The film stars Pola Negri as Ma, Emil Jannings as Radu, and Harry Liedtke as Wendland.

It was the first collaboration between Lubitsch and Negri,[1] a pairing that would go on to make worldwide successes such as Carmen (1918), Madame DuBarry (1919), and Sumurun (1920).

A young, wealthy painter named Wendland travels to Egypt, where he hears about the tomb of Queen Ma, a site far out into the desert that has reportedly driven everyone who has visited it mad.

The painter wards off Radu, and finds that the coffin lid is actually an entrance to a small adjacent room, where a helpless young girl, also named Ma, is held prisoner by the Egyptian’s Svengali-like hypnotic powers.

A few months into Ma's success on the vaudeville circuit, the Prince decides to go to one of the shows she appears in and takes his servant Radu with him.

According to the intertitles of some of the release prints, director and then-stage and film actor Ernst Lubitsch had been making a popular series of comedies for UFA, and convinced producer Paul Davidson to "support him in making his artistic dream come true of producing an elaborate film drama".

[2] Die Augen der Mumie Ma was released theatrically by UFA in Germany on 3 October 1918 at the Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz, Berlin.

[5] It was released on DVD again in 2011 by Bright Shining City Productions as part of the 3-DVD set Pola Negri: The Iconic Collection.