Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Film: Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor, Michael Ansara, Eddie Parker

Director: Charles Lamont

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year.  If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.

Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, & Boris Karloff owe their fame almost exclusively to the Universal Monster canon, which the trio built separately (and sometimes together).  This isn't the case for Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, who were already famous before they decided to start making horror comedy spoofs with the original Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.  However, the Universal monsters certainly cemented the legend of Abbott & Costello, and through that 1948 film, caused a massive rebound in their popularity, something they'd ride for nearly the next decade doing films with Lugosi, Chaney, & Karloff.  By 1955, though, both men were starting to see the cracks again in their pairings, and overexposure had made them passé once more.  As a result, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy was the last film they would make featuring the Universal monsters, and was the penultimate film the duo would make together before Costello's death from a heart attack in 1959.

(Spoilers Ahead) Bud & Lou (playing themselves always, but here literally playing themselves as their characters are named Bud & Lou), overhear a plot to steal a treasure from the tomb of a mummy using a sacred medallion.  Bud & Lou want to help escort the mummy back to the United States, but before they can the doctor who is housing the mummy is murdered, and the mummy is stolen.  Through a series of mishaps (always), they find the medallion, though, but Lou accidentally swallows it and so they are kidnapped since it's the only way the grave-robbers are able to keep hold of the medallion.  One-thing-leads to another (a series of comic site gags including a solid one involving Lou & an X-ray), and they all end up at the tomb, with the mummy (Parker) destroyed in an explosion that reveals the treasure, which Lou & Bud use to start a nightclub to honor the memory of Klaris the mummy.

The movie itself is not breaking any new ground.  We are a long way from Frankenstein, where Abbott & Costello not only were introduced to a cavalcade of Universal monsters, but some of the actors who became famous for those parts (Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man).  Here we have a Mummy that's not in on the joke, a lifeless corpse just wandering around the stage, and honestly the side villains are so interchangeable you'll have to pay undue attention to ensure you know what's going on.

But I liked it-I am a fan of the Abbott & Costello format.  They have great chemistry, Lou is always a riot, and they also celebrate the monsters while still keeping true to some of the formatting we've come to love.  We have one more Universal Monster movie remaining this month before I call it a day (we've basically hit the entire "canon" of the Universal monster movies, even if we could go forever through horror films of the era), so it's a bit bittersweet but timely that not only are we nearly done with this series, but this was the final film that Abbott & Costello made for Universal Studios.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob, The Masque of the Red Death