MovieChat Forums > Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) Discussion > What Did You Rate 'A+C Meet the Mummy'? ...

What Did You Rate 'A+C Meet the Mummy'? Pt. 2

posted 13 years ago by Doctor_Mabuse1
3 replies | jump to latest

Let's try this again. The first thread on this subject flew off-topic AT ONCE and never went back, changing focus a dozen times. I'm posing the question again because I'm interested in what others think. I wonder if the popularity of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY, and its sentimental value as Abbott and Costello's final film for Universal, makes disclosure difficult.

I rated it 5/10 or **½/5, or FAIR. Another interpretation might be, BELOW AVERAGE. I'm being generous here, because although it has its points, I think it's a pretty lousy movie. If you think I'm being harsh, know that I'm sentimental, too. I just can't bring myself to rate A&C lower than 4/10 (MEDIOCRE), and that's reserved for Lost in Alaska and Dance with Me, Henry.

Bud and Lou aren't so awful-terrible, under the circumstances. There's a good supporting cast, mostly wasted. I like Marie Windsor's campy villain. Peggy King, the girl singer, is of the coolest. But that's about it.

Abbott and Costello should have met the darned Mummy right after MEET FRANKENSTEIN, when they were on a roll (instead of, say Mexican Hayride). Coming seven years later, this sad little kiddie flick was too little, too late.

What finally kills the whole show is the miserable, crappy Mummy. You'd think that Bud Westmore, creator of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, might have come up with a half-way decent Mummy. There is no excuse for this.

What did YOU rate the film? Let's stay on-topic this time, please.

Doctor Mabuse, Evil Genius, King of Crime

[–] heyuactor 12 years ago

I like it okay. 6/10. Abbott and Costello are funny, and the Mummy looking so human didn't bother me. The main thing is the movie is entertaining, and that's what I was looking for.

"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.

[–] bighebeal 9 years ago

Depends on your standards. If you're comparing it to their '40's movies, it's not very good. But by the standards of their '50's movies, it's a masterpiece.

In the '50's they made one stinker after another. A&C MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN, LOST IN ALASKA, JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, etc., etc.... never had anyone with their talent fallen so far. Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx. brothers -- all of their later films, like A&C's, were shadows of their earlier ones. But they were all in complex, let's say, situations with their studios. A&C, on the other hand, were still making successful movies, and still at Universal, where they had made BUCK PRIVATES and IN SOCIETY and A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN. There is no excuse, none whatever, for A&C GO TO MARS and company. The only possibility is that they just stopped caring... that they figured their audience was made up exclusively of children, who wouldn't know the difference, so why bother.

Looking at it from that perspective, A&C MEET THE MUMMY comes off pretty well. It has some actual dialogue humor, there's a bit of comic imagination (the fluoroscope scene, etc.), a better than usual supporting cast, and the 'hamburger bit' that they revived from the Colgate show.

Not a masterpiece, for sure -- but compared to their other stuff of the era, a relief.

[–] Satantangoandcash 9 years ago

I don't rate a film in comparison to others made by the same actors or directors, or try to understand it in the context of its own time and place. I only rate a film by my impression after watching it, so I gave this corny comedy 5/10, which is generous. I gave it an extra point because of a couple of good dance numbers, the nightclub singer, and Marie Windsor, but I also enjoyed the snake charmer running gag, especially at the end where Abbott's flute playing charms up a beautiful woman. Her snake hands and arms remind me a little bit of the beginning of Debra Paget's snake dance in Fritz Lang's Tomb of Love which was made 4 years later, but I don't know if it was an idea original to this film.