Bingowings said:

It would have been much more plausible if the Thuggee cult was a cover for some German occult mind control experiments (George had tired a bit of Nazis).

Thuggees on the whole were Hindus and were Vegetarians who revered snakes, monkeys etc so having the party munching on them should be a sign that not only is it not a normal Palace banquet but even the Thuggees are acting against type.

The omitted dialogue you mention Anchorhead is sorely missed here, as is the subplot about Willie trying to warn Blumburtt.

Kali is a revered Goddess not a female Satan and the heart ripping is more Aztec than Indian (if it was portrayed as an illusion it could have worked but George wanted real black magic, I think he was digging in the wrong place there).

As a plot I think it worked better in the proto-Potter film, The Pyramid Of Fear (if only that had been an Indiana plot device instead of a Sherlock one).

In that story the cultists aren't Egyptians on the whole but Europeans dressing up as Egyptians and using mind altering drugs to brainwash people.

That could have fitted into the Indiana Jones time frame very easily as there were a lot of occult based secret societies doing just that (but hopefully not killing young ladies).

Ironically for this conversation it was one of the first films to use CGI and the stained glass knight scene still holds up well.

You're referring to Young Sherlock Holmes? I don't think too many people here know the alternate title here.

Kali and the Thuggee cult figure prominently in some old movie I saw on TCM a while back. The title escapes me at the moment...

EDIT: It was "Gunga Din" from 1939.