Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

I have a lot of affection for this film as it's the one Abbott and Costello monster meetup I saw more than once when I was a kid; I saw it at least twice on AMC when I was in middle school/junior high, and I actually saw it from beginning to end, something I can't say for the others. Also, thanks to the bits of information discussed before and after the movie's showings on there, I also knew from the outset that it was near the end of Abbott and Costello's long period of success and popularity, being their last movie at Universal and their penultimate one as a comedy duo. I was especially looking forward to revisiting it when I got that Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters DVD set and, having now watched it three times since, I can say that I do still enjoy it. It's not one of their best by a long shot, and they certainly could have had a better swan song for their fifteen years at Universal, as they reuse numerous routines from past movies, including both their horror and non-horror comedies, and the actual story, in addition to be very muddled at points, is cobbled together from elements that had already been done in Universal's serious Mummy movies, making things feel all the more stale. Also, it's mostly an adventure comedy, as the Mummy, while a major plotpoint, doesn't actually figure in the story that much and, even then, he's a pretty pathetic and generic monster. But, all that said, the movie does have its moments. Unlike Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bud and Lou are very much the focus here, and while they do go through a lot of old material, some of it still manages to come out funny, as do the instances of new stuff. Plus, not only is it them going up against yet another classic Universal monster, but you have them getting into misadventures in Cairo and out in the desert. How could you not be intrigued by that alone?

(In the closing credits, as well as in the shooting script, Abbott and Costello's characters were referred to as "Pete Patterson" and "Freddie Franklin," but in the actual movie, they call each other by their real names. Therefore, I'm going to refer to them as such in the plot synopsis and the review as a whole.)

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are stuck in Cairo, when Bud overhears Dr. Gustav Zoomer, an archeologist, talking with reporters about his recent discovery of the mummy of Klaris, an Ancient Egyptian prince. He's especially interested when he hears the doctor mention needing two trustworthy men to accompany the mummy when he ships it to the United States. However, Bud is not the only one who hears of Zommer's discovery: a pair of Klaris' modern day followers, as well as the cronies of a crooked woman named Madame Rontru, learn of it and inform their respective leaders. While the followers intend to bring the mummy back to its people, Rontru plans to use a medallion in the sarcophagus to guide her to the tomb of Princess Ara, which is said to contain a valuable treasure. Two of the followers, Iben and Hetsut, murder Zoomer and attempt to take the mummy from his home, but their task is made more complicated when Bud and Lou show up to apply for the job of transporting the mummy. They find Zoomer's body, while Iben and Hetsut manage to leave with Klaris, who is still alive, albeit without the medallion, which is missing. Deciding to notify the police of the murder but not wanting to get involved in the investigation, Bud and Lou take some photographs of Zoomer's body and mail them anonymously. In Klaris' tomb out in the desert, his followers celebrate his return, until the head of the followers, Semu, learns the sacred medallion has disappeared and sends Iben and Hetsut back to Cairo to retrieve it. Meanwhile, Bud, reading a newspaper story about Zoomer's murder and the anonymous mailing of the photographs, learns that Lou shot one of them while Bud was propping up the body! Now on the run from the police, they return to Zoomer's office, hoping the murderer will do the same. At the same time, Rontru and her two henchmen, Charlie and Josef, arrive to find the medallion but Bud and Lou stumble across it first. Though they're cornered by both them and the police, they manage to escape and decide to figure out the medallion's value by attempting to hock it. Now, the pair are targets of both Klaris' followers and Rontru. Even worse, Lou ends up swallowing the medallion and none of them, including Klaris himself, are going to wait for it to pass naturally!

Not only was this Abbott and Costello's last film for Universal but it was also the last time they were directed by Charles Lamont, who'd also directed them in Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops right before this. Lamont's own career also didn't last long following this film. He went on to direct three more features, each of which were the last or next-to-last entry in other popular film franchises: Lay That Rifle Down, the last in a series of films starring Judy Canova at Republic Pictures; The Kettles in the Ozarks, the penultimate of the Ma and Pa Kettle films; and the final Francis the Talking Mule movie, Francis in the Haunted House. Following that, Lamont directed episodes of Annette and Zorro before retiring altogether. He died in 1993 at the age of 98.

I find it kind of fitting that, for their final movie at Universal, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello decided to call each other by their actual names, regardless of what the script said, as it's kind of the ultimate acknowledgement of how they'd always just played themselves (they would also use their real first names in their last movie together, Dance with Me, Henry). Here, to say they constantly end up in the wrong place at the wrong time is a major understatement. Stuck in Cairo, Bud decides they should apply for the job of accompanying the mummy of Klaris when Dr. Zoomer ships it to America, but when they go to his home to meet with him, they find he's been murdered. Deciding to inform the police but not wanting to get caught up in the proceedings, Bud comes up with the idea of photographing Zoomer's body and mailing the pictures to them. However, Lou makes the mistake of taking one of the pictures while Bud is in the process of positioning the body up onto a chair, making him a suspect and getting the police after them. Things only get worse for them when they go back to Zoomer's home, hoping to catch the real murderer, and get chased by both the police and Madame Rontru and her cronies when they find Klaris' sacred medallion. Having the medallion now makes them a target of both Rontru and Klaris' followers, and when they try to learn the medallion's significance and value, they're told it's cursed. This leads to them trying to saddle each other with the medallion, culminating in Lou eating it when it ends up in a hamburger he orders at a cafe. When Rontru learns of this, she takes them both hostage and uses a fluoroscope to get an image of the medallion and its hieroglyphics. Bud and Lou then get taken along when Rontru has "Prof." Semu guide them to the ruins where Princess Ara's treasure is hidden and they learn that Semu is actually a follower of Klaris and plans to kill them all. It culminates in a climax where Bud and Lou continuously bungle into the tomb through secret passages and doors, Bud wraps himself up in bandages to pass himself off as Klaris in order to keep Rontru and her gang from stealing the real mummy, and the two of the constantly run into the very much alive Klaris, who forces Lou to cough up the medallion before he's destroyed by some dynamite that also uncovers the treasure.

One of the movie's biggest failings is that there are no other noteworthy supporting characters aside from the antagonists, and they're very flat, one-note, and uninspired. One of them is Madame Rontru (Marie Windsor), a thief who, through the assistance of her henchmen, Josef (Dan Seymour) and Charlie (Michael Ansara), plans to get a hold of the sacred medallion buried with Klaris and use it to find the tomb containing the treasure of Princess Ara. She sends Josef and Charlie to Dr.

Zoomer's home to murder him and steal Klaris, but when they get there, Zoomer has already been murdered by Klaris' followers. Moreover, when Bud and Lou come out of the place, talking about "shooting" Zoomer, they think they're the killers. Later, Rontru accompanies her men back to Zoomer's home to try to find the medallion, only for Bud and Lou to return there as well and find the medallion first. After failing to catch them and steal it back, Rontru meets them formally after they attempt to hock it and offers them $100 for it, saying it's nothing but costume jewelry. Bud, thinking it may be more valuable, asks for $5,000 and Rontru suggests they meet at a cafe to discuss payment. Because she thinks Lou is the leader of the two, she puts the moves on him to get the medallion, showing him to a private dining room at the cafe so Charlie and Josef can attempt to take it from Lou's coat. After a number of failed attempts, Rontru loses her patience and demands Lou give her the medallion, when he admits he ate it. Undeterred, she takes him and Bud to a doctor's office and uses the fluoroscope to get an x-ray of the medallion in Lou's stomach. Though she can't read hieroglyphics, luck appears to be on her side when Semu appears, posing an archeologist with an interest in the medallion. Translating the hieroglyphics, he offers to lead her to the tomb and Rontru agrees, though she tells Josef and Charlie to follow them into the desert, intending to murder Semu after they find the treasure. She also mentions that, as far as she's concerned, Bud and Lou are expendable as well. After they reach the tomb, Rontru learns from Bud and Lou who Semu really is and takes him hostage to ensure the other followers don't cause them any trouble. Now intending to steal the mummy of Klaris too, Rontru has Charlie dress up as him to temporarily take his place in the tomb, only for that plan to get bungled when Bud comes up with the same idea to try to get in good with Semu. In the end, while the treasure is uncovered and Klaris is destroyed in the process, Rontru and her men are captured by the other and you can assume they've been sent to prison by the end of the movie (although, given that Josef fainted near where the dynamite exploded, I have a feeling he might have gotten blown up as well!).

