Talk:The Mummy (1932 film)

Production
"Some critics have called The Mummy an instant remake of Dracula, produced so the studio could cash in." This is FOX news type commentary. "Some critics." Who? This is a wholly unique film, and one of the greatest films ever made. It has noting to do with Dracula. The scenes are lit differently. None of the scenes are similar. The story is completely different. Missaeagle


 * Objection! You don't need to be a critic to actually see the similarities between scenes of both movies. Universal revived the formula of their first horror blockbuster and additionally threw in their favorite monster actor. And the list goes on, John Balderston, whose stageplay was adapted for Dracula, became screenwriter of the Mummy, and Karl Freund, the DP of Dracula, was promoted director for the Mummy… —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.180.61.58 (talk) 09:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, using the same cast and crew doesn't make a film a remake. The Mummy was focused on metempsychosis but the scenes vital for this plot were cut from the final release, only proof of them are the end titles listing characters that never appeared.

Criticism
I'd hardly call two obscure sources, both written post 2000ad, as criticism. This is revisionist and irrelevant. At the time, even now, the movie is hailed as a classic. That section should be removed.

Pernoctus (talk) 23:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)I agree completely with the above statement. This section should be removed. It is revisionist, immaterial, and represents one narrow perspective by alleged critics who have obvious axes to grind.


 * What these two "critics" obviously weren't capable of bearing in mind is the situation back in the days when ancient Egypt really was in fashion, sparked of course by sensational findings like the discovery of Tut-Ench-Amun's tomb. Come to think of it, modern Egypt doesn't have much to offer, apart from some seaside resorts tourist are only interested in the remains of the past… — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8070:21C2:7300:7889:DCB5:FFA3:8037 (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Historical accuracy
I'm concerned about the assertion "Papyrus trial transcripts reveal the method of execution, which may have been being buried alive. Although not common practice, it is possible that a fictional priest such as Imhotep would be punished this way." - this seems to be imaginative speculation as the actual records (the Judicial Papyrus of Turin et al) don't make any mention of burial alive. Is this itself historically accurate ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.246.201.248 (talk) 17:12, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Just another matter. Ardath Bey is not a name as presented here. Bey was a title in the Ottoman Empire that corresponded to a knighthood. So Ardath Bey would mean in English as something like Sir Ardath. Egypt was a vilayet (province) in the Ottoman empire and even after Ottoman rule ended Ottoman titles like pasha, bey and effendi continued to be used in Egypt right up to the 1952 revolution. For an Egyptian to be using a title Bey in 1932 would be historically accurate. The article should make it clear that the title Bey, through commonly used with names, is not actually that person's name. It helps to know that the same aristocracy in Egypt, known to historians as the Turko-Circassian elite made of a group of interrelated families of Turkish, Circassian, and Albanian origin, who ruled Egypt under the Ottomans continued to dominate Egypt right up to the 1952 revolution. Which brings a notable historical inaccuracy. In the film, Helen Grosvenor is described as half-English, half-Egyptian with her mother coming from a prominent Egyptian family who apparently did not object to their daughter marrying an Englishman. Because of her Egyptian heritage she is described as a real feeling for the country which the film's British characters lacked. As just noted, the Egyptian aristocracy were not of Egyptian origin and spoke a hybrid language that was a mixture of French and Turkish, which one might call Frenkish. Notably, the Egyptian aristocracy did not speak Arabic and there was a real gulf between the wealthy, semi-Westernized aristocracy who owned most of the land in Egypt vs. the common people. If Helen Grosvenor's family came from the Egyptian aristocracy, she would not be descended from the ancient Egyptians as the film claims as the families that made up the Egyptian aristocracy arrived in the Ottoman era, which started in 1517. The man who founded the Egyptian royal family, an illiterate Albanian tobacco merchant named Mohammad Ali only arrived in Egypt with the Ottoman forces sent to repulse the French after Napoleon invaded in 1798, and his descendants remain notably proud of their Albanian heritage.
 * Indeed, even the fact that Grosvenor's dark complexion which is supposed to reflect her Egyptian heritage is little wrong as the men of the Egyptian aristocracy were notably fond of their Circassian slave girls (Circassian women are considered to be most beautiful in the Islamic world) and as a result, many of the aristocracy tended to be more much fair-skinned than the average Egyptian. If one looks at old photographs of King Farouk's sisters, some of them are so fair-skinned that you would not know that they were from Egypt by looking at them. If Grosvenor's mother family were Copts, then she would indeed be descended from ancient Egyptians. The relationship between the Coptic language and the ancient Egyptian language is like the relationship between Latin and French. For this reason, the Copts tended to consider themselves to be the real Egyptians as opposed to the 90% of Egyptians who are Muslim (through if truth be told, the Muslim population of Egypt are descendants of Copts who converted to Islam and adopted Arabic-genetically speaking there is no difference between the Muslim and Coptic Christian populations). And if her mother was a Copt, that would explain the lack of a religious barrier as no Muslim family would permit their daughter to convert to Christianity and it is difficult to imagine a British colonial official converting to Islam without wrecking his career. Gorsvenor's father is described in the film as being the Governor-General of the Sudan-if he had converted to Islam, he had never received such a position. Some of the Coptic families did get wealthy under the ancient regime and some claimed to have been descended from the Pharaohs, through that seems very unlikely. The film doesn't explain Grosvenor's background very well. Indeed, one suspects that the film made Grosvenor half-English just to make her into an acceptable love interest for the white hero since even under the weak Production Code of 1922 romances between white characters and non-white characters were forbidden.
 * Just one more point lies in the way film projects contemporary American racial politics onto Egypt. In the scenes set in ancient Egypt, the slaves are all portrayed as black. Later on when the film's sole black character who doesn't even a name, being called only "the Nubian", is enslaved by Imhotep, Dr. Muller says "the ancient blood lives on", an implication being that this is the natural state for blacks, at least in Egypt. It is true that the Egyptians did sometimes have hostile relations with the black peoples who lived south of them in what is now modern Sudan, but it so true that relations were sometimes friendly. The culture of peoples of Nubia was very heavily influenced by Egyptian culture and the Nubian rulers use Egyptian hieroglyphics as writing and copied Egyptian architecture by building pyramids. Indeed, the African Kingdom of Kush conquered Egypt for a time, leading to the rule of the so-called "Black Pharaohs". There doesn't seemed to have been a color-line in ancient Egypt and the Egyptians as far one can see didn't have notions of race as one would understand the term today. The idea of blacks in Egypt as slavish and submissive as portrayed in the film seems to have no basis in reality, and it would helpful if this article could say that. --A.S. Brown (talk) 02:58, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

