternal bliss, but the call of the box-office demanded one more sequel (Amon-Ra help us).

This horror yarn gives new meaning to term " 'til death do us part." This was a real quickie movie and it shows. However, it's one redeeming value is the mummy finally wins the girl, albeit, it may leave one with that sinking feeling.

At the end of The Mummy's Tomb (1942), the mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) perishes in a fire and high priest Andoheb (George Zucco) finally dies. It says a lot about the shoddy, muddled, and contrived nature of this follow up that, somehow, Andoheb is back among the living (albeit with a serious case of the shakes) and Kharis isn't even a little bit singed, no explanation given.

This time around, Andoheb passes control of Kharis to creepy Egyptian Yousef Bey (John Carradine), who instructs the crumbling creature to help retrieve the body of Princess Ananka, which is on display in an American museum. However, when the mummy arrives, he finds that Ananka is missing, her soul having entered the body of beautiful Amina (ravishing brunette Ransay Ames), girlfriend of college student Tom Hervey (who looks way too old to still be in school).

At just over an hour long, the film is too short for boredom to set in, but it's not for want of trying, the uninspired antics of the shuffling monster hardly the stuff of nightmares. Several victims are throttled to death by Kharis, but the acting is incredibly hammy and the direction torpid. The most animated performance comes from a cute dog called Peanut, the adorable woofer leading an angry mob to the mummy, who, in true Universal fashion, has carried off the unconscious Amina (whose hair has turned white with shock, Ames looking just as lovely as a peroxide blonde).

In an unusually downbeat finale, Tom is unable to prevent Kharis from disappearing under the surface of a swamp with the rapidly aging Amina still in his arms.

5/10.

This film series does not include Universal's and Karloff's The Mummy (1932). This particular film series starts with 'The Mummy's Hand (1940), 'The Mummy's Tomb (1942)' and then this third film 'The Mummy's Ghost (1944).

What is nice about this series, it picks where the last film leaves off. They always give a little background on the previous which helps when the films are 2 years apart or if you simply find yourself watching one of the films one night on TV.

The ghost in this film is not that of Kharis but the long dead Queen Ananka whom you will see slowly entering and taking over Amina Mansouri. It makes for an entertaining mummy film.

7.5/10

John Carradine plays an Egyptian priest who is ordered by George Zucco to go to America and bring back the mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Meanwhile, in New England, Robert Lowery is in love with Ramsay Ames, who happens to be of Egyptian descent. In fact, she is really the reincarnation of the Princess Ananka, whom Kharis had/has/always will have the hots for. Lowery's professor, played by Frank Reicher, manages to decipher some hieroglyphics, which brings us to a major hiccup in the plot points. You see, the big breakthrough for Reicher comes when he translates the number "nine." So apparently he can translate hieroglyphics, but not Egyptian numerals.

We quickly move to major idiotic point number 2. While Reicher is brewing 9 tana leaves, the mummy just happens to walk out of the woods nearby. In fact he seems to walk out of a tree. Where has he been hiding since the last film? This leads to major idiotic point number 3. The tana leaves are supposed to sustain Kharis, so what does he do? He chokes the stuffing out of Reicher and shuffles off without taking a sip.

The ending is nonsensical, especially since, if memory serves, Ananka awakens in the next film in Louisiana.

There are so many other goofy plot points that they are too numerous to mention, but here are a few. Ames' hair starts developing white streaks; people notice, but nobody mentions it to her. Since when does a twenty year old girl get even one gray hair and not freak out? One of the investigators declares "If those aren't mummy footprints, I'll eat 'em". Where did such a strange expression come from?

The supporting cast is good, headed by Barton MacLane as a detective. For film buffs, silent leading lady Claire Whitney has a substantial part as Reicher's wife. The producers also threw a bone to silent film western star William Desmond by having him appear in one scene, with no dialogue.

The Universal mummy series takes a step down with each entry but they're all fun. This time high priest George Zucco sends John Carradine after the infidels. Lon Chaney, Jr.'s back as the mummy, despite seemingly dying in the last film (we never saw an actual death, to be fair). Carradine tries to get the mummy of Princess Ananka but discovers her soul has been reincarnated in the body of a young woman (Ramsay Ames). Robert Lowery plays the leading man and Barton MacLane plays a cop. Ramsay Ames is a beautiful leading lady. It's easy to see why Lowery, Carradine, and even Kharis are crazy about her. Maybe these sequels are a little repetitive, but they're good times for me. I love Universal horror films. The Mummy series are short, fun escapist adventures with horror and some romance added to the mix. This one isn't the best but it's entertaining. Surprising ending too!

