finished editing before the end of June. Release The Mummy's Hand was distributed by Universal Pictures Co. on September 20, 1940. According to Variety, their screening of the film had certain scenes tinted an "eerie green". The film was followed by the sequel The Mummy's Tomb in 1942 which followed the storyline of two key characters from The Mummy's Hand and included several minutes of footage from The Mummy's Hand flashback sequences. Unlike some of the other horror films produced by Universal, The Mummy's Hand was not reissued for theatrical release in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Critical response From contemporary reviews, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote for The New York Times: "It's the usual mumbo-jumbo of secret tombs in crumbling temples and salacious old high priests guarding them against the incursions of an archaeological expedition, led this time by Dick Foran, Peggy Moran and Wallace Ford. While the scientists busily explore dank passageways and decipher weird hieroglyphics on tombs and chests, jackals howl outside, the native work-gangs mutiny and the mummy is always just around the corner. Once or twice Miss Moran makes a grimace — as if she had caught an unpleasant odor — and screams. Otherwise every one seems remarkably casual. If they don't seem to worry, why should we? Frightening or funny, take your choice". The Philadelphia Record found that the film's plot was "sheer nonsense" but that the film "manages to raise a few more goose pimples than other recent horror movies". "Hobe" of Variety found the film to be "muddled in the writing and clumsy in the production. Direction and photography are bush league. Acting varies from violent mugging to smooth under-playing". Graeme Clark of The Spinning Image comparing the film with Boris Karloff's and granting 6 out of 10 stars, writes: "This was no eerie love story across the millennia, this was straight fright fare with Universal Studios' least-loved monster, here in the form that viewers would know him best, shambling, strangling, singleminded and mute. A nice touch is that his eyes have been blacked out for his closeups, giving him an undead look. However, more than half the short movie is over before we get to the creepy chase scenes..." The film holds a 67% "Fresh" rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 9 reviews, with an average score of 5.8/10. References Footnotes Sources External links Joe Dante on