The other three Universal Kharis films succeeding were pretty uninspired and uneven, though not without their good parts, however The Mummy's Hand while less than perfect and not exactly great is actually rather decent. Universal are nowhere near at their best here and The Mummy with Boris Karloff also from Universal from eight years earlier is the better film, but of the four Universal Kharis films The Mummy's Hand is easily the best of the four and the only one to come close to a good film.

It does start off rather sluggishly and takes too long to get going, it's all relevant but one does wish that the film got to the point quicker than it did. Two performances didn't come over so good, Wallace Ford's bumbling gets irritating after a while and Eduardo Ciannelli is for my tastes rather stiff. And I do have to agree about some of the comedy, some of it is witty and amusing but too much of it was intrusive and unnecessary so it felt more annoying than funny.

Visually however The Mummy's Hand is a solidly made film, the best-looking of the four Universal Kharis films most certainly, everything's professionally shot, moodily(appropriately) lit and crisply edited, the sets are suitably atmospheric and it's clear what the time and place is meant to be. The score fits well and is haunting, again the best score of the four films, being very stock in the other three. The story while not much new is interesting and doesn't try to do anything too simple or complicated, while it has more than one type of film genre it didn't feel muddled or have the feeling of not-knowing-what-it-was-trying-to-be and once it gets going it is quick moving and is pretty exciting and atmospherically spooky. The direction is decent and while none of the performances are award-worthy the performances are solid enough, George Zucco's excellent(brimming with sinister authority) performance standing out. Cecil Kellaway is very likable and Tom Tyler is surprisingly good as Kharis, he's actually genuinely unnerving(particularly the eyes). Dick Foran is amiable and Peggy Moran brings charm and spunk to her role.

Overall, a decent if not great film and easily the best of the Universal Kharis films. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

Of all the early horror films that Universal Studios specialized in, my favorite was always the original The Mummy that starred Boris Karloff. Never has mood been better established than in that film. Personally I think Karloff was better in that than his acclaimed Frankenstein series. For whatever reasons Universal did not choose to follow up The Mummy in the way they did with Frankenstein.

When they did get around to making another Mummy film it could not be called a sequel because the whole plot premise behind the first one was not used. We still have an ancient Egyptian prince cursed in being buried alive for stealing the secrets of eternal life from the Gods.

In the original film Karloff was very much his own resurrected man, but in this one Prince Kharis is both worshiped but also used as a killing machine by his followers who are led first by Eduardo Ciannelli and then by George Zucco who also deify Princess Ananka whose tomb Kharis guards and whom he died for the love of 3000 years before.

A couple of itinerant stranded archaeologists played by Dick Foran and Wallace Ford come across some ancient pottery in a bazaar and take it to Dr. Charles Trowbridge at the museum in Cairo. He thinks they've got something but where to get money for an expedition.

Here's where the film gets a little silly. Foran and Ford essentially fleece another stranded American Cecil Kellaway of the money needed and Kellaway's daughter Peggy Moran isn't too happy about it. But she warms to Foran the same way Dorothy Lamour warmed to Bing Crosby in those Road films. In fact Foran and Ford really come across as a kind of road company version of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. And as Foran is a singer, I half expected him to come up with a song.

But once out on the deserts the forces from beyond this world with a little help from followers from this world put our archaeologists in quite a bit of peril.

The Mummy's Hand and the rest of the Mummy films were good enough horror films in their own right, but they never came close to matching what Boris Karloff did in that first picture.

I was a looking for a short, intense, scary horror film. Instead, I got an Abbott & Costello-like film, with a mix of comedy, horror and suspense. Well, if it was entertaining, I could adjust and still enjoy it.....but it wasn't all that good. It was filled with too many movie clichés of the day (with one exception) and the humor wasn't very strong. Nonetheless, it was passable....enough to stick with it.

By the three-quarter mark of the film, I was rooting for the mummy, which tells you how much interest I had in all the characters, even the nice guys.

Wallace Ford, a Lou Costello wannabe, as "Babe" was kind of stupid. Cecil Kellaway as the magician "The Great Solvani" was entertaining. Kellaway was such a likable actor I don't know if I ever saw him in an unlikable role.

Peggy Moran is the lone female in here, the magician's pretty daughter who you know (because it always happened) is going to for the manly serious guy of the leading twosome. In this case, that would be Dick Foran as "Steve Banning."

George Zucco looked pretty convincing as the bad guy. He was the most interesting guy in the film. His demise in this movie came as a shock - one of the few times I've seen any classic-era film go completely against the usual. The goofy "Babe" had a gun on him and threatened to shoot the villain at point-blank range with the standard, "Three.....two.....one....and then - to my utter surprise - bam, he actually shot the guy! The villain went tumbling down some long stairs, apologized to his god, and died. It was amazing, and totally unexpected. The villain, I don't think, was even armed.

Well, at least the film will be memorable for if, for nothing else, that one scene. I'll never take for granted anymore that the good guy won't do something shocking and against character! Hey, we're all capable of doing bad things.