Mummy movies really are better as adventure stories than horror, per se. In this one, an amateur archeologist (in the Indiana Jones mode of two-fisted justice) and his con man pal attempt to find the jewel-filled tomb of Ananka. Unfortunately, there is a death cult and an angry Mummy waiting to stop them. The cult are the bad guys for most of the running time, listening in on and sabotaging most of the plans of the hero. By the end, the Mummy is in position to gain ultimate power or something and a few minutes are devoted to stopping him.
I was taken aback by how much comedy was in this. The con artist friend, Babe, and the financier of the expedition (a magician named Solvani) are both pretty funny characters in that gentle, 1940s kind of way. There are a few times the Hayes Code intervenes, seemingly. When a woman brandishes a pistol there is some ADR saying it is a fake pistol ( although it seems to make real holes in a door just a few minutes later) and a major character was obviously meant to die but turns up fine in the end. Hell, I was surprised that the handful who do die were allowed to when you think of how bloodless movies were back then.
Anyway, not a bad flick, it made for a good Saturday morning creature feature.
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