WE WANT OUR MUMMY (1939)

(Abridged web-only version)

It wasn’t until their thirty-seventh film that the Stooges’ chaotic cyclone of destruction encompassed a spooky edge in We Want our Mummy (1939). The hard work and rehearsals put in by the boys was matched with experienced comedy technicians behind the camera. This one was directed Iike many others by their long-time collaborator the Canadian Del Lord who started out directing Keystone Kops’ shorts for fellow Canuck Mack Sennett. The co-writer Elwood Ullman (credited with Searle Kramer) had also written for silent comedy stars Buster Keaton and Charlie Chase among others. In We Want our Mummy, the Stooges take the pith out of the famous Universal horror franchise which until then only comprised the 1931 original – it would not be prised open to begin regenerating until the next year with The Mummy’s Hand.

A basic premise is all the Stooges needed to hit the ground scrapping. Senior staff at the Museum of Ancient History are all a-fluster at the news of the venerable Professor Tuttle (Robert Williams)’s kidnapping. Professor Wilson (James C. Morton) and Dr. Powell (Bud Jamison) fear he is the latest victim of the notorious Curse befalling those who dare to seek the tomb of King RootinTootin. Their erudite research methods don’t seem to extend to background checks in the modern world as they all too willingly hire “the three best investigators in the city” to find him. Enter the Three Stooges backward with a snazzy acapella sales jingle and bearded faces surreally fixed to the backs of their heads. To give credibility they’ve come equipped for the case wearing Sherlock Holmes Deerstalker hats and each sucking one of his signature Meerschaum pipes. Who could resist these super sleuths?  The answer is their new employers, who belatedly realise they’ve made a big mistake: “If the Curse does strike them, it’ll be a blessing to humanity”.

On hearing about the prior search for the King, Curly produces a playing card bearing one from a game. “How’d you know the King was missing?” he asks furtively, earning a combined stomach punch and nose bop from Moe. The inventive gags come thick and fast, paced so there’s never a pause to milk a joke past its due and to maximise the brief running time.

Their response punch-lines in triplicate are well-drilled:

“Gentleman, gentlemen”

(The Stooges whirl round in unison) “Who came in?”

They head to the basement as a logical starting point, which is sheer (dumb) luck as Dick Curtis’s lanky gangster boss has the Professor bound and gagged in a box. Eager-to-please, they assist him by hefting the box onto a getaway truck. The curators offer our men five thousand dollars to go to Cairo after their colleague and the infamous ruler’s tomb. Curly’s coincidental relationship with an uncle who’s a ‘Cairo-practor’ confirms the clients’ pragmatism in dispatching these private dick-heads.

In the Three Stooges comic-strip reality, hailing a Bronx cab will get them there. $2198.55 later, they turn up in the Egyptian desert where Curly flips over in the sand like a baby seal under the influence of a mirage oasis. His invite to the others causes them to dive-bomb through the desert floor into the freakishly fortunate environs of the tomb, suggested ably by hieroglyphics, flaming braziers in the walls and sarcophagi.

The first goose-bump moment for the kiddies comes with the Nosferatu talons of an unknown assailant who abducts Larry and Moe panto-style, leaving the quaking Curly all alone briefly. He encounters a mummy within an upright sarcophagus (Theodore Lorch), who glares at his wittering with an eerie apple-cheeked intensity and an improbably-accented riposte more worthy of Queen’s than kings: ”Dat’s what you t’ink”. A slap-up mix-up ensues when they take out another corpse believed to be RootinTootin but their tubby man-child falls on it, crushing it to ancient dust. This prompts a woo-woo switcheroo forcing Curly to pose as the unlikely well-fed and well-preserved regal remains of the king to prevent the gang leader from killing the Professor. He is at least observant enough to grimace: “Boy, was he homely.”

All is tightly wrapped up by the discovery that the crushed cadaver was not RootinTootin after all but his Queen - HotsyTotsy. A sudden alligator appearance prompts a snappy exit from the Stooges.

We Want our Mummy is a fine jape-fest from Columbia’s Golden Age of classic Stooges two-reelers for when you’re in the mood for humour that’s wild rather than Wilde. Plus the King gets an after-life by later being referenced in Mummy's Dummies (1948) and 1949’s Malice in the Palace.