1943's "The Mummy's Ghost" was third in the Kharis series, second to star Lon Chaney in the title role, and was, like all its predecessors (including Karloff's 1932 original), included in Universal's popular SHOCK! package of classic horror films issued to television in the late 50s (five appearances on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater). An improvement on the listless "The Mummy's Tomb," Chaney's Mummy sports a different mask but actually shows more range, whether stalking a helpless victim like Frank Reicher (also back from "Tomb"), or recklessly shattering a glass museum exhibit, which resulted in a visible gash on the mummy's chin. John Carradine lends his exquisite sepulchral tones to Yousef Bey, High Priest of Arkham (Karnak having retired from shame), who leads Kharis to Manhattan's Scripps Museum to recover the mummy of the Princess Ananka, only to see the body disappear from its wrappings before their very eyes. Incredibly, by returning to Mapleton, they're able to find the girl now possessed by Ananka's reincarnated soul, who proves to be too much for Yousef to resist, forcing Kharis to eliminate the competition in typical fashion (apparently, Egyptian priests were never taught about the birds and the bees). Once again, we get stuck with a belligerent, unsympathetic 'hero' in Robert Lowery, so the climactic twist actually makes sense, the reincarnation theme successfully revived from Karloff's 1932 classic. Director Reginald Le Borg, a recent graduate from short subjects, worked well with Lon Chaney, continuing with "Calling Dr. Death," "Weird Woman," "Dead Man's Eyes," and "The Black Sleep." Deputising for the injured Acquanetta, Ramsay Ames proves sadly lacking, her Amina Mansouri registering as a total blank (she was little better as Chaney's unfaithful wife in her Universal finale, "Calling Dr. Death"). George Zucco contributes another welcome cameo (his last in the series), but Barton Mac Lane is woefully out of place in his only Universal horror, the dead end investigation trailing behind Lowery (this time, Kharis scrupulously avoids crowds). Look fast in the opening reel for Martha Vickers ("The Big Sleep"), previously seen in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" and "Captive Wild Woman." Next up for Chaney was the final entry, "The Mummy's Curse," which amazingly continued the upswing from the previous two, now set in the Louisiana bayous.

The "Mummy" films from the 1940s were never going to be as good as the 1932 classic and sure enough, they aren't.

This one from 1944 is a slight improvement and is the best of the trio that Lon Chaney Jnr made. According to reports, this character was the actors least favourite and I can understand why.

The film has a bit of incident and even a bit of atmosphere.

The last time we left Lon Chaney, Jr. as Kharis the Mummy he was burned again in a fire. But you can't keep a good Mummy down if there is money to be made in a sequel which Universal Pictures has provided in The Mummy's Ghost. Although how you can have a ghost of an undead creature I will leave to the metephysicians.

George Zucco sends another handler for Kharis this time it's John Carradine. The assignment get the Princess Ananka's Mummy out of display at the museum and get them both back to their tombs in Egypt. And of course kill anyone who gets in the way.

In a plot element taken from the Boris Karloff mummy film, a young girl of Egyptian descent is the Princess reincarnated. Ramsay Ames is going out with Robert Lowery, but when Carradine starts his chants Kharis starts moving about, she gets all strange.

In fact Ananka's body finally turns to dust because Ames has become Ananka. Kharis still has a 3000 year old crush on her and he's had no nookie for that long so no wonder he's got such a bad attitude. Carradine like Turhan Bey the Kharis handler in the previous film gets his own crush on the leading lady.

Add Barton MacLane to the mix as the police inspector tracking down all these Kharis homicides and you've got a recipe for a film that was wearing a really thin premise to start with to death.

The Mummy films were getting weaker and weaker.

This movie will scare the pants off of children. I grew up in the 50's. Our house was on a semi-rural road overshadowed on one side by a thick forest. At the foot of the tall hill upon which stood our house there was a swamp. The nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away. To an adult eye, the evening view on a moonlit night was, I am sure, romantic. To a child, however, the scene was an empty vessel ready to be filled with imaginary images of fearsome things.

One weekend night, my parents left me in charge of my two younger brothers. I put them to bed and sat down to see what could possibly be on TV. An hour or so later, I lay in bed, in the moonlight, in a pool of sweat, thinking about tana leaves and the possibility, however remote, that a pot of them might have been mistakenly left simmering on the stove. In my imagination, I knew he was out there coming for me. It didn't matter if he was miles away or just down the road. He knew who I was; he had taken a special interest in me. Up the moonlit road, step by step, limping along, relentless, unstoppable. Somehow I made it through the night but that mummy stayed with me for years and inspired many a nightmare.

My point here is that horror films are designed to scare you. We pay money to get scared. This one will do the trick if you're 10 years old and you're all alone (or almost alone -- when you're surrounded by mummies, you really do need an adult). Nine stars.

Perhaps the weakest film in the "Kharis" series, despite the presence of John Carradine (miscast as an Egyptian high priest) and George Zucco (as his predecessor, hilariously afflicted by a bad case of Parkinson's Disease) supporting Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular creature - if indeed it was him under the bandages, as his contribution is negligible at best! It's a watchable 60 minutes in itself, I guess, but the standards have considerably lowered when compared even to the two previous entries, and the end result is strictly routine and not at all memorable. Just about the only interesting feature here is the fact that the female lead happens to be the reincarnation of Princess Ananka, mentioned a great deal in earlier films but never actually seen.