Trivia / The Mummy (1932)

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• Acting for Two: Zita Johann plays Helen Grosvenor and Anck-su-namun.
• Actor-Shared Background: Zita Johann was a believer in reincarnation herself.
• Billing Displacement: Although Helen is the female lead, Zita Johann is only billed among the supporting players. Supposedly this was due to the actress turning down a contract with Universal.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Zita Johann had signed a contract with Universal to make Laughing Boy from 1934. When she was dropped from that, she made this film to fulfill the deal.
• Deleted Role: Henry Victor filmed as scene as a Saxon Warrior, for which he is credited, but the role was deleted.
• Fake Nationality: The featured Egyptian characters are played by Boris Karloff (English), Zita Johann (Austrian-American) and James Crane (American).
• Hostility on the Set: There was great tension between Zita Johann and director Karl Freund, who disliked each other immensely. According to Johann, on the first day of filming, Freund attempted to portray her to the producers as a temperamental actress who was very hard to work with.
  "It was his first picture as a director, and he felt he needed a scapegoat in case he didn't come in on schedule, 23 days, I believe. Well I was cast as the scapegoat—and I saw through it right away!"
• Recycled Script: The film recycles the script for Dracula (1931) almost wholesale.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There was supposed to be a sequence showing Helen's various past lives, but it was cut. The sequence would have shown her in Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, Viking times and in France during the Ancient Régime.
  • Supposedly Karl Freund told Zita Johann that there was a scene requiring her to be topless, and she responded "if you can get it past the censors", though the veracity of this claim is in doubt.
  • The film was originally supposed to be about Cagliostro and was even titled "Cagliostro", meaning it was still an Antagonist Title. It would have been set in San Francisco with the titular villain being a 3,000 year old magician with a Nubian henchman who sets his sights on a woman named Helen Dorrington and intends to kill her because she resembles his former lover who betrayed him and has been doing that for centuries when he hasn't been hunting. Helen's love interest and Professor Whemple, who would be split into Dr. Mueller and Sir Joseph Whemple, would ultimately save the day.
  • A scene was cut where Imhotep leaves a powdered skin handprint after stealing the scroll from the museum.
• Working Title: Imhotep and King of the Dead.

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