Plot
An Ancient Egyptian priest called Imhotep (Boris Karloff) is revived when an archaeological expedition led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) finds Imhotep's mummy. Despite the warning of his friend Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan), Sir Joseph's assistant Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher), recklessly reads aloud an ancient life-giving spell. Imhotep escapes from the archaeologists, taking the Scroll of Thoth, and prowls Cairo seeking the reincarnation of the soul of his ancient lover, Princess Ankh-es-en-amon.
Ten years later, Imhotep calls upon Sir Joseph's son Frank (David Manners) and Prof. Pearson (Leonard Mudie), claims that his name is Ardath Bey, a modern Egyptian (also portrayed by Karloff), and shows them where to dig to find Ankh-es-en-amon's tomb. The archaeologists find the tomb and give the mummy and the treasures to the Cairo Museum. The archaeologists thank Imhotep for giving them the information of where to find the tomb.
Imhotep was once mummified alive for attempting to resurrect her, and, upon finding Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), a woman bearing a striking resemblance to the Princess, he attempts to kill her, with the intention of mummifying her corpse, bringing it back to life using the ancient scroll, and making her his bride. In the end, she is saved when she remembers her past life and prays to the goddess Isis to save her. The prayer causes a ray from the statue of Isis to burst out raising its arm to point a glowing ankh at Bey. He ages and crumbles into dust. Frank then calls Helen back to the world of the living as the Scroll of Thoth burns.
Read more about this topic: The Mummy (1932 film)
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“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
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The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
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—John Dryden (1631–1700)