Long before Abbott&Costello were teaming up with all the Universal horror characters, over at RKO Wheeler&Woolsey took their turn at the horror genre with Mummy's Boys.
They introduce it with a plot gimmick straight out of the Depression. The guys are digging ditches at what looks like a Works Progress Administration Project. And they're not getting along too good with that. But Woolsey spots a newspaper advertisement where diggers are sought for an Egyptian expedition. He correctly reasons why not put their newly acquired skills towards something positive and see an exotic part of the world.
The guys sign on to an expedition headed by Frank M. Thomas who has the idea to take the treasures that were dug up in the last expedition back to Egypt and the tomb they came from because they're bringing bad luck. An unusual string of fatalities keep happening to those who were on that first expedition, a lot like what was happening to folks who were on the famous King Tut expedition in the Twenties. Wheeler gets an additional reason for coming along, he gets stuck on the professor's daughter, Barbara Pepper.
Of course in Egypt and on the trip going there, the boys get in all kinds of trouble. My favorite is how they get tangled up with desert sheik Francis McDonald and his harem.
Moroni Olsen as another archaeologist gets a chance to do a great crazy act in the end, something different from a character actor who usually had quite serious roles.
It's not quite as good as either the A&C horror spoofs or some of the earlier Wheeler&Woolsey work, but Mummy's Boys will generate more than a couple of laughs.
