Mummy Dearest: A Horror Tradition Unearthed (2000)

Sadly Over-hyped

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is found on the DVD of the 1932 version of The Mummy, and is a retroactive making-of documentary of, you guessed it, said picture(near the very end, it goes into the sequels as well(including the Abbott and Costello one...), though never the Sommers ones(for which I am quite grateful)). It consists of clips, interviews(with crew from it or their offspring and the like, as well as film historians, who have very compelling things to say), behind-the-scenes stills, and a little horrifyingly corny narration by host Rudy Behlmer, who(or whose writer) must have also come up with that off-putting pun they used for a name for this production. They go into the strained working relationship between the two masters of their craft(Johann(her belief in the occult is detailed as well) of acting and Freund of cinematography(taking on the role of director for the first time)), the arduous make-up process(hours of pain to apply or remove), other, works by these same people(such as Frankenstein... with that one, the similarities are really obvious, and they don't try to conceal that), and the restraint of not showing off the titular creature. The editing is good, and this is very informational and interesting. There is a bit of disturbing and violent content in this. I recommend this to any fan of movie itself, as well as the commentary track by Paul Jensen. 7/10

Exceedingly well-done documentary on the making of The Mummy with lots of great stories about some of the stars and makers of that film. Zita Johann is examined in great detail(greater than Karloff I believe), and we get lots of second-hand stories about her spiritualism, her fights with Karl Freund the director, and her wit. Film historian Gregory Man details a couple of the stories with great clarity, wit, and even does an impression of Freund! There are other stories about Karloff and the arduous make-up he endured for Jack Pierce. There is a whole exposition done on where the concept of the story came from and then the documentary moves to a point by point and scene by scene comparison of The Mummy and Dracula. Even more might have been examined by giving actors like David Manners and Edward Van Sloan(who seems never to get any love in these things but was crucial in those early Universal greats!)some talk. The documentary then moves to the sequels and gives them some time, but it really just goes over them in a somewhat cursory manner. Producer/director David Skaal once again has given the Mummy as well as all the other Universal monsters in the stable their due.

Universal gave the classic horror fan a real treat with their series of short documentaries. While I don't necessarily thing that Mummy Dearest is the best of the bunch, it's informative and entertaining. My only complaint is that not enough time was spent on the sequels to The Mummy. I would have loved to see more on these lesser known films.Through interviews with films experts and surviving relatives, Mummy Dearest presents some fascinating insights into the making of The Mummy. One of my favorites was the story of the feud between star Zita Johann and director Karl Freund. Good stuff. Another highlight is the interview segments with special effects wizard Rick Baker. His insights into what Karloff went through to be made-up as the mummy are very interesting.Mummy Dearest, and the other documentaries in the series, are some of the best DVD extras I've seen. Good work Universal!

This is an interesting documentary about Universal's classic Mummy series of movies. It concentrates the most on the first one, providing information on how it came to be, about its director Karl Freud, its main stars Boris Karloff and Zita Johann, and makeup man (or sadist?) Jack Pierce.There are interviews with film historians, and relatives of some of the people involved with the film, such as Karloff's daughter. Relatively little attention is paid to the sequels, but they are covered.I found it interesting how The Mummy started off as being about the Italian historical character Cagliostro! Also interesting to see was how The Mummy copies certain formulas and scenes from the Universal Dracula film, which they illustrated by showing some of these scenes one after another. A similar thing happened with The Invisible Man copying Frankenstein, as the documentary for The Invisible Man notes.