Directed by: T. Hayes Hunter
Starring: Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, Dorothy Hyson, Anthony Bushell, Ralph Richardson

STORY
Professor Henry Morlant is dying.
But Henry Morlant has absolutely no intention of staying dead.
Boris Karloff stars as the wealthy, obsessive Egyptologist whose years studying the ancient world have left him convinced that death is merely another doorway—and that he possesses the key to opening it.
That key is a precious Egyptian jewel known as the Eternal Light.
Morlant believes that if the jewel is buried with him and offered to the Egyptian god Anubis, it will restore him to life. As his final moments approach, he gives his servant Laing explicit instructions: when Morlant dies, the Eternal Light must be placed in his hand, bound there securely, and buried with him.
Morlant even makes a promise from his deathbed.
If anyone steals the jewel...
he will return for it.
And then Professor Morlant dies.
Naturally, someone steals the jewel.
Soon Morlant's enormous, shadow-filled estate begins filling with relatives, servants, lawyers, strangers and assorted people who seem to know considerably more about the Eternal Light than they're admitting.
His heirs arrive for the reading of the will. His solicitor Broughton is lurking about. Laing knows the secrets of the household. A mysterious Egyptian, Aga Ben Dragore, has his own interest in the jewel. Even the local clergyman may not be quite what he appears.
Everyone seems to want something.
Money.
An inheritance.
The Eternal Light.
Unfortunately for all of them, Professor Morlant was apparently quite serious about coming back.
The tomb opens.
A terrifying figure emerges from the darkness.
And Boris Karloff begins stalking through the house like death itself.
Morlant searches relentlessly for the missing jewel, terrifying everyone who crosses his path as the Eternal Light passes from hand to hand and suspicion spreads throughout the estate.
But The Ghoul has another trick waiting.
What appears to be a supernatural resurrection gradually becomes something stranger. Morlant had not actually died when he was placed inside the tomb. He had suffered a cataleptic seizure—and awakened to discover himself buried alive.
For Morlant, however, that distinction hardly matters.
He believes.
He retrieves the Eternal Light.
And he makes his way toward the Egyptian temple he constructed on his estate, determined to complete the ritual that he believes will finally deliver him into immortality.
Around him, greed, deception and murder continue until the identities and motives of those pursuing the jewel are finally revealed.
Professor Morlant wanted eternal life.
Instead, he becomes something considerably more appropriate for a Boris Karloff horror movie:
A dead man who refused to stay buried.
AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
KARLOFF COMES HOME
Boris Karloff was born in London, but his extraordinary rise to movie stardom happened in America.
After Frankenstein, The Old Dark House and The Mummy transformed him into one of cinema's great horror stars, Karloff returned to England in 1933 for the first time in twenty-four years.
And waiting for him was The Ghoul.
Producer Michael Balcon had invited Britain's newly minted Hollywood horror sensation home to make a Gothic horror picture for Gaumont-British.
Karloff arrived not as an unknown British actor returning from America—but as Boris Karloff, movie star. He was greeted by the press, mobbed during a trip to London's West End and reunited with three of his brothers.
KARLOFF AND THESIGER SWITCH PLACES
AIN loves this one.
One year earlier, Boris Karloff and Ernest Thesiger had appeared together in James Whale's wonderfully strange The Old Dark House.
In that film, Karloff played the servant.
In The Ghoul?
Thesiger plays Karloff's servant.
The two horror eccentrics essentially switched positions.
And they weren't finished with each other.
Two years later, Thesiger would give one of the great scene-stealing performances in horror history as Dr. Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein—again alongside Karloff.
NOSFERATU IS HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
Here is an extraordinary connection between two films in the AIN Treasure Chest.
The cinematographer responsible for The Ghoul's wonderfully sinister photography was Günther Krampf.
Before coming to Britain, Krampf had worked in German cinema.
And among his earlier credits?
Nosferatu.
Krampf had been a cameraman on F.W. Murnau's 1922 masterpiece and later photographed G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box. His German Expressionist background helped give The Ghoul its wonderfully macabre atmosphere.
So the shadow of Count Orlok reaches all the way from Nosferatu into Boris Karloff's haunted English mansion.
THAT is an AINtoid.
RALPH RICHARDSON WALKS INTO THE MOVIES
Look carefully at the suspicious clergyman Nigel Hartley.
That's Ralph Richardson.
And The Ghoul marked the future theatrical giant's film debut.
Richardson would become one of Britain's most distinguished actors, eventually joining Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud among the towering figures of the British stage.
But before all of that?
He was running around a Boris Karloff horror movie involving an Egyptian jewel, a creepy mansion and a man climbing out of his own tomb.
Everybody has to start somewhere.
HORROR WAS STILL DANGEROUS
It is easy now to think of 1930s horror as quaint old monster movies.
It wasn't necessarily perceived that way in 1933.
The Ghoul arrived when British sound horror was still in its infancy. TCM describes it as only the second British film to deal with horrific themes, making this a remarkably early entry in Britain's long relationship with screen horror.
Decades before Hammer Films would turn British Gothic horror into an international institution, Karloff was already stalking through the fog.
THE MOVIE THAT CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
Professor Morlant wasn't the only thing associated with The Ghoul that refused to remain buried.
For decades, the movie itself was considered lost.
Then, in 1969, a damaged print surfaced in Czechoslovakia. It was incomplete, missing material and in poor condition—but The Ghoul existed.
Then came an even greater discovery.
A far better surviving element was eventually discovered in England, allowing audiences to see the film far closer to its original form.
A movie about a man returning from the grave...
returned from the grave.
You couldn't write a better ending for The Ghoul.
AIN REASON
This is why the Treasure Chest keeps getting deeper.
The Ghoul brings together threads that run through the entire history of horror cinema.
Boris Karloff returns to the country of his birth immediately after Frankenstein and The Mummy have made him an international star.
Günther Krampf brings with him a visual lineage stretching back to Nosferatu.
Ernest Thesiger is on his way from The Old Dark House to Bride of Frankenstein.
Ralph Richardson is taking his first steps into the movies.
And somewhere inside all of it is Professor Henry Morlant, clutching an Egyptian jewel and absolutely refusing to accept the minor inconvenience of death.
But perhaps the most beautiful reason The Ghoul belongs on AIN is the history of the film itself.
For decades, audiences couldn't watch it.
People thought it was gone.
Then somebody found it.
And suddenly a film made in 1933 could frighten, amuse and fascinate audiences again.
That is preservation.
That is discovery.
And that is exactly what the Treasure Chest of Entertainment is supposed to do.
Some treasures aren't merely old.
Some treasures had to be found again.