Hello!

Happy holiday weekend, those of you not overwhelmed by weather issues. Drop us a note if you’re so inclined — I feel in the mood to answer!

I have a quick book report Book Review today … it’s the third ‘Mummy’ entry in the Scripts from the Crypt collection edited by Tom Weaver, a full-coverage script & scrapbook, essay & article-laden tome on the beloved penultimate title in the series, The Mummy’s Ghost. Although fans vote differenly, it’s my personal favorite of the ’40s Mummy pictures.

This time around writer Gregory W. Mank gets top billing — Tom Weaver ladles on the wealth of incidental info, random clippings, odd continuity ramblings and humor, but Mr. Mank carries the main 50-page production history piece on TMG, in fine form, I must say. Bryan Senn, Laura Wagner, Frank Dello Stritto, Alan K. Rode and Larry Blamire each add chapters, covering the actors and the director, and examining the series from multiple angles.

Tom handles an analysis of transformations, alterations, and changes made to the script so as not to offend Turks and Egyptians. Many changes seem intended just to save a dime or two on the Universal ledger books. The most fascinating stuff involves details that only meticulous, obsessed, certifiable truly dedicated fans would notice, such as a telltale birthmark that appears and disappears from one of the characters. Weaver also delves into head-scratching issues of simple cause & effect logic — the unlucky Amina (to-die-for Ramsay Ames) appears to be stricken by a terrible curse from the past . . . before said curse has been initiated.

You’ll be happy to know that in the midst of fighting WW2, the U.S. government filled a thick file with correspondence to make sure that TMG wouldn’t cause our Middle Eastern allies to switch to the side of the Axis — Weaver includes a fistful of documents on the matter.

In the true spirit of ‘Everything Goes and it’s all Interesting,’ The Ghost book ends with 75 pages of Addendums, odd ephemera and tangential items as worthwhile as the core material, plus one item inadvertently omitted from the previous Mummy book. And we told ourselves we wouldn’t spread rumors about Tom W. hittin’ the Old Tana Juice . . .

It’s a BearManor Media publication, released November 12 in both soft and hardcover editions. Here’s the Amazon order page, and one for BearManor too.

 

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Okay, yes, I can’t resist the urge to tell an annoying personal tie-in story. In the third grade I discovered Famous Monsters at about issue #32, through pal Arthur Gaitan, whose family owned a fancy Mexican Restaurant. Already a confirmed monster fanatic, Arthur broke me in on basic lore regarding Frankenstein (that’s the doctor’s name, stupid) and Dracula (he bites ’em, but they don’t show it, stupid). I’d seen the Hammer Mummy theatrically and loved it, so was keen to see what Lon Chaney Jr. would be like in this Mummy’s Ghost show.

The chase finale was a cinema lesson in parallel cutting, but also an early life lesson in weirdness. Essentially, Kharis has Kharried off the lovely Amina (Ms. Ames, swoon). She is already affected by the curse, or a serum, or something … her hair has been turning white for a scene or two. As Kharis takes her right into the swamp, we keep cutting back to the posse and her boyfriend … who don’t seem to be making particularly good progress in their pursuit.

The Mummy’s Ghost didn’t cooperate with my assumptions of how ‘Suspense’ was supposed to work on screen. Amina is sinking deeper into the swamp. It really doesn’t look like the dumb boyfriend can rescue her in time . . . but something will intervene, right? . . . RIGHT?  I must have had a pretty funny expression on my face when ‘The End’ popped up. Raised mostly on stuff no edgier than Lassie, the idea of a surprise Bad Ending was unthinkable, a betrayal. Ten minutes later, I still thought it was a mistake, that maybe the movie wasn’t over. Thus ends the story of a Young Man’s Disillusionment. The balance of my childhood growing up simply repeated the ‘surprise, stupid’ cycle at regular intervals. And that’s why I’m always tickled by The Mummy’s Ghost.

 

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Then, of course, there’s the TCM TCM Remembers montage. It came out days ago but you might have missed it.

This is a real lump-in-the-throat year … it’s as if everybody we ever knew and cared about is putting on angel wings. TCM’s taste and judgment are impeccable, giving us instant-recognition heart-throb reactions one after another. I saw no agents or publiciity people and the folk were lined up by Popularity or PC mandates. The TCM montage masters are really good at picking out so-called ‘minor’ talent that will nevertheless mean something major to many movie fans — when you see them you’ll know who I mean.

Yep, things just don’t stay the same, as they ought to. Years ago the Hollywood obits we read were of folk born fifty, sixty years before me. The movies changed the definition of who ‘we felt we knew’ — people like Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln could only be experienced via a few photos, with no recordings of their actual voices. But in the last hundred years we’ve watched many stars grow from kids, get old and pass away. And they’ve done this in a continuum, any part of which can be revived with the spin of a videodisc.

If the culture abandons the film heritage, will they all be forgotten?  Will one have to be a specialist to know, or CARE, who major stars of the past were?  It’s interesting, when a face or two of people I watched work suddenly pop up, as if in farewell. I hope they had fun with their fame; I’m a grateful beneficiary of their talent.

 

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Last up, Gary Teetzel points us to the Comicbook Anime page, where a Japanese-language Godzilla tie-in TV spot is viewable, in untranslated Japanese. As Gary explains:

Godzilla, not content to be presently starring in the top-grossing live-action Japanese film in U.S. history (Godzilla Minus One), starring in his own Apple+ TV show (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), starring in a DC comic book (Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong) and preparing to star in his next American film (Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire), has taken time out of his busy schedule to shill for McDonald’s in a new Japanese TV commercial. Read about it and see it here:

Godzilla is Teaming Up with McDonald’s for a Beastly New Commercial.

We don’t know what is being said in the TV spot. Are the humans planning to stop Godzilla by clogging his arteries with McDonald’s food?  There is also some promotion for Bearbricks toys of Godzilla and the disturbingly freakish McDonaldland characters. Feel free to make up your own joke about how the toys are more nutritious than the food. — Gary

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson