Kharis () is a character featured in
Universal Studios's ''Mummy'' series in the 1940s, following their original 1932 film ''
The Mummy'', which starred
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), known professionally as Boris Karloff () and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was a British actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstei ...
as a different mummy character,
Imhotep, though their backstories are practically identical. Universal's ''Mummy'' films were inspired by worldwide interest in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian
archeology during the first half of the 20th century.
History
In the first Kharis film, ''
The Mummy's Hand'' (1940), the character was played by Western-film actor
Tom Tyler,
[ Denis Gifford, ''Monsters of the Movies'', p. 67 (Carousel Books, 1977).] while the three subsequent films, ''
The Mummy's Tomb'' (1942), ''
The Mummy's Ghost'' (1944), and ''
The Mummy's Curse'' (also 1944), starred
Lon Chaney Jr. in the role. Although the iconic image of the
mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...
's face is usually Karloff's, the Kharis films are responsible for the enduring stereotype of the lumbering, foot-dragging monster, as Karloff's bandaged creation is seen only briefly, while Kharis is a major on-screen character in all four follow-up films. The Kharis films also introduce the notion of tana leaves as integral to the mummy's survival.
''The Mummy's Hand'' introduces Kharis in a series of flashbacks that are pulled from the original 1932 film (except for inserts with Tyler replacing Karloff in shots in which Karloff would have been conspicuous). The film ''
The Mummy'', which was released eight years before ''The Mummy's Hand'', tells the story of the
high priest Imhotep, who is punished for attempting to resurrect a dead lover, and thousands of years later returns to the Earth as a living mummy. In ''The Mummy's Hand'', however, the mummy is a royal prince named Kharis and the details of the story are changed to describe a similar but alternative scenario. For this reason, the Kharis films are not sequels to the original, as occasionally misperceived.
Eddie Parker portrayed Klaris, a cousin of Kharis, in the 1955 comedy ''
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy''.
Christopher Lee portrayed Kharis in the 1959
Hammer Film Productions horror film ''
The Mummy''.
The Passion of the Mummy
At the close of ''The Mummy's Curse'', the last of the Kharis films, his dormant mummy is shipped to the fictitious Scripps Museum in Manhattan. In Frank J. Dello Stritto's 2021 novel, ''The Passion of the Mummy'', a boy on a class trip somehow makes mental contact with the still sentient Kharis. The link strengthens as the boy grows, and attracts the attention of priests of the Cult of Karnak. Kharis knows a secret that the cult desperately wants, and only through the now young man, can they learn it.
Dark Universe
Kharis appears in ''The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories'' alongside ''The Mummy's Hand'' character Dr. Charles Petrie, set after the 2017 film ''
The Mummy''. The game retroactively establishes ''The Mummy'' films of the 1930s–1950s as part of the canonical chronology of the Dark Universe.
Charles Trowbridge
Charles Silas Richard Trowbridge (January 10, 1882 – October 30, 1967) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 230 films from 1915 to 1958 principally playing patrician authority figures.
Biography
Trowbridge was born in Verac ...
's likeness was used to represent his character Dr. Petrie in-game, while the likeness of Tom Tyler was used to represent Kharis.
Design
The makeup for Kharis was designed by Universal's resident monster expert
Jack Pierce. While Tyler's features can be discerned easily under the makeup (as could Karloff's), Chaney is unrecognizable, due to the use of a mask rather than customized make-up over the course of the series (Pierce had earlier fashioned a mask for Tyler to wear for certain long shots in ''
The Mummy's Hand'', and the difference between the mask and the painstaking original make-up is fairly easy to spot on film). While in ''
The Wolf Man'' Chaney played the starring role both in and out of make-up, Tyler was shown as the human Kharis in Chaney's ''Mummy'' films during flashback scenes, a somewhat demoralizing budgetary measure that showed Chaney's importance by this time to be mainly that of his famous name.
See also
*
Imhotep
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kharis
Fictional ancient Egyptian people
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional mummies
Fictional pagans
Fictional priests and priestesses
Fictional shapeshifters
Fictional undead
Film characters introduced in 1940
The Mummy (franchise)
Male horror film villains
Universal Monsters characters
Cultural depictions of Imhotep