Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

"They're back... in their mummy's arms"

Plot

Two bumbling and broke treasure hunters sitting in a coffee shop in Egypt overhear a conversation with a famous archaeologist and they follow him back to his hotel in the hope of securing a job transporting his newest acquisition, the mummy of Klaris, back to the US. However a secret cult tracks the professor down and murders him for taking a medallion from the tomb which supposedly holds the key to finding the whereabouts of a great fortune. The two men arrive on the scene too late and are framed for the murder. But they find themselves in possession of the medallion and the cult and the police are both soon after them.

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The last film they made with Universal, Abbott and Costello round up their 'Meet' series by coming face-to-face with the mummy, the only one of the Universal big hitters that they hadn't come up against. The comedy duo was on the slide, their careers were winding down (this was their penultimate film) and you can tell right from the start that their hearts just weren't in it anymore and the chemistry that they once had seemed to have evaporated. If you've never seen one of these films before, then think of it as a really early precursor to something like Shaun of the Dead where a popular comedy duo is thrust into the world of horror to deal with something monstrous and funny hijinks ensue There's no real modern day equivalent of their type, going up against the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and co. (but maybe that's a good thing).

Considering how poor some of their later work was, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy is surprisingly entertaining for fans of the duo and does just enough to get by. Its full of the hallmarks of the Abbott and Costello Meet... series including Costello being the only one who sees the monsters until the end of the film and no one believes him, monsters which look intimidating but end up being wet blankets and pure comic foil, bad guys who robotically speak awfully contrived dialogue to make themselves sound tougher, dead bodies which disappear right before Abbott comes on the scene and who then has a go at Costello for making things up, hidden passages which lead to all manner of crazy situations and much more. There's no plot to speak of, just a continual number of set pieces, characters shifting allegiances and then stalking each other around the desert and then the tomb of Klaris.

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy has pretty flimsy plotting and the film just goes wherever it likes most of the time, drifting from routine to routine without any particular structure. It stretches everything out to pad the running time as much as it can and there's little material for a short let alone a full feature film. The routines that the duo go through are all well-worn by this point so if you've seen any of their previous work, you'll know what to expect. They do their classic "Who's on first?" exchange (for those who don't know, check it out at Wikipedia or a Youtube as it's too complex to explain in a review but is one of the greatest comic sketches of all time) with a fantastic argument between Abbott and Costello about a shovel and a pick. The rest of the jokes fall a little flat for the most. It may have been funny back when they first hit it big but by this point, most of it was just too daft or repetitive to laugh at - comedy was moving on but they hadn't. They're going through the motions big time and it shows.

Despite Abbott and Costello hamming it up at every opportunity, the rest of the cast play it completely straight which doesn't work in their favour, especially the cardboard cut-out bad guys. They don't get anything to do other than run around some of the cheapest-looking sets ever made. The 'desert' set looks like a cut-rate school production and the Egyptian tomb must have been built for the most hard-up prince because it's sparsely decorated and nowhere near as elaborate as you'd expect. Films are supposed to do a job in making you believe that the actors are in these exotic locations but the only thing you'll believe is that there's a chance someone would trip and fall into the background, causing the whole set to crash into the ground.

Even the mummy looks pathetic – he’s a skinny, shabby mess and looks like a guy who got into a fight with a toilet roll dispenser and lost. This is the sort of cinematic mummy interpretation that gave the monster a bad reputation. The mummy does little in the film other than bumble around the tomb at the end of the film and seems to have been forgotten about as the duo try to evade the various groups out to get the medallion for themselves. It's an afterthought but in a film with little energy, creativity or spark, there's no wonder that the mummy would prefer to lay in it's sarcophagus for the duration.

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Final Verdict

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy is far from their best work but contains a few decent moments. Fans may get a few chuckles out of seeing the same routines wheeled out for one last time and as daft as it gets, the finale involving three mummies wandering around the tombs is silly fun. If you're new to the duo then you're best off checking out their first, and best, pairing with Universal's monsters in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (and Dracula and the Wolf Man too!).

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Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy Director(s): Charles Lamont Writer(s): John Grant (screenplay), Lee Loeb (story) Actor(s): Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor, Michael Ansara, Dan Seymour, Richard Deacon, Kurt Katch Duration: 79 mins