The other antagonist is Semu (Richard Deacon), the ice-cold head of Klaris' followers who sees to it that the mummy is returned to Princess Ara's tomb in the desert. During a ceremony to commemorate the event, Semu learns that his two men who brought the mummy back, Hetsut (Richard Karlan) and Iben (Mel Welles), failed to find the sacred medallion that was with Klaris in the sarcophagus. He sends them back to Cairo to find the medallion, threatening to kill them if they fail again, and when

they report back to him that Bud and Lou now have it, he goes with them to ensure they succeed in getting it. Somewhere along the way, Hetsut is captured by the police and charged with Dr. Zoomer's murder, as the autopsy revealed he died of a poison dart to the ear, which is exactly how Hetsut did kill him. When Iben tells him of this, Semu coldly decides to let Hetsut die, saying he, "Put the noose around his own neck." Learning that Rontru took Bud and Lou to a local doctor's office, Semu goes there himself and introduces himself to her as an archeologist who's interested in the medallion. Thinking she's manipulating him, she has him translate the hieroglyphics that lead to the tomb and he offers to guide there, intending for all of them to die following a feast in Klaris' honor. When Rontru learns of Semu's identity, she takes him hostage to ensure cooperation with the followers, but he refuses to tell her where the treasure is, despite her threats. Ironically, through Bud and Lou's intervention, Semu manages to escape capture, but he's unable to prevent Klaris from being destroyed and the treasure being revealed. All throughout the movie, Deacon plays Semu with the same monotone, emotionless voice, and it's also impossible to take him seriously as an Egyptian. But, what's really crazy about him is his part in the ending. Bud suggests he keep Klaris' memory alive by turning the tomb into a nightclub and share his legend with the whole world... and Semu agrees to it! Even for this kind of movie, this ending defies comprehension, not to mention that it doesn't change how Semu was the head of a cult who arranged to have people murdered and was planning to do the same to Bud and Lou.

For a while, I thought the name of the Mummy was "Klarence," going for a clever and silly play on words with "Kharis" from Universal's past Mummy movies, but no, they inexplicably call him "Klaris," which comes off as not only un-creative but just plain dumb. Maybe it was meant as a hint of how uninspired and forgettable a monster Klaris is. While all the other monsters Abbott and Costello met were actual characters in their own rights, Klaris is little more than a plot-point and occasional running gag. Said to have been a prince of Ancient Egypt, his modern day followers hope to return him to the tomb of Princess Ara in order for him to guard her treasure, and he also happens to have been buried with a sacred medallion that shows the way to the tomb, making it a MacGuffin on top of a MacGuffin. Klaris himself eventually becomes the target of Madame Rontru and her cronies, as they decide to see what kind of money they could get for him, unaware that he's still very much alive. When I say he's also a running gag, I mean it in that, early on in the movie and during the third act, Lou has the misfortune of sometimes coming across him and getting snarled and lunged at. That's all Klaris does whenever you see him: growl, grab for people, and lurch around slowly... when he's not laying in his sarcophagus or getting switched out with or mistaken for someone else disguised as him. Really, the only significant thing he does is force Lou to cough up the medallion. And because he's such a non-entity, his total screentime is only seven or eight minutes, the last of which has him fighting with Rontru and grabbing the dynamite she meant to uncover the treasure, which explodes and destroys him.

Klaris is portrayed by Eddie Parker, the stuntman who also played Mr. Hyde in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, fittingly, also doubled for Lon Chaney Jr. in the 40's Mummy movies. I feel bad for him because, not only does he have nothing to do other than lay around or occasionally lurch and grab at people, what he has to wear is very unflattering, as Klaris' actual look is just as pathetic as his character. His bandages look more like old rags and the uniform, suit-like feel of the

whole getup makes it come off as very cheap, reminding me of the look of Prem, the Mummy in the 1967 Hammer film, The Mummy's Shroud. The foam latex appliances Parker has to wear for the visible sections of his face also don't look that great, as they make his mouth look frog-like in some shots and his eyes seem so shriveled that they're almost shut, which could have been interesting but, instead, just comes off as silly-looking. You might say they made him look intentionally funny, given how this is a comedy, but if so, that's a comedown from how good the monsters in the other Abbott and Costello Meet... movies looked. Since Klaris isn't onscreen very often, the issues with his look and portrayal don't hurt the movie that much, and even when he is onscreen, you don't see these visual flaws in a lot of detail, but it sucks that Abbott and Costello's last monster encounter had to be so pathetic.

It's also disappointing but not surprising, that, by this point, Abbott and Costello had used just about every routine possible, leaving little new for them to do here. Nearly every routine that was done in their previous movies, particularly their other horror-comedies, gets reused here: Costello seeing something creepy and trying to show it to Abbott, only for it to disappear; the two of them having to manipulate and orient a dead body; Costello being the main focus of the scares and the one who often runs into the monster; Costello being seduced by a

lovely but villainous woman for her own nefarious purposes; and so on. The movie also makes use of gags and jokes seen in other comedies of the day, like Costello swallowing something the villains are after, and him and Abbott not so subtly trying to stick each other with the cursed medallion, both of which I've seen done in Three Stooges shorts. And, speaking of which, there's more slapstick here, though it's not as dominant as it was in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the guys get back to the type of dialogue-based humor they

were best known for, including a variation of "Who's On First?" But, while there's little new here, that doesn't mean the movie is never funny. A routine that Lou does with a tape recorder at Dr. Zoomer's home is one I've always found amusing, particularly with what he says into the recorder and how he says it, and the sequence in the cafe where Lou ends up eating the medallion when Bud puts it in his hamburger is hilarious due to the sound effects and his facial expressions. There's also a

running gag of Lou playing a pungi and always having to tangle with a snake that rises up in response to his playing, no matter where he happens to be when he plays it. And while it's not as clever as "Who's On First?", the routine they go through with the tools and Lou not understanding that the expression, "Take your pick," doesn't apply strictly to pickaxes does make me laugh, especially when Lou loses it at the end.

As I alluded to before, the main story is an amalgamation of the various plot elements from the Mummy movies Universal produced in the 40's, right down to the Mummy himself having a name similar to "Kharis" and being the same slow-walking, bandaged ghoul. Like Kharis and the various High Priests of Karnak that looked after and aided him in those movies, Klaris has his own followers who, after they swipe him from Dr. Zoomer, care for him and provide him with sustenance, akin to how Kharis was kept alive by the boiled

tana leaves. And, like Kharis and Princess Ananka, Klaris is meant to guard the tomb of a princess named Ara, as well as the treasure said to be hidden within it. It's never said if Klaris loved Ara in life the way Kharis did Ananka, and Ara herself never figures into the plot, but it's still the same basic setup. Though, Klaris is a pretty pathetic guardian, given how his followers are the ones who do all the work while he hardly does anything but lay in his sarcophagus and never kills anyone!

That leads me to another issue with the movie's writing: as it goes on, things tend to get dropped or the characters make decisions and statements that are very confusing. As I mentioned earlier, at some point offscreen, Hetsut gets caught by the police and is charged with Dr. Zoomer's murder due to an autopsy revealing he was killed by the poison dart Hetsut used. Not only does this arbitrarily remove Hetsut from the plot but, the question is how did the police come to this conclusion about him, since they have no way of knowing that he was the one

who killed Zoomer. Also, Rontru and her men go to Zoomer's house to look for the medallion because, as Rontru tells them, "If they [Bud and Lou] didn't bring Klaris out, then he must still be in there,"... except, the newspaper stories about Zoomer's murder said that Klaris' mummy was stolen! And speaking of which, Josef overhears Iben telling Semu about Hetsut's arrest and that Semu plans to call on Rontru at Dr. Azzui's home. So, he goes to warn her, but when he meets up with

her, she tells him, "I told you to watch those two men." I can only assume she's talking about Semu and Iben (if she means Iben and Hetsut before the latter's arrest, it wasn't clear to me), but either way, there's no reason for her to have been suspicious of them, especially since she hasn't yet met Semu and Josef came over for the express reason of warning her of his interest in the medallion. There are other inconsistencies in the plot that I'll mention as we come to them but it goes to show how, even for an Abbott and Costello comedy, this one's story is full of a lot of holes.

Like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the movie is very well-done in the visual sense, as the sets are quite nice. The Cafe Baghdad where the film opens and where a couple of significant scenes occur has a large stage area where various performances, like a crazy acrobatic show and Peggy King singing, take place, offsetting how fairly small and ordinary-looking the dining area is, although it is adorned with all the traditional Egyptian set dressings. When Madame Rontru tries to take the

sacred medallion from Lou, she has him join her in a private dining room, which has lion-head trophies lining the top section of the wall, a very fancy-looking couch, cool and exotic-looking adornments to the tables around it, and a statue of Anubis in an alcove across from the couch, with the gag being that Charlie uses various hidden openings in the walls to try to steal the medallion, thinking it's in Lou's pocket. Dr. Zoomer's home is fairly ordinary for the most part, with a nice office, bathroom, and bedroom, but the trophy room where he keeps

Klaris' sarcophagus is a big, elegant one full of objects like other sarcophagi, weapons like spears on the wall, a big pillar in the center of the room, and, most memorably, the wooden figure of a woman lying on a cot. This set is something of a precursor to the big, majestic worship room Semu has in the depths of the temple out in the desert, which has hieroglyphics adorning the walls, torches placed here and there as well, enormous pillars surrounding Semu's throne, and a spot in the

center where Klaris' sarcophagus is placed under a canopy, with a goblet-shaped cauldron burning at his feet. There's a smaller but still quite large room that leads into the worship room, the centerpiece of which is a big fire-pit. Otherwise, the interiors of the tomb are the expected old, dusty catacombs and tunnels, which are filled with other mummies, skeletons, bats, and even a random giant iguana! The Universal backlot also gets plenty of use with

its scenes set in the marketplaces and cafe exteriors in Cairo, as well as the scenes set in the exterior of the ruins in the middle of the desert. Obviously, in those scenes, you can tell the background is nothing more than a canvas backdrop but it gives it that kind of old-fashioned, studio backlot charm you often expect from Hollywood movies of this era. Also, the exterior of the temple has several classic hidden entrances into the place that Bud and Lou stumble across, as well as hidden button that activates the main secret panel leading into it.

From a cinematography standpoint, the film is well shot by George Robinson and has a very polished look, although there's nothing really that noteworthy about it, save for some of the scenes shot in partial or total darkness, like when Madame Rontru uses a fluoroscope on Lou. There are also some song and dance numbers, like the opening performance at the Cafe Baghdad, Peggy King's song, and the ceremonial dances seen in Princess Ara's tomb, and while the movie, admittedly, does stop for a bit when those do occur (the longest is

Peggy King's singing), it's not even close to as egregious as the songs in You'll Find Out or even Abbott and Costello's own Hold That Ghost. Some of them are actually kind of nice to watch or listen to, like King's smooth, elegant singing of You Came A Long Way From St. Louis or the elaborate dances Klaris' followers put on in their celebrations (both that worship room set and those dances make me think of a similar scene that takes place in The Mole People, which was made the following year).

Like most of these Abbott and Costello horror-comedies, there's not a ton of special effects work to be seen here, as most of it consists of physical effects, like the moment where Bud gets caught up in an Indian rope trick in the marketplace or special props like the snakes Lou continually charms inadvertently (either they used real snakes in some shots or those props are just really convincing with their movements and fork tongues sticking in and out). The true visual effects are seen when Lou first ends up in Princess Ara's tomb. He encounters a

bat that chases him around for a bit, which looks like it was matted into the scene after the fact, as it stands out from everything else but it works well enough. It certainly fares better than the giant iguana Lou comes across, which is not only random as all get out (it even lets out a low growl like an alligator) but is a real iguana that's very badly composited into the shots it appears in, which, mercifully, are only two. Seriously, Tarantula, which was released the same year, looks miles better than this.

The opening features some nice stock footage of the pyramids, a large digging pit, and the skyline of Cairo, as a narrator tells us, "It has been said that a man's best friend is his 'mummy.' In Egypt today, this theory is to be in great dispute, for two bold adventurers are about to discover another kind of 'mummy.'" At the Cafe Baghdad, while a wild, slapstick-filled acrobatic show is being performed on the stage (seriously, it's three girls and a guy running around and doing flips while also

knocking each other on the head), Bud and Lou are introduced as they're shown to a table up front. Right as they sit down, one of the girls gets thrown off the stage and into Lou's lap, the force of it causing him to fall right through the chair. While the woman promptly runs back onto the stage, Bud and another man help Lou back up, only for Lou to unknowingly pull Bud's chair out from under him to replace the broken one, causing him to fall flat on his butt. Bud smacks at Lou for this and goes to grab a chair from another table.

The show goes on for a bit, getting even wilder (at one point, one of the girls wraps her legs around the guy's neck and he spins her around like a top), when a waiter holding a flaming kabob walks up to them and says he'll have a waiter for them in a minute. Seeing the kabob, Lou exclaims that the meat's on fire, grabs a glass of water at the table, and tosses it at the flames, only to hit Bud in the face. Bud grumbles, "How stupid can you get?", and Lou asks, "How stupid do you want me to be?" Bud gets up to go dry himself, while on the stage,

the performance concludes with the guy getting shot with blanks and falling and smashing through a barrel full of water, thoroughly soaking the stage. Bud comes back to the table just as the waiter with the flaming kabob does as well and Lou, again, flings water at it and soaks Bud! Aggravated, he gets up to, once again, dry himself. Dr. Zoomer is then introduced as he talks to the press at his table about having discovered the mummy of Klaris, while outside, Hetsut and Iben are also introduced as they order another person to tell Semu

they've found the mummy and will soon return him to his people. Bud walks by Zoomer's table and overhears him mentioning needing two men to guard the mummy in order for him to ship it to the United States. At the same time, Josef, in his guise as the cafe manager, goes to tell Madame Rontru what Zoomer said and she tells him and Charlie to get the mummy from him. She also not so subtly hints for them to kill Zoomer if necessary, saying that if anything happens, people will blame it on Klaris' curse.

Later, at his home, Zoomer is recording what he's learned regarding the way to Princess Ara's tomb, when Hetsut and Iben show up in his doorway. Hetsut blows a poison dart that hits Zoomer in the ear and he collapses to the floor. He and Iben remove the body, while outside, Bud and Lou arrive to apply for the position of accompanying the mummy to the U.S. Bud tells Lou what Zoomer said about needing a couple of men for the job, leading to this exchange: "She afraid to travel

by herself?" "She? No, his mummy is a he." [Lou gasps in shock.] "What's wrong with that? Some mummies are men, some mummies are women." "It's a strange country." "What's strange about it, Lou?" "Your mummy. Your mummy. Wasn't she a woman?" "I never had a mummy!" "What'd your father do? Win you in a crap game?" Bud motions like he's going to smack Lou, who covers his face. Bud asks, "What's the matter?", Lou answers, "I thought you were gonna slap me," and Bud does

so. Inside the house, Hetset and Iben open Klaris' sarcophagus and find the still-loving mummy lying inside it. They're about to carry the sarcophagus out, when Bud rings the doorbell. They put the sarcophagus down and look out at the front door, as Lou knocks. The door slowly opens, revealing it wasn't locked, and Bud, thinking it's strange for Zoomer to have gone out and left his door unlocked, especially with a valuable mummy inside, shoves Lou in. They walk into the office and call for Zoomer, while

Hetsut and Iben duck back into the trophy room. Bud, knowing something's fishy, decides they'd best look around, prompting Hetsut and Iben to hide in some other sarcophagi in the room. Bud and Lou split up, with Lou walking into the trophy room. He calls for Zoomer and gets close to the sarcophagus Iben is hiding in. Iben reaches out for him but Lou obliviously walks to the other sarcophagus, in which Hetsut is waiting with a knife drawn. Lou is just about to open it, but at the

last minute, opts not to. Turning and seeing a wooden figure of a woman lying on a cot, he walks over, thinking it's Zoomer's wife, and asks where her husband is. He gets no response, not even when he whistles at her, and it's only when he grabs her arm and knocks on it that he realizes she's a dummy. He walks away, almost smacking the dummy's rear but deciding not to, and heads over to Klaris' sarcophagus. He opens the lid, looking down at Klaris' feet, and doesn't see him rise up behind him until he turns and he sees him. Klaris growling at him is enough to send him running out of the room, yelling for Bud.

Lou runs back into Zoomer's study, right past Bud when he comes running, and crashes into something in the next room. He comes stumbling back in, his hat drooping over his eyes, and tells Bud what he saw. He realizes it's the mummy of Klaris, but Lou declares, "Nobody could have a mummy like that!" Bud says, "That mummy is 4,000 years old!", and Lou comments, "She looks it." Bud drags Lou back into the trophy room but, when they get there, both the mummy and the

sarcophagus are gone. Lou insists the mummy was there, while down in the basement, Iben tells Hetsut that the sacred medallion is not in the sarcophagus. Hetsut goes back up to search Zoomer's body for it and Iben tells him to hurry, as Klaris has gone too long without sustenance. In the house, Bud tells Lou that either Zoomer moved the mummy or someone else is there. He gives Lou a camera, telling him to hide and take a picture of anybody who come into the room. Bud walks out

and Lou goes to hide in a closet in the back of the room. When he opens the door, he finds Zoomer's corpse, sitting up. Unaware that he's dead, Lou goes to photograph him and asks him to smile and then to lean back. Thinking he can't because a hanging coat behind him is in the way, Lou removes the coat and knocks the body over onto the floor. Seeing this, he realizes he's dead and runs to fetch Bud. Unbeknownst to him, Hetsut comes in and removes the body. Lou tells Bud, who's

searching a bedroom, what he's found and he asks him to show him. They run back in and, of course, when there's no corpse to be found, Bud thinks Lou is imagining things. He tells him to go into the bathroom and soak his head, and if you remember back to Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, you know where this is going. Lou walks into the bathroom, unaware that Zoomer's corpse is now hanging on the back of the door. He goes to the sink, lightly dabs his eyes with water, and

blindly grapples for a towel. He ends up using Zoomer's shirt to wipe his eyes and, when he sees him, runs out of the room, screaming for Bud. Hetsut, who was hiding in the shower, emerges and, again, removes the body. Bud gets irked when he finds no sign of the body behind the bathroom door when Lou drags him in and tells him to just go and hide. Lou walks into the bedroom and decides to hide in a wardrobe. Of course, Zoomer's body is now in there, and after Lou closes the door, he promptly comes smashing through it in a panic and runs back to the bathroom, yelling for Bud.

Reaching the bathroom, he sees someone moving around behind the shower curtain and bops him with his camera. He yells for Bud, excitedly saying he got the culprit, only for the culprit to stagger out of the shower and reveal himself to be a very angry Bud. He yells at Lou to go wait for him in the office and sends him out of the bathroom, threatening to backhand him.

Lou walks into the office, unaware that Zoomer's body, which is now in his underclothing due to Hetsut's searching, is sitting at his desk. The corpse's hand slips, turns on the tape recorder, and Zoomer's voice emits from the machine, saying, "Dear friend, I suppose you are surprised to hear the sound of my voice." Hearing this, Lou turns and, seeing the corpse, gasps and says, "You can say that again, brother! I thought you were dead!" The recording says, "I have much to tell you," and Lou sits down,

continuing to react to each part of the recording as if Zoomer is actually talking to him. "This is for your ears alone... Yesterday, I found Klaris." "Me, too." "Today, I think I have the secret of the Princess Ara. I am giving the secret to you in case something happens to me." "I won't tell anybody." "Everyone who has searched for Klaris has died." "Oh." "Now that I have found him, I fear the curse of Klaris." "Is that why you hid in the closet and the bathroom?" "Past the pyramids, amid the ruins

of an old temple, there is a large rock. Search there. And..." The recording then reaches the part where Zoomer was shot with the poison dart and his resulting scream, coupled with the body falling to the floor, causes Lou to do the same. His screaming brings Bud running, while Lou runs out of the office and past Bud. As Lou did earlier, Bud runs into the next room, crashes into something, then comes staggering back in and asks Lou what happened. Lou says, "Dr. Zoomer. He was talkin' to

me and he went, 'Aah!'" He shows Bud the body and Bud then spies the tape recorder. He switches it on and the recording starts to play again (even though it wasn't rewound), with Lou reacting as though Zoomer is speaking with him once more. Bud tells Lou that Zoomer's dead and asks him if he's the man he saw before. Lou says, "Yeah. Only the thing is, he had some clothes on." Bud decides they'd better call the police, and also has Lou take photographs of the body in case it should disappear again. He pulls

Zoomer off the floor and places him in the chair, unaware that Lou took a photo of him doing so. Meanwhile, Hetsut heads back down to the cellar and tells Iben he couldn't find the medallion. Though they fear what Semu will do to them, they have no choice but to leave, taking Klaris with them. Upstairs, after having taken the photos, Bud has Lou write a note on the back of one of them: "This is Dr. Zoomer. Signed, a friend." They then put the photos in an envelope and rush out of the house. At that moment, Josef and Charlie

arrive, only to take cover when they hear them coming. Outside the door, Bud asks Lou, "How many times did you shoot Dr. Zoomer," and Lou says, "I shot the body three times, and the head twice." With that, they leave, unaware that Josef and Charlie overheard them and now have the wrong idea.

Instead of calling the police themselves, Bud decides they should just send the pictures to the cops. He pays a young boy they run into in the marketplace to deliver the pictures, though he has Lou give the boy a tip for it. After they send the boy off, they turn and almost walk straight into a camel, who brays at them. In the ruins of the temple in the desert, Klaris' followers celebrate his return, and after an exotic bit of dancing to commemorate it, Semu goes to give Klaris the

sustenance needed to keep him alive. But, when he opens the sarcophagus, he finds the sacred medallion is missing. When Hetsut tells him he and Iben couldn't find it, Semu orders them back to Cairo to search again, saying they will die if they fail to find it this time. Back with Bud and Lou, as they dine on the outside of the Cafe Baghdad, Lou tells Bud, "Buddy, my boy, if you find the fellow who killed Dr. Zoomer, you got the murderer!" Bud initially thinks he's hit upon something, only

to then knock his forehead and ask, "What makes you so dumb?" Seeing a woman in black come out of the cafe, Lou goes up to her to try to prove his point, but the minute he speaks to her, she launches into a random tirade, saying, "How dare you try to make a date with me?! I work in a cafe, I do my act. Nobody makes a date with me. I finish my act. So, you think you're going to make a date with me, huh?!... You think I am going to tell you I am not married, I live by myself, and my phone number is 23-41-648? Oh, ho! Just

because I work in the cafe. I do my act." That wasn't everything she said, but her French accent and quick ranting makes it hard to understand. She then starts ranting in French, and according to IMDB's trivia page, what she says is, "But it's important. I hope you don't take me as a fool because I'm a poor little woman who needs to work to earn her bread. But you don't need to be such an ass to be with me." Taking off one of her sequin gloves, and smacking Lou in the face with her bare hand, she adds, "And if you dare to follow me

home...", before handing him her card and confirming what it is. At this point, Bud walks up, asking what's going on, and the woman gives him the same spiel in French she gave Lou. Bud continually interrupts her, saying, "Lady, I don't think I can!", when Lou asks, "What's she saying? Maybe I can!" The lady lets out an angry, "Ooh!", and storms off. Bud makes Lou sit down and tells him he's surprised he accepted a card from a total stranger. He demands he give him the card until he can get rid of it, then puts it in his shirt's breast pocket.

A newspaper boy comes running by, shouting the headline of Dr. Zoomer having been found murdered. Bud asks for a paper and pays for it, but when the boy looks at him, he becomes scared, yells, "You!", and runs away. Bud asks, "What's the matter with him?", and Lou says, "He must've saw somethin'," when the two of them then glance at each other and do a double-take at the sight of their faces. Bud reads from the paper, "The noted archeologist, Dr. Gustav Zoomer, was found

murdered in his home, and the famous mummy, Klaris, stolen. Police expect to take the murderer into custody any minute, thanks to some pictures sent by an anonymous friend." He turns the paper over to see the full story on another page, commenting that Lou's pictures may help solve the murder, when he sees the picture on the page is of him propping Zoomer's body up! Bud yells at Lou for this, growling, "What've you got to say?!", and Lou glances at the paper and comments, "Believe

me, he looks better than you do." Bud is about to slap him for that, when he looks and sees the newspaper boy tipping off the cops. The two of them slip into the cafe, hoping to find a back way out, as the police head towards it. They question a waiter, who happens to have been in on Hetsut and Iben's plan to murder Zoomer, and they show him the picture in the newspaper, asking him to confirm if Bud was there. The waiter feigns ignorance, asking which person in the photo they mean, and one of the cops says, "The one that's alive!" The waiter

then asks, "Which one is alive?", and the cop exclaims, "The big one! Have you seen him?!" He answers that he can't say, as it's been a busy day. Bud and Lou then come out of the cafe, disguised as street beggars, with Bud carrying a basket and Lou a pungi, and walk off into the streets. However, the cops find them suspicious, especially with how they keep looking back, and follow after them. They round a corner and walk until they come to a spot where a bunch of wicker baskets are on display. They sit down and Bud sways his

basket back and forth, asking for money, while Lou plays his pungi. A cobra, charmed by his playing, rises out of the basket behind him and raises up and leans over his hood, sticking its forked tongue at his face. Seeing it, Lou loses his nerve and his playing deteriorates into a jumbled mess until he stops.

The snake slinks back into its basket, but Bud tells Lou to keep playing, as the police are still watching them. Lou has Bud trade places with him and then plays the pungi, watching the basket he was sitting in front of. To his surprise, the cobra doesn't emerge... but one does emerge from the basket to his right. Not seeing the one cobra gives Lou the confidence to keep on playing, only for him to then turn and see the one to his right. He panics at the sight of it and runs off, with Bud following after him. The

police pursue them as they run down the crowded street, only to see a couple of more policemen standing and watching at the other end. They try to go back the way they came, only to be cut off by the initial policemen, and run back into the crowded street and sit down in the middle of it. Bud takes a rope out of his basket and tells Lou to start playing. Lou does so frantically and the rope levitates up into the air as Bud holds onto the end of it. From up there, he watches as the two pairs of policemen, convinced that they are who they're

passing themselves off as, walk away. Bud tells Lou to stop playing and, when he does, the rope collapses and Bud crashes down into a vegetable cart. Lou runs to the cart and prepares to wheel it and Bud off, when Bud sits up and asks what happened. Lou konks him over the head, knocking him out, and does as he planned, saying he got him into enough trouble.

That night, Madame Rontru, Josef, and Charlie go to Dr. Zoomer's home to search for the medallion (again, for some reason, Rontru thinks Klaris is still inside), hoping to get to it before Bud and Lou return. Sure enough, as soon as they enter and head into the trophy room, Bud and Lou show up outside, Bud expecting Zoomer's murderer to return to the scene of the crime so they can nab him, although Lou is content with running should they meet him. They enter and Bud has Lou set

Zoomer's tape recorder for a playback, intending to use it to catch the murderer, while he looks around. He also tells him to call for him if anyone comes in. Lou walks over to the doorway Bud walked through and sees his reflection in a mirror on the wall, causing him to panic. Bud comes back in and Lou tells him the murderer is there. That's when Bud sees what he's talking about and tells Lou it's just his reflection. He then tells him to buck up and be a man, adding, "Be brave! Be tough like me!...

Nothing scares me!" Bud walks back into the room he was investigating, while Lou, mocking his yelling that nothing scares him, wanders back over to the tape recorder, saying he can't be tough. Then, he wonders if he could and records himself growling, "This is a gun, and I'm gonna use it! Put your hands up, or I'll fill you full of lead! Back up! Back up! Back up!" He plays it back to listen to himself and see if he's really tough now, when Bud wanders back into the office. Hearing the recording, he puts his hands up

and starts backing up, walking into Lou, who puts his finger to his back and stifles a laugh. Bud begs the "killer" not to shoot, when Lou tells him it's just him. Bud then proceeds to push him over the chair at the desk. Elsewhere in the house, Rontru, Josef, and Charlie overhear Bud and Lou talking, when Bud says they'll search the trophy room. The criminals quickly hide, with Rontru taking the place of the wooden dummy lying on the cot from before. Outside, as they're about to enter the trophy room, Lou attempts to slip away, but Bud stops him by grabbing him right at the base of his buttocks, pulling him around, and shoving him into the room!

Bud tells Lou they should search for any secret doors and passageways by knocking on various objects and walls. While Lou is distracted again by the "dummy" on the cot, Bud goes over to the wall and knocks on it. Lou then says, "Come in," and when Bud asks who he's talking to, he says, "Someone's knocking at the door." Bud tells him that was him and continues knocking on the wall, while Lou walks over to the cot and knocks about it. He's about to knock Rontru on the rear but he,

instead, opts to smack her there with his hat. Regardless, this is enough for her to shove him when his back is turned, causing him to stumble forward and grab onto an idol on a pedestal to stop himself. Bud, hearing the racket, walks over to him and, after confirming he wasn't the one who pushed him, inquires about the idol. Lou shakes it and, hearing something rattling around inside it, thinks it's a piggy bank. He shakes it around a little more, when the sacred medallion tumbles out of its

mouth. The two of them inspect it and Lou claims it for himself, when Rontru turns and sees it. She then drops the charade and yells for Josef and Charlie to get it. Bud and Lou run through a door on the room's left side and push a dresser up against it. On the other side, Josef and Charlie both open the door from out there and Bud and Lou obliviously push the dresser right through the doorway and up against them. It's only then that they realize the futility of their actions and run

back into the room and through another door in the back of it, with the thieves right behind them. They make it back around to the trophy room through another door on the same wall and Lou locks the other door, as the baddies try to break it down. Bud tells him they should just get out of there and they run to the front door, only for the police to come in, forcing them back into the trophy room. They shut the other door behind them and Bud tells Lou to go back to the door the thieves are locked behind and open it on his

signal. On either door, the thieves and the police both decide to barrel through it and break it down. When they charge, Bud gives Lou the signal and they open each door at the same time. The police and the thieves crash into each other in the middle of the room, save for Rontru, who stands back and watches it all unfold. Lou tries to slip past them, when Rontru tells the police he's the murderer. All of the men chase after him, when he trips while running into Zoomer's office, allowing the police to grab him. Josef and Charlie back up Rontru's

claims about Lou and the policeman holding him tells his partner to phone for the patrol. Lou manages to break free, runs to the desk, and switches on the recorder, playing his recording from before (every time he does, the music that played during that original moment is heard again, as if it were recorded as well). While everyone falls for it, putting up their hands and turning their backs, Lou escapes through the window (I don't know what happened to Bud in all this chaos). When the police turn and see what happened, they realize they've been tricked and rush out the front door. Rontru and her men then decide to keep searching for Bud and Lou in order to get the medallion; unbeknownst to them, Hetsut and Iben are also in the house, eavesdropping.

After Hetsut and Iben tell Semu that Lou has the medallion, and Semu accompanies them in retrieving it, Bud and Lou are shown walking around the marketplace, with Bud figuring the medallion has some connection to Zoomer's murder and deciding to try to hock it to learn of its value. Lou, however, is distracted by a beggar holding out a bucket and he gives the man a coin, only to take the bucket and put it on his head, thinking it's a hat. He then tells the man it's too big

for his head and gives it back to him while taking back his coin. Bud whacks him over the head and yanks him into a shop, as beggar looks confused at his bucket. In the shop, Bud shows the proprietor the medallion, asking how much they could get for it, but the man panics at the sight of it and backs away, raving about it being evil and yelling at them to take it away. He disappears into the back room, continuing to yell, and Bud and Lou decide to try another shop. Before they can leave, Rontru,

tipped off by Josef, who was watching them earlier, comes in and asks for the proprietor. Not recognizing her because of the veil she wore the night before, Bud tells her about the proprietor running off in a panic and Lou gives her a sudden verbal reenactment of his raving. Rontru, claiming the medallion is nothing but costume jewelry, offers to give them $100 for it, tugging at Lou's chin and saying it would remind her of him. Bud then takes the medallion back and asks for $5,000 so she wouldn't

forget him. Annoyed, Rontru says she doesn't carry that kind of money around with her and offers to meet up at the Cafe Baghdad to discuss payment. Lou dreamily says, "I'll be there," and Bud adds, "I'll be there too," with Rontru sneering, "I can hardly wait," before leaving. Excited at the prospect of getting $5,000, Bud starts figuring up what they could do with it, besides getting back to the United States. In his figuring, Lou gets the short end of the stick, getting a third-class ticket instead of first-class and getting his shoes shined

while Bud plans to buy himself a new outfit. Lou walks over to a counter and decides to try his luck at playing the pungi again. When he does, a cobra, of course, emerges from a basket behind him, swaying back and forth to the music. Lou is oblivious to it, and when he stops playing for a moment, it sinks back into the basket. He puts his hat over the top of the basket and, after blowing some dust out of the mouthpiece, starts playing again. The cobra rises up under his hat and sways back and forth, causing it do the same. When he

sees this, Lou is freaked out like before and stops playing. He removes the hat, sees the cobra, and almost runs into the back room, when the proprietor comes back out, now suddenly willing to buy the medallion. Bud and Lou tell him they've got a new buyer, when Hetsut and Iben also emerge from the back room, brandishing knives. Seeing them, Bud and Lou run out of the store and try to keep the door shut behind them, when the knives' blades suddenly puncture through it, sending them running off into the marketplace. Hetsut and Iben are about to give chase, when Semu stops them, saying they'll wait until nightfall.

Back at the Cafe Baghdad, after Peggy King gives her performance, Bud and Lou come in. While they look for Rontru, Lou spots a waiter carrying two flaming kabobs but Bud stops him before he can get any ideas. Not seeing her, Bud decides they should sit down and have some hamburgers and coffee, bragging about the fancy dinners they'll have when they sell the medallion; Josef overhears this from nearby. Seating themselves at a table, Bud gives a waiter their order of hamburgers and

coffee. He also decides to, again, try to gauge how valuable the medallion is and shows it to the waiter. Like the shop owner, he's horrified at the sight of it and stammers, "It means death. Death... to... whoever holds it," before walking away. That prompts Bud to slip the medallion into the breast pocket of Lou's coat when he's not looking. Lou, telling him he'd better get rid of the medallion, realizes he just did when he starts removing his coat and hears it rattling. Taking it out of his

pocket, he slips it into Bud's own breast pocket when he's busy lighting his cigarette. He feels it when he puts his hand in his pocket and, leaning in to talk to Lou, slips it back into his pocket. Lou then realizes what he did and takes the medallion back out. A flower girl comes by and offers some to Lou. Lou takes a bouquet, which he drops the medallion into, and points at another batch of flowers, asking how much they are. The girl tells him they're a dollar, he then asks how much the bouquet

he's holding is, and when she says it's a dollar too, he gives it back, saying, "I ain't got no money." The girl, looking at the bouquet, says, "They're a little wilted. You can have them for nothing," and hands it back to Lou. The girl walks away and, when a waiter comes by, carrying a tray, Lou tosses the bouquet onto it. The waiter then comes back and gives him the medallion, saying he "accidentally" put the jewelry on his tray with the flowers. The waiter from before then returns with their hamburgers and Lou quickly puts the medallion

under his bun and switches plates with Bud when he's not looking. Bud sees what he did when he grabs some salt and takes off the bun. He points off to the right, asking, "Isn't that a beautiful girl over there?", and when Lou looks, he switches the plates back. The plates knock on the table, tipping Lou off, and he points to Bud's right, saying, "I believe that girl over here is much prettier," and switches the plates again when he looks. Like before, Bud knows what happened and says, "How can you compare this girl with that gorgeous creature over

there? Why, it's ridiculous!", and switches the plates again when Lou looks. Getting aggravated, Lou says he thinks the "girl" on Bud's side is prettier, but this time, he simply bangs the plates on the table. Thinking he did it again, Bud points back and says, "I still say that girl over there is the prettiest girl in the place!", predictably switching the plates when Lou looks. Lou has to stifle a laugh when Bud goes to salt his burger and sees that he tricked him. Having had enough, Bud drops the medallion into the ketchup.

Unbeknownst to both of them, Lou pours some ketchup onto his hamburger, along with the medallion. When he bites into it, a loud crunch tips him off that something's very wrong, as does the metal clinking that accompanies his chewing. Despite this, he goes on chewing, and even takes another bite, only to be met with another loud crunch. Again, he goes on chewing, even though he's clearly uncomfortable, and swallows it, leading to the sound of the medallion clanging downwards

and hitting the bottom with a loud crash, much to Lou's shock (again, Costello's facial expressions, combined with the sound effects, make this hysterical). Lou asks Bud if he can try his and he lets him. Biting into it, he sees there's nothing wrong with it and gives it back. He goes back to his own hamburger and bites into it with another loud crunch, followed by more clinking as he eats. This time, he decides to just go with it, when he looks and sees Hetsut and Iben watching from nearby. He swallows the chunk he's chewing,

which, again, clangs on its way down his gullet and lands with a crash. Rontru shows up and walks to Bud and Lou's table, saying she has a private dining room, though she lets Bud know when he goes to get up that, when she says has one for "us," she specifically means just her and Lou. She says she prefers to deal directly and smacks Lou on the back, causing the medallion to rattle inside him. She then leads him to the private dining room, under the watchful eyes of both Josef and Hetsut and Iben.

Once inside, Rontru asks Lou if he has the medallion and if she could see it, the latter of which he shakes his head to. She takes his coat off him and hangs it on a rack, then goes to put on some music. While Lou is distracted by this, a hand reaches out from the wall and fumbles around on the inside of the coat. Seeing this, Lou smacks the hand with his hat and carries the rack away from the wall. Rontru asks him what the problem is and he says, "Termites." She takes the rack and puts it under a

lion's head mounted near the ceiling. She then sits Lou down on the sofa and goes to fix them some drinks. The hand then reaches out through the lion's mouth, grabs Lou's coat, and starts pulling it through. Like before, Lou sees this and grabs his coat, yanks it away, and smacks the hand when it reaches out of the mouth; when he does, the eyes in the head continually cross back and forth. Becoming exasperated, Rontru, nonetheless, walks over to Lou and tells him the lion ate a man before he was shot, with Lou adding, "And when they

stuffed him, they forgot to pull the guy out." This time, Lou himself opts to hang his coat up, putting it on the hands of what appears to be a statue of Anubis in an alcove. However, the statue is Charlie dressed up as Anubis and he searches the coat while he has it. Seeing this, Lou yanks the coat away and puts it back on. The panel in the alcove revolves, swinging around an actual statue of Anubis. Lou goes for the door but Rontru stops him. He says he's leaving because of pick-

pockets and he tries to prove himself by pounding the Anubis' chest, only to hurt his hand and blow on his fingers. Rontru guides him back to the sofa, pays him his money, and then asks him to light her cigarette. When he does, a hand comes through the floor, slips into his coat's interior pocket, and pulls out the money. Lou spots it as it goes back through the floor, leaving behind one of the bills. Lou picks up the bill, knocks on the table, and the hand comes back up. He goes and gives it the bill, then

rushes for the door. Rontru, having had enough, stops him and yells for Charlie and Josef. Both of them come running into the room, while Lou opens the door, only for Bud to fall in, having been eavesdropping on the outside. Rontru and Charlie grab Lou by his arms, the former demanding he give her the medallion, and he reveals he ate it... with ketchup.

Iben tells Semu that Hetsut has been arrested for Dr. Zoomer's murder, as well as that Rontru has taken Lou to the home of a Dr. Azzui. Semu decides to pay them a visit, unaware that Josef has been listening from nearby. At Azzui's home, the doctor refuses to help Rontru, but she says she's perfectly capable of handling the fluoroscope she intends to use on Lou to see if he's telling the truth about having eaten the medallion. After she has Charlie take Azzui away, she orders Lou to remove his coat and unbutton his shirt. She then forces him

over to the fluoroscope and has Charlie turn off the lights. Using the machine, she sees that Lou's stomach is full of things that shouldn't be there, like a marble, some buttons, and safety pins. Bud asks her to look for his missing tie clasp as well but Charlie tells him to be quiet. He then suggests they cut Lou open to prove he has the medallion but Rontru comes up with a less messy idea. She has Charlie turn on the lights and shake Lou around for a bit, before putting him back in the fluoroscope and using it again. This time, she sees

some letters from a necklace Zoomer attached the medallion to, which spell out, "HELP!" Irritated, Rontru drags him out of the fluoroscope and tells him he'll be sorry if he lied about eating the medallion. Charlie, again, suggests they cut him open but Lou asks to be shaken up again. This time, Rontru tells Bud to help Charlie, pointing her gun at him when he initially refuses. Charlie has Bud grab Lou's feet while he holds him from under his armpits and the two of them swing him around in the air, as he yells frantically. Their hands then slip and Lou smashes up through the ceiling, his legs dangling through the hole. Charlie has Bud climb up onto the examination table to pull him back down, but when he climbs up, Lou falls onto the table's other end, sending Bud into the ceiling.

After that, they manage to get an x-ray image of the medallion in Lou's stomach, when they hear the sound of the front door's bell. Lou goes to answer it but Charlie stops him. Rontru answers the door and finds it's Josef, who tells her that someone else is after the medallion. The bell rings again and Rontru has Josef hide in the examination room with the others. When she opens the door this time, Semu walks in and says he's looking for Bud and Lou, lying about being a "student of archeology" interested in the medallion. Seeing an opportunity,

Rontru tells Semu to wait as she goes back into the examination room. She tells Josef what's going on and that she plans to have Semu translate the hieroglyphics on the medallion, not knowing that Semu is listening from the door's other side. She takes the x-ray to him and Semu, seeing the medallion's image, comments, "What an extraordinary place to keep it." Looking at the hieroglyphics through a monocle, he makes the same translation Zoomer did about a place past the

pyramids and a large rock near the ruins of an ancient temple. He then offers to lend his knowledge of the desert and guide her to the spot. Rontru asks him to meet her at the Cafe Baghdad before dawn and that she'll bring two men to help them. Suggesting she bring Lou, in case anything happens to the x-ray, Semu then says good night and leaves. Rontru tells Josef that he and Charlie are to follow them into the desert. Josef asks how much of a cut Semu is getting and Rontru answers, "He's leaving that to my generosity. If he is a professor, he has a lot to learn."

The next day, Semu, Rontru, and Bud and Lou travel to the ruins, where Iben and some other of Semu's followers are waiting. Seeing them approaching, Iben tells the others to warn the rest of the followers. While Semu and Rontru gracefully approach the base of the ruins on horseback, Bud and Lou follow with a camel that's carrying their supplies. Bud gets the camel to lie down so they can unload, but Lou falls off its hump and crashes to the ground as a result. After he and Rontru talk about the curse of Klaris and whether

it's enough to make either of them turn back, Semu goes to "investigate" the ruins. Meanwhile, as they're unloading the camel, Bud pulls a long wooden rod out and unintentionally whacks Lou in the back of the head with it. Rontru then orders them to pitch the tent when they've finished unloading. Her saying this prompts Lou to let out a dreamy sigh and he says, "She's pretty," only to say he's talking about the horse, to Bud's annoyance. While the others are distracted, Semu pushes in a piece of the large rock mentioned in the hieroglyphics, opening up a revolving

door, which he slips through. He heads down a tunnel and into the room with the large fire-pit, where the followers are praying as they wait. He tells them he's brought back the person with the medallion and the followers bow down and pray at the doorway leading into the worship room. Outside, Rontru has met up with Charlie and Josef, telling them they're going to take whatever they can get, including the mummy of Klaris, and that they're going to leave Semu behind, as well as Bud and

Lou, if necessary. Unbeknownst to them, Iben overheard from the ridge behind them and runs to tell Semu of this. Semu notes, "So, two more mice come to nibble at the golden cheese." He then says that they'll die after the feast of Klaris and tells his followers to prepare for it.

