The Mummy (1932)

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Movie
German title The Mummy
Original title The mummy
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1932
length 73 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Karl friend
script Nina Wilcox Putnam
Richard Schayer
John L. Balderston
production Carl Laemmle Jr.
music James Dietrich
camera Charles Stumar
cut Milton Carruth
occupation
synchronization
chronology

Successor  →
The Mummy's Hand

The Mummy is an American horror film from 1932. Directed by Karl Freund , the leading role played Boris Karloff .

action

In 1921, a group of archaeologists led by Sir Joseph Whemple came across the tomb of High Priest Imhotep . Apparently he has been cursed for a grave misdemeanor because he has been mummified alive and all hieroglyphics have been removed from his sarcophagus . In the grave is also the legendary "Scroll of Life", with which the goddess Isis is said to have raised her husband Osiris from the dead. When Ralph Norton, Sir Whemple's clumsy assistant, starts translating the scroll, reading some passages out loud, he brings the 3,700-year-old mummy to life. At the sight of it, Norton goes mad. As Whemple and his partner Dr. Muller, attracted by Norton's hysterical laughter, rushed into the tent, the mummy and the sacred scroll are gone.

Ten years later the mummy reappears in the form of "Ardath Bey". He gives Professor Pearson and Frank Whemple ', Sir Joseph's son (who has also devoted himself to archeology) crucial clues that lead to the discovery of the burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian princess Anck-es-en-Amun. At first Imhotep tries unsuccessfully to revive her mummy as well. When he happened to meet the young Helen Grosvenor, however, he believed he recognized the rebirth of his beloved princess in her.

Imhotep and Anck-es-en-Amun were secret lovers during their lifetime. Since he was a simple high priest and she was the daughter of Pharaoh, it was a forbidden love. When she died of a severe fever, Imhotep tried to use the sacred scroll to bring her back to life. For this outrage against the gods he was mummified alive and condemned for all eternity.

In order to be able to spend eternity with Anck-es-en-Amun, Imhotep must first kill her body and then wake it up with the scroll. To do this, he kidnaps Helen to the Cairo Museum and uses a ritual to awaken the soul of Anck-es-en-Amun in her body. But the princess shies away from death. In ancient Egyptian she prays to Isis that the goddess might protect her from the terrible mummy. Suddenly the statue of the goddess raises her arm. The scroll goes up in flames in a bolt of lightning and Imhotep crumbles to dust without the magical power of the old magic formula.

background

Contemporary movie poster
  • The Mummy is the only one of Universal's classic horror films that is not directly based on an existing play or other literary work. Nevertheless, there are some parallels in terms of content to Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Ring of Toth .
  • As with most of the classic universal horror films, Jack Pierce was responsible for the monster's mask. Boris Karloff's make-up was from the mummy Ramses III. inspired. It took several hours to apply the mask.
  • Since in the 1930s the materials were not yet available for make-up making today, Pierce had to apply several layers of cotton coated with collodion to Karloff's face in order to show the effect of the dried-up, wrinkled mummy skin. This extremely uncomfortable mask was so rigid that Boris Karloff could not open his mouth to speak.
  • The 1932 movie poster holds the record for the highest price a poster has ever fetched at auction: over $ 453,500.
  • When Boris Karloff appeared in Frankenstein in 1931 , he was still largely unknown. Only one year later, the overwhelming success of his portrayal animated Universal's advertising department to advertise exclusively with his name: " KARLOFF ... 'The Mummy' ".

Sequels

The film's success prompted Universal to reactivate the character of the mummy for a number of films in the 1940s. Apart from the use of some motifs, they have little in common with the original and can therefore only be seen as a continuation of each other. The mummy now bears the name Kharis and is largely dependent on the instructions of a high priest. The title character was first cast by Tom Tyler, after which the role was taken on by Lon Chaney junior .

In the 1950s, Universal took up a new concept in which the comedian duo Abbott & Costello satirized the most popular film monsters of the 1930s and 40s.

Remakes

From the end of the 1950s, the British production company Hammer Films took up the topic again. The first film saw itself as a remake of The Mummy's Hand , all the others represent independent actions without reference to each other or previous film adaptations.

Other reinterpretations of the material include:

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 2012 for a Blu-Ray release at Interopa Film in Berlin. Joachim Kunzendorf was responsible for the dialogue script and dialogue direction .

role actor German Dubbing voice
Ardath Bey / Imhotep (the mummy) Boris Karloff Ronald Nitschke
Helen Grosvenor / Princess Ankh-es-en-Amon Zita Johann Luise Helm
Frank Whemple David Manners Jaron Lowenberg
Sir Joseph Whemple Arthur Byron Reinhard Kuhnert
Dr. Muller Edward Van Sloan Rudiger Evers
Ralph Norton Bramwell Fletcher Tobias Nath
Mrs. Muller Kathryn Byron Sonja German
Professor Pearson Leonard Mudie Tim Moeseritz
Nurse Florence Britton Damineh Hojat
Gentleman # 1 at party C. Montague Shaw Alexander Doering
Gentleman # 2 at party Leyland Hodgson Erich Rauker

Reviews

At Rotten Tomatoes , The Mummy has a positive rating of 93% based on 28 reviews.

The Lexicon of International Films writes: "Horror film influenced by German expressionism with a brilliant theatrical performance by Boris Karloff."

literature

DVD release

  • The Mummy / October 24, 2002 / Universal DVD
  • The Mummy / May 6, 2004 / Universal DVD
  • The Mummy - The Legacy Collection
  • The Monster Legacy DVD Collection / October 14, 2004 / Universal DVD

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The Mummy. Retrieved October 20, 2017 .
  2. ↑ The Mummy at Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 20, 2017 .
  3. ↑ The mummy. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 11, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used