Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

Figure 29. Murders in the Rue Morgue
Another film from Universal, both photographed and directed by Karl Freund, is
The Mummy also released in 1932, which recounts a tale of an English archaeologist, Sir
Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) who leads his team on a field expedition to Egypt and
discovers the Pharaoh’s tomb containing the 3700 year-old body of a Mummy, Im-ho-tep
(Boris Karloff), an ancient Egyptian prince who was condemned and buried alive (fig. 30).
The pacing of the first scenes of the film, along with its acting and lighting, show the
stylistic tropes of Weimar cinema of the twenties and early thirties. The rest of the film (in
fact, the mummy of the title only inhabits the first few minutes of the film) gains a new
dynamism brought about through camera movements and angle and a suggestive mise-enscène.
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