I must have been some kind of serious little King Tut nerd as a kid. Exhibit A: Thursday night, May 8th 1980.  King Kong preceded the first half of The Curse of Kig Tut's Tomb.  42 years ago.  I don't remember a damn thing about King Kong, or if we even watched it. I do remember being excited about The Curse of King Tut.  There's a curse! And Perry Mason! And Eva Marie Saint! (I didn't know who she was but I loved  her name.) Most everything else is lost to the fog of time.   But... while gathering notes for this post, I *found* the movie.  It's available to rent on VUDU and GoogleTV.  So I'll be renting it soon for a rewatch- and a follow up post.  Meanwhile, I've included the promo spot from NBC below.

Universal's follow-up to The Mummy's Hand was 1942’s The Mummy's Tomb and just in case the audience might have forgotten the events of the earlier film, the first ten minutes are a flashback.  A flashback related by Steve Banning, played again by Dick Foran, thirty years later. Banning is a widower living back in Massachusetts, living with his sister and son. Andoheb and Kharis survived the previous movie, Kharis now being played by Lon Chaney Jr. Andoheb sends a junior priest of Karnak to America to avenge Banning's trespass.  The junior priest arrives in Smalltown, USA taking a job as a cemetery care taker.  In fact, he organizes his revenge from a mausoleum, the titular tomb of the Mummy (as opposed to oh, something from the Valley of the Kings or something.) The contrast of the very old world character of the Mummy against the small town Americana setting works... well within the context of.... y'know a living Mummy. I'm looking forward to the next insta

I've decided to do a deep dive down the rabbithole for the last quarter of 2022 and just plunge into the phenomenom that was 1970’s Tutankhamun inspired Egyptomania, after all, for most of us my age, this is where it started. Most likely, with In Search Of... ,the most seventies of seventies pop speculative science/history things even: Big Foot! The Bermuda Triangle! And most importantly: The Mummy's Curse!!  Originally broadcast on May 14, 1977, the episode recreates scenes from 1920's Egypt with commentary by ''experts" and narration by Leonard Nimoy. (Viewable here on Youtube) This was *CRAZY* and a) it was on tv and b) it was hosted by Mr Spock, so it had to be legit, right. Never mind the fact that I was (doing maths....) seven on the initial broadcast. Rewatching it over three decades later... it's interesting. First, part of the episode was filmed at Highclere Castle, home of Lord Carnarvon... or as most PBS junkies would say: Downton Abbey/  It was

 I'm kind of slow sometimes.  It took me forever to catch on that Stephen Sommers' The Mummy was a remake of 1940's The Mummy's Hand and not Karloff's 1932 The Mummy. Universal's second film in the franchise would be referred to today as a reboot, spawning three and a half sequels (I don't really count Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy... mostly). Handsome adventurer/ Egyptologist Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his comic relief sidekick Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford) with love interest Marta (Peggy Moran) seek the tomb of Ananka.  This tomb is protected by the priests of Karnak, led by oh-so-Egyptian George Zucco's Andoheb, keeper of the sacred Tana leaves, which revive Kharis,  the cursed priest of Isis, mummified alive and set to guard the tomb. Kharis was played by Tom Tyler, mostly famous these days for playing Captain Marvel (Shazam), but aside from some silent exposition scenes... he has no lines. After two weeks of less than stellar movies, The Mummy

Please note there's no poster for this one, Ouija Mummy currently (Sept '22) available via Tubi.  There might be one somewhere but I couldn't be bothered, it's so bad. Starts off on good note: stock footage of an excavation outside a pyramid.  It devolves quickly from there with expositional voice overs of a woman, a member of the dig, at home in California, examining jewelry she took.  It's the most Mexican looking Ancient Egyptian jewelry I've ever seen.  The history, at least what I sat through seemed pretty good though- I attribute this more to cut-n-paste from wikipedia.  As in, I rewound the scene and was able to read along to the Ahotep I entry. Less than two and a half minutes.  I couldn't do it. Don't you do it either.

In The Mummy Lives, a centuries old creature pursues a woman  younger than himself.  It's also about a Mummy.  Tony Curtis was over forty years older than the romantic interest in this direct-to-video piece of drek and honestly my suspension of disbelief was easier on the Ancient Egyptian magic stuff than Curtis being a romantic figure at 67. For completists only.