Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) - film review

Two Americans, Freddie Franklin and Peter Patterson, find themselves stranded in Cairo, desperate to find the money so they can get back to their own country.  They visit the archaeologist Dr Zoomer, hoping that he will give them the job of taking an Egyptian mummy he has discovered to America.  Unfortunately, Zoomer has been killed and the mummy has been stolen by members of a mysterious sect.  The ruthless Madame Rontru is equally keen to recover the mummy since she believes it will tell her where to find a lost treasure.  What no one realises is that the mummy, Klaris, is far from inactive and will soon awake from his long sleep...

Abbott and Costello’s final film for Universal Pictures (and their penultimate collaboration) brought to an end a series of popular films in which the comedy duo encountered the many villains and monsters which had featured in the studio’s previous films.  Meet the Mummy is mildly entertaining but it is by no means the best in the series – the plot, what there is of it, is a mess, the humour is juvenile and the titular monster barely puts in more than a fleeting appearance.   The two stars don’t even seem to have bothered reading the script, since they refer to each other by their real names throughout the film!

Of all of Universal’s legendary horror fiends, the Mummy is probably the one that is easiest to lampoon, mainly because the studio had, in the course of a handful of films, transformed a genuinely frightening creature into a rather silly walking (or, more accurately, shambling) cliché.  Unlike the memorable Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), this film doesn’t even try to parody Universal’s horror films but merely offers us something in the prep school burlesque line, consisting mainly of two twits being chased up and down lots of unconvincing tunnels by a rather sad looking man wrapped up in bandages.  It’s silly, chaotic, and desperately puerile, but, for all that, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy still manages to raise a smile, and even the odd laugh – although this one is probably better suited for the kiddies than us judgemental grown-ups.

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