Outside, Bud and Lou are preparing to pitch the tent near the large rock, when Lou flings the unpacked tent at Bud. In retaliation, Bud throws it back at him, knocking him through the panel in the rock and stranding him in the tunnels within the ruins. He sees a bat flying towards him and runs down the tunnel away from it, thinking he lost it after he rounds a corner and comes upon a door in an alcove. He opens it, only for the bat to show up and flutter off to his side. His reaction, however, doesn't make sense, as he doesn't appear

to see the bat and instead reacts to and peers around the corner of the alcove after, I think, the door makes a loud squeaking sound. The bat then flies away and Lou, again, looks around the corner and breathes a sigh of relief. (Maybe I wasn't paying attention but I don't know quite what happened there.) Regardless, Lou opens the door again and looks inside to see a badly decomposed, mummified body. Horrified, he backs away, only to then turn and see a giant iguana sitting in a small tunnel, looking at him. He screams in terror and

fumbles away, smashing through a weak stone wall, behind which is a skeleton hanging from some chains. Lou tries to run back out, only to put his head between the skeleton's legs, causing it to sit on his shoulders. Its chained hands get knocked loose from the ceiling and dangle down in front of Lou's face. Knowing they're not his hands, Lou nervously asks if it's Bud but realizes they're not his either and runs back down the tunnel in a panic until the skeleton slips off his back. The giant iguana

from before rounds a corner up ahead of him and Lou then runs around that same corner, only to come smashing through the wall in a panic when he runs into the iguana. Running off when he hears it growling, he finds his way into the worship room, slipping and sliding across the floor. He gets up and walks over to the spot where Klaris' sarcophagus is sitting and obliviously sits down in front of it to collect himself. Klaris then rises up, the sarcophagus' lid creaking loudly, and Lou,

hearing it, slowly turns around to look. He turns so slowly, in fact, that Klaris has time to step out of the sarcophagus, close the lid, and sneak up behind him. Lou is oblivious to the mummy standing right behind him as he opens the sarcophagus himself, looks inside it, then turns around and scans the room. Finally, when he turns around again, he sees Klaris, who growls and reaches for his throat. Lou runs back to the doorway, slipping and sliding across the floor again.

He gets up and runs when Klaris growls at him again, heading straight through the room with the fire-pit, only to see someone coming and run through another doorway across from it. Semu leads his followers into the room and, from the doorway, Lou overhears him say he plans to lead the intruders into the worship room, where they're to be sacrificed. Lou then runs back to the tunnels and sees the bat from before coming at him again. He runs down the tunnel, ducks in order to dodge the bat, and when it passes by, he leans against a wall

in order to catch his breath, only for the hidden panel to swing around and knock him back outside. He knocks into Bud's backside, causing him to fall over the tent as he's trying to pitch it. He gets Bud to his feet and tells him that he saw Klaris inside and says they should tell Rontru and the professor about it, apparently having not recognized Semu when he was in the temple. Bud, however, says they should find the mummy and profit from it themselves. He asks, "Where will we find the mummy?", and Lou says, "Don't worry. The

mummy will find you." Bud presses him and Lou tries to find the hole in the rock leading into the temple, though Bud believes there's nothing there. Lou bends over and asks Bud to kick him in the rear, which he does. Lou gets knocked into the rock and the panel swings open again. Excited, Bud forces Lou to accompany him into the tunnels. He leads him to the worship room and Klaris' sarcophagus, telling him how he rose out of it and attempted to choke him. Bud is even more excited at the notion of a living mummy and tries to get

Lou to sit by the sarcophagus, saying he'll warn him with a whistle when Klaris rises again. Lou isn't so keen on that plan, especially with Bud's feeble, nonexistent whistle, and makes him sit in front of the sarcophagus while he watches from nearby. Bud goes along with it and they take their seats. Lou says, "Mummy, you can come out now," and Klaris does, only he emerges from a dark alcove in the wall behind Lou. Seeing him, Bud attempts to whistle, and Lou's reaction is, "What're

you whistlin' for? I'm the one who's supposed to whistle!" Bud tries to whistle again, only managing to blow air, then runs out of the room. Confused, Lou gets up and walks forward, asking Bud where he went. Klaris walks directly behind him, and when Lou knocks his hat off and goes to pick it up, he looks between his legs and sees Klaris' own right behind him. He breathlessly tries to call for Bud, then tries to whistle, only to find that now he can't do it, and becomes even more terrified when

he walks forward and sees Klaris' legs do the same. Grabbing his hat and bending back up, he watches as Klaris wraps his arms around his torso from behind and squeezes. This causes him to cough up the medallion, which Klaris takes and then sends him running out of the room when he snarls at him.

Bud and Lou make it out of the secret passage, when Rontru appears and asks if they've seen Semu. Now, suddenly, they know that Semu isn't actually a professor, with Bud saying he has a whole "gang" and he plans to kill them after the celebration of Klaris, which he himself didn't overhear him say. Rontru then tells Josef and Charlie of this and orders Bud and Lou to go behind the rocks and dig a hole. As they go, Lou comments, "Somebody's going to get buried," moaning as he walks by Charlie and Josef. While

they and Rontru wait for Semu to come through the panel so they can ambush him, Bud and Lou find a good enough spot to dig. Lou tells him, "Here, take your pick," and Bud takes a shovel from amid the tools. Lou then takes the shovel back and motions to the pick-axe, leading to this exchange: "I picked the shovel. The shovel is my pick." "Oh, no. This is a pick. This is a shovel." "That's what I picked is the shovel." "How can a shovel be the pick?" "Look, if I'd have wanted a pick, I'd have picked the pick. But, instead, I picked the shovel

because the shovel is my pick." "Oh, in other words, you don't want to pick the pick because the pick is a pick and the shovel isn't a pick. If you picked the pick, the shovel isn't a pick." (I don't think I got everything Costello said, as he says it so quickly and all these "picks" get confusing.) "Now, you got it." "Now, I got it. I don't even know what I'm talkin' about." Bud tries to clear things up for him by taking the tools and telling Lou to take his pick. Lou, of course, takes the pick-axe and Bud

goes, "There you are. Now, the pick is your pick." Still confused, Lou takes all the tools and, again, tells Bud to take his pick. Bud takes the shovel and Lou exclaims, "Ya took the shovel! Here's the pick over here!", and throws the pick to the ground in frustration. Fed up, Bud gives Lou the shovel and just tells him to dig. Bud then tries to figure a way for them to get out of the mess they're in, when Lou digs up a tiny idol and exclaims, "A midget mummy!" Annoyed, Bud shoves him and he

tumbles backwards and through a small panel in the stone wall behind him, causing him to fall into a catacomb full of sarcophagi and vases. Unaware of this, Bud comes up with a plan to strike a bargain with Semu, noting how Lou has the medallion. Realizing he's alone, Bud grumbles, "Oh, sure. Leave me here to do all the work. You don't care who does it or how it's done." He sits down on the ground in front of the wall and leans up against it, going through the panel himself.

At that point, Semu emerges from the temple and is held at gunpoint by Rontru and her men. Unafraid, he tells her she won't escape his followers but she says they're going to hold him hostage as a bargaining chip. Meanwhile, Bud and Lou try to get out of the catacomb, with Bud giving Lou a boost up along the wall. However, he finds a mummified corpse up there and faints backwards into Bud's arms. After they get up, they try to find another exit, when they hear some music playing nearby. The sound comes from the worship room,

where Klaris' followers perform an exotic dance as part of the ceremony (the real star of the dance number is a male dancer who does some pretty elaborate and exotic moves with his arms, hands, and head, as well as his whole body). When the dance is done, Iben notes Semu's absence and tells the followers they must search for him. Back with Bud and Lou, Bud opens up a sarcophagus lying up against the wall and finds that there's an opening behind it. He tells Lou to come on, when he does a double-take at the small mummy on the inside of the lid

before climbing through. Lou does the same when he follows after him. Outside, Rontru dresses Charlie up as Klaris, while Josef digs the hole Bud and Lou were meant to. She tells Josef to go get Klaris so Charlie can take his place, then throws a tarp over Semu, who lies on the ground, his hands tied and his mouth taped shut. Back down in the temple, Bud tells Lou of his plan to try to bargain with Semu over the medallion, but Lou informs him that Klaris made him cough up the medallion

and now has it. At first distraught, Bud then comes up with another way to get on Semu's good side. In the worship room, Josef and Charlie open Klaris' sarcophagus in order to remove him. Josef is shocked when Klaris rises up in front of him, but Charlie nonchalantly knocks the mummy over the head, rendering him unconscious. Josef then takes Klaris, throws him over his shoulder, and carries him out, while Charlie lays down in the sarcophagus and closes the lid. At that very moment, Bud and Lou walk in. Bud tells Lou they'll take Klaris out and bury him, while he takes his place. They open the sarcophagus and Charlie attacks Lou, choking him, but Bud knocks him out with a club. Lou then carries him out over his shoulders.

