I dig into more Universal monsters this week to the first sequel to The Mummy. Released in 1940, The Mummy’s Hand features Tom Tyler as the Mummy.

It’s hard to come down on anyone’s side on this one nowadays. The ‘heroes’ are led by an archeologist, Steve Banning (Dick Foran) who is a snappily-dressed American in Egypt. He’s looking to make a big payday, and figures he can do that by uncovering a long-forgotten tomb (not forgotten enough, because it’s overseen by a secret group of priests) and cashing in on it!

The priests have been resuscitating a mummified man with a precise, ancient and secret recipe to kill off those tomb raiders who would attempt to pillage the tombs. He’s about to come around again when Banning, his pal Babe (Wallace Ford), their financial backer, Solvani (Cecil Kellaway), and Solvani’s daughter, Marta (Peggy Moran) stumble across the tomb.

And the Mummy’s original motivation? He wanted to find a way to restore the love of his life.

So who’s the real villain in this one?

Sure the recipe gets slightly out of whack causing the Mummy to become a killing machine, but that’s not his fault.

The Universal Monster movies tend to have shorter runtimes, this one is just over an hour, and the Mummy doesn’t cause any real problems, or even show up until the forty-five minute mark. Instead the film gives us a bit of a blend of drama and light-hearted adventure and comedy, the latter provided by Babe.

Banning is no Indiana Jones, and he’s just in it for a buck, y’know, the American Way, though he’s definitely gained some notoriety. And that makes anyone else the baddie because they are opposed to Banning’s plans.

The Mummy isn’t exactly a sympathetic character, but he definitely could have been portrayed that way. It may have given a nice spin to the monster. Oh well, that’s not why these films were made. They were meant to be adventures with some supernatural scares, something the 1999 remake of The Mummy nailed.

I do like the banter between Banning and Babe, and throwing the father-daughter Solvani team into the mix makes for a fun ride, and obviously there’s a bit of a romantic subplot for Banning and Marta.

But it’s the Mummy everyone wants to see, and perhaps they wait until almost three-quarters of the way through the tale to bring him out. The make-up is nice, not as strong as in the original film, but definitely inline with what we’ve seen.

And I will say this, I love the production design on the temples (even if priests are obviously riding camels through the California hills, and hey! Vasquez Rocks!), the designs and backlot work are solid, and while not my favourite monster, the Mummy story works well enough here to entertain and carry the Universal Monsters on to their next adventure.