Review of The Ghoul

A strangely amusing movie, one that mixes Egyptian lore with the flavour of lightly comic English mysteries. Professor Morlant (Boris Karloff) is dying, but he has purchased a jewel that has the power to compel Anubis to admit the bearer to immortality. His dubious Scots servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) is tempted and steals it from the sarcophagus laid in the burial chamber just down the hill from the spooky mansion. But he soon decides he doesn't want it and tries to give it to one of the two heirs, Ralph (Anthony Bushell) and Betty (Dorothy Hyson). Meanwhile the absurdly shifty solicitor Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke) is searching for the stone, as is the Egyptian Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth). Betty's friend irrepressible friend Kaney (Kathleen Harrison) latches on to the Egyptian, who tells her he is a sheik, and she prattles film or romance novel nonsense and he plays along—it's really rather funny. Morlant rises from his tomb and staggers about the place looking for his missing jewel, killing Dragore's hidden assistant, and half-throttling Laing and then Betty, in whose suitcase Laing has hidden it. With the jewel clutched in his hand, Morlant staggers back to the tomb, cuts an ankh symbol on his bare, bony chest, and waits for Anubis to close his hand around the jewel, the sign that the gift is accepted. After what seems a long wait, the hand closes and Morlant, jubilant, falls dead. But we see it's a human hand reaching through a hole cut through the arm of the Anubis statue—and the crook turns out to be the man everybody thought was a priest (Ralph Richardson). He and Ralph struggle, and Dragore steals the jewel. He runs into Kaney, but instead of greeting her fondly, as she had hoped, he slaps her and runs off, but not before she grabs at him, tearing his jacket pocket, and the jewel falls out, and now she has it. She holds Dragore and Broughton at bay by holding the jewel over a deep well, until the police unexpectedly arrive. Betty, Ralph, and the so-called priest are trapped in the tomb, but they escape, or at least the two heirs, cousins, and now lovers escape. Karloff's part is actually rather small, but as always he is utterly monstrous, with creepily bubbled skin and one huge eyebrow and malevolent eyes—but he has a strangely beautiful voice, which makes me wonder whether he ever got a chance to be something other than a monster? The romantic leads, Hyson and Bushell, are awful. She is rather insipid, and he shouts. Hardwicke hunches and grimaces too much, and his make-up seems thick, as if he were trying to put on years. Harrison, however, is sparky and funny and quite the best thing this movie has to offer. Thesiger, too, is very good, and does his dour Scots character perfectly. And what's all this about the mystic power of Egypt? All these smart professors keep trying to appropriate it, but it never works out for them, does it?