Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy

Klaris Cliff

Abbott And Costello
Meet The Mummy
USA 1955
Directed by Charles Lamont
Universal Blu Ray Zone A

Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy was the penultimate film that the two stars made together but the last one they made for Universal Pictures. They were still big stars enough, though, that when they are yelling each others names out through the picture, they are still yelling “Abbott” and “Costello”... even though, according to the end credits, they are playing characters with entirely different names.

The film is technically a continuation, in some respects, of the original Mummy franchise but, for some reason, the name of the title creature has been changed from Kharis as he was in the previous four films to Klaris in this movie (and is played by Eddie Parker, who used to be stunt double for Lon Chaney Jr when he was bandaged up as Kharis). Perhaps the background continuity to the other films in the series was not strong enough for writers to use the same character but, then again, this is The Mummy franchise we’re talking about. Any pretense of continuity from film to film stopped making sense long before 1955.

Anyhow, regardless of the title, Klaris the Mummy is actually only in it for a few minutes at the start of the picture and then for roughly the last ten minutes. All the rest of the screen action is taken up by Bud and Lou’s comedy shenanigans as they play two guys in Egypt who accidentally stumble on a double plot following a professor’s discovery of the tomb of Klaris. They get mistaken for the professor’s killers and also get on the wrong side of two different bad guy factions... one a nefarious woman called Madame Rontru (played by Marie Windsor) who wants the cursed medallion of the Mummy that Costello accidentally eats in a restaurant scene, which will lead her to the treasure of Klaris. And then there’s the leader of the followers of Klaris, who just needs everybody dead to the secrets of the mummy and to ensure its treasure are protected.

Anyway, even without the presence of Klaris for most of the movie, it’s a fine comedy vehicle for Bud and Lou and they do a lot of nice little sketches throughout. For example, there’s the usual buffoonery with Lou as he discovers both the living mummy and the dead professor but, every time he tries to show Bud, one or other of them has changed location and are no longer where he left them. There’s also a nice ‘lose the medallion’ sequence between Bud and Lou in a restaurant which is when Lou accidentally eats the all important medallion. And there’s a nice example of their classic comedy chemistry when word play around a pick and a shovel causes a lot of chaos.

I noticed that Lou is breaking the fourth wall even more here than in the last two pictures I saw with him in it and it’s very much a thing for getting the audience engaged in the pair’s routines. For instance, when he places the medallion as the top layer under the bun of a hamburger he makes a motion for the audience to be quiet so Bud doesn’t realise what is going on. It’s a nice touch and it seems to work really well for them.

The villains are a little nasty in some ways but it’s kinda telling that, when Klaris is no more and everyone is wondering what to do, Bud saves the day and gets all of them to work in collaboration in the next ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Which is a nice gesture and not something I remember seeing done too often during cinema’s golden era.

One nice thing was when I spotted a guy playing a newspaper reporter for about a minute near the start of the film. Well, not so much spotted as heard. The character is looking down for his shots and he has his hat pulled down pretty far but I thought I recognised the voice so I looked him up to make sure and, sure enough, the guy in question was, indeed, Donald Kerr in an uncredited role. That’s right, the guy who played the comic relief character of newspaper reporter Happy Hapgood in the Buster Crabbe serial Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars is once again playing a reporter in this movie.

Other than this, there’s nothing much more for me to say about Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy other than there’s a nice, if predictable, running snake joke when Lou starts playing a specific musical instrument next to a basket. It’s an enjoyable romp which is a bit better, I think, than Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man (reviewed here) but still not as strong as Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (reviewed here). There are a couple of half hearted musical routines which threaten to stop it dead a few times but the comedy hijinks are eminently watchable and I’ll probably revisit this movie again in ten or so years time, I should think. Worth a look if you’re a lover of Abbott And Costello but, perhaps not an essential part of the classic Universal monsters canon.