As Josef buries Klaris in the pit outside, Rontru removes the tarp covering Semu and asks if he's now willing to reveal the location of Princess Ara's treasure. Semu shakes his head but Rontru isn't fazed and covers him back up. She grabs a metal detector and has Josef follow after her with some explosives. As soon as they're gone, Bud and Lou show up, carrying Charlie, whom Lou dumps in another part of the pit. Bud finds a bunch of bandages lying on the ground nearby and starts using them to disguise himself as Klaris.

While Rontru and Josef head into the depths of the temple, avoiding Klaris' followers, Lou covers Charlie over with dirt in the pit, while Bud disguises himself as Klaris (I really don't know what he hopes to accomplish with this, except maybe have Semu agree to have him stand in for Klaris and chase the thieves away?). When he's finished with his work, Lou sits across from the pit, when Klaris poke his head out of the dirt and growls at him. Lou quickly whacks him over the head with his shovel and covers him back over

when he slips back down under the dirt. But then, Charlie regains consciousness and Lou, doing an exaggerated take, gives him the same treatment and covers him back over with dirt. Lou runs to Bud, who's now totally swathed in bandages, and tells him they need to leave, when they hear some muffled moaning. Thinking it's "Klaris" again, Lou goes to grab the shovel and hit him, only to trip backwards onto the tarp covering Semu. Semu rises up under it and lets out some muffled yells, as

Lou panics and frantically calls for Bud. Bud comes over and removes the tarp. Seeing that it's Semu, he has Lou help get him up, then sit him down. Unfortunately, Lou manipulates Semu over to the section of the wall with the secret panel, which he, predictably, falls through when he sits down against it. Bud yells at Lou for ruining their chance to get on his good side and decides they should still go and try to save the treasure. When they're gone, both Charlie and Klaris come to at the same time and dig their way out of the pit. Klaris sends Charlie running off in a panic when he growls at him and then makes his way down into the temple, following Bud and Lou, while he, in turn, is followed by Charlie.

In the worship room, Rontru uses the metal detector to find the spot where the treasure is hidden, which happens to be behind a section of wall behind Klaris' sarcophagus. She and Josef go to get Charlie out of the sarcophagus, only to be surprised when they open it and find he's not there. Regardless, Rontru is anxious to get on with excavating the treasure. Elsewhere, Bud and Lou walk the tunnels, unaware that Klaris is following them, while Charlie wanders off by himself. In one tunnel, the two of them turn and see the followers

nearby. Unbeknownst to Lou, Bud runs off by himself and he hides with Klaris along a wall. They watch as the followers go by, two of them walking right by them without seeing them, when Klaris growls at Lou. Lou laughs at first, but when he turns around and sees that it's Klaris, he runs off down the tunnel. Bud then comes around the corner and, without looking, takes Klaris' hand, thinking he's Lou, and pulls him down the other tunnel. Klaris growls at him, and Bud initially thinks Lou is trying to scare him, but then runs off when he

sees it's the genuine article. Klaris backs up into a chamber behind him and, in that moment, all three mummies bump into each other, though Klaris sends the two fakes running. In the worship room, Josef, despite thinking there might be something to Klaris' curse, prepares to light the dynamite with a torch. In the next room, Bud yells for Lou and runs to the worship room, followed by both Charlie and Klaris. All three of them appear in the room's doorway, perplexing Josef and Rontru, and while

Josef faints with the torch, Rontru pulls out a gun and points it at them. She orders for Charlie to step forward and raise his hand, but all three mummies do so. She fires, shooting the floor at Bud and Charlie's feet and they run out of the room, while Klaris lumbers towards her, unafraid. Rontru unloads her gun into Klaris but her bullets don't even slow him down. When he reaches her, she grabs a torch and smacks him with it, but he grabs it and tosses it aside. It lands next to the dynamite on the floor and lights the fuse.

Semu's followers find and untie him, and he leads them to the worship room. There, Klaris grapples with Rontru and shoves her to the pedestal where his sarcophagus sits. When he comes at her again, she grabs the lit dynamite and tosses it at him. He catches it in his hands and she runs from him as he chases her around his sarcophagus and to the doorway, where she's met and captured by the others, including Bud and Charlie. Seeing Klaris raise the dynamite up above his head, Semu warns him that he'll kill them and destroy the temple.

Klaris doesn't heed the warning and stomps towards the group, as they back up through the doorway. That's when Lou shows up out of nowhere, asking Bud where he was, and catches the dynamite when Klaris throws it. Not knowing what it is, he gives it to Bud, who shoves it back into his hands and yells that it's dynamite. Hearing that, Bud throws it back at Klaris and it lands in his hands again. It explodes, destroying the pedestal and exposing Ara's treasure. Once the explosion

has abated, Semu laments, "The secret of Princess Ara has been revealed, and Klaris is destroyed. All that remains now for my people is the legend." Bud asks, "Why not let the whole world know of the legend? I have a way of keeping the memory of Klaris alive forever." Semu, naturally, is curious as to how he could do that.

After a dissolve, you see the tomb has been turned into a nightclub called Kafe Klaris, and it's getting a lot of business on its opening night, as people are actually driving their cars out into that remote spot in the desert. Inside, you see Semu is greeting guests, Iben is showing people to tables, the dancers from before are entertaining the guests, and the band has its players dressed up as Klaris! (Again, can you imagine Semu and his followers actually going for this?) Bud is annoyed that Lou is late for the opening and gets all the more irritated

when he shows up but isn't dressed formally. Lou goes to fix that by stepping into a one-piece suit that's designed to look like a tuxedo, with the bow-tie being at the end of a long zipper at the front. Bud, in a moment that seems lifted straight from the Three Stooges, retorts, "Wise guy, huh?", and smacks Lou in the face and shoves him against the stage. Spotting a pungi, Lou attempts to get some payback by giving it to him and asking if he can plat it. Bud takes the challenge and starts playing

the pungi in front of a large urn by the stage. Lou waits for the expected cobra to emerge but is surprised when two long, slender, undulating arms come out instead, followed by the entire body of a very lovely woman. Bud stops playing and takes the woman in his arms, prompting Lou to decide to try his luck. He takes the pungi, walks over to another urn across from him, and starts playing. With his back to the urn, he doesn't know that he, once again, has summoned a large snake. He stops playing, turns to kiss his "girl," only for the snake's forked tongue to flick his face and he proceeds to smash through some glass leading into a closed off part of the temple, startling the guests.

Like so many of these movies, the music score is made up of stock themes and cues from other films, but this time, I actually have a fair amount to talk about, as it doesn't just reuse the music from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, as some of the others did. Appropriately, a lot of the music has that traditional, Egyptian sound to it, such as the opening titles, which are played to a memorable, monstrous-sounding, yet also exotic theme, as well as that classic Egyptian bit we've heard numerous times. That feel to the music is heard throughout the movie, giving the notion that this is an exotic adventure, while also not losing sight of the comedy. My favorite bit of funny music is when Lou eats the medallion in his hamburger, as it's the kind of low-key, awkward music you could imagine hearing when you realize something is very wrong with the food you're eating, and it only builds in how awakward it is as it goes on. I also think of this heroic-sounding music you hear when Lou tries to talk himself into being brave by making that recording, which, as I said, you hear reprised whenever he plays the recording back. Maybe not the greatest score, but at least I had more to say than I did with some of the previous Abbott and Costello horror-comedies.

It's impossible to describe Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy as being among the duo's best movies or a really good sendoff for their long tenure at Universal, because it's neither. The film is full of gags and routines that were long past their novelty at this point, the story has some jarring plotholes and gets quite muddled, the main supporting characters are made up of a bunch of bland, one-note antagonists, and the Mummy himself has very little screentime and leaves a lot to be desired for in terms of his look and portrayal. But, despite the lack of freshness, the movie isn't without its moments, as even at this late stage, Abbott and Costello could still get some laughs, both with some of their tried and true routines and the new ones; it has some good art direction and production values; interesting and entertaining song and dance numbers here and there; and an appropriate and well-done music score. So, while it may, objectively, be the weakest of their horror-comedies, it's still not without merit and there are much, much worse ways to kill 79 minutes.