File:The Mummy 1932 film poster.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:The Mummy 1932 film poster.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on October 31, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-10-31. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Cast
I am adding the cast of this movie and explaining facts about the actors involved, the sources were I got the explanations for the Cast Lists are from IMDB:

94.201.206.212 (talk) 15:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Boris Karloff as Ardeth Bey/Imhotep/The Mummy, The character name "Imhotep" was taken from an actual ancient Egyptian, but the real Imhotep was the architect who designed the pyramids and--far from being executed in disgrace--was the only Egyptian, other than the pharaohs, who was made a god after his death. Boris Karloff was virtually unknown when he appeared as the creature in "Frankenstein (1931)." He created such a sensation that when this was made, only a year later, Universal only had to advertise "KARLOFF . . . 'The Mummy'." Karloff remarked years later that the make-up he wore for "The Mummy" was even more uncomfortable than that of the Frankenstein creature. The trouper was---however---known to secretly relish such discomfort.
 * Zita Johann as Princess Ankh-Ese-Namun/Helen Grosvenor, Zita Johann had proved a difficult actress for both MGM and RKO when she signed with Universal to do Laughing Boy (1934) from a script by John Huston that she admired. When no suitable actor could be found for the lead, she suggested Humphrey Bogart, although the studio rejected him. Since Johann had already been paid, she owed Universal a picture and agreed to fulfill her obligation with "The Mummy." When the actress declined to have her option picked up by "Universal" because of the unpleasantness during filming, her billing was demoted from co-star to the top of the supporting players. Also throughout the film's production, there was great tension between Zita Johann and director Karl Freund, who both disliked each other immensely. According to Johann, on the first day of filming Freund attempted to portray her to the producers as a temperamental actress who was very hard to work with. Johann later recalled Karl Freund's nastiness to her: "Karl Freund made life very unpleasant. It was his first picture as a director, and he felt he needed a scapegoat in case he didn't come in on schedule, 23 days, I believe. Well I was cast as the scapegoat--and I saw through it right away! Before shooting started, I asked Freund and his wife over for dinner. He told me for one scene, I would have to appear nude from the waist up. He expected me to say, 'The hell I will!' Instead I said, 'Well, it's all right with me if you can get it past the censors'--knowing very well that the censors of that time were very strict. So, I had him there." The veracity of such statement is however put in question, when one considers that the Hays Code wasn't enforced until June of 1934, when Breen came in charge of said production code. Until then, actresses regularly appeared topless in movies, and the year was 1932. It is unclear who reported this tidbit, but pseudo-biographers---in particular, those of Boris' films---have been debunked as crafting tall-tales for book sales. It would appear that, quite possibly, some of them maybe never even interviewed said stars---who are long deceased to corroborate or deny either way. Among other indignities, Karl Freund put the actress in an arena with lions while he and the crew were protected inside cages--the scene was eventually cut from the film--and for two days he had her stand against a board so there wouldn't be a crease in her dress. In spite of the cold and tense atmosphere between Karl Freund and Zita Johann, the actress enjoyed working with Boris Karloff. She commented upon a deep sadness he seemed to be experiencing during filming. The trouper had a propensity for making others feel sorry for him---and this was no different.
 * David Manners as Frank Whemple
 * Arthur Byron as Sir Joseph Whemple
 * Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Muller
 * Bramwell Fletcher as Ralph Norton
 * Noble Johnson as The Nubian
 * Kathryn Byron as Frau Muller
 * Leonard Mudie as Professor Pearson
 * James Crane as Pharaoh Amenophis
 * Henry Victor as The Saxon Warrior
 * IMDB is not reliable and the article has a cast section. PrisonerB (talk) 13:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)