I wonder why they made Longbarrow such a tragic character. He was nice but always bullied by Preston and in the end he died a violent death after having stepped on his glasses. He met the same end as a bad guy, although he was good. He died scared and almost blind. He should have survived. The fact that he was small and narrow-shouldered made him even more tragic.
shareIndeed, only 10min. in to my 2nd. screening in as many decades and I would give money to see the ever-so-civilized, and thoroughly despicable, Mr. Preston mummified himself! I must admit that John Phillips played his part to the hilt, with truly skanky panache. We are almost compelled to despise him from scene one. Not an innovative plot mechanism, I grant you. But fun, for a Saturday matinee Hammer schlocker...
And poor Longbarrow, even his name brings toil and thankless drudgery to mind. For me, his portrayal evokes the image of a well-scrubbed Igor. Though I felt that Michael Ripper played his character as a man of good heart, if not strong spine. Rather than the villainous lout 'Igor' type that we know too well. Perhaps Ripper's was the more difficult role?
I should have mentioned that I saw it as an impressionable young kid, and it stuck in my memory fairly well...it was at the last Drive-In lot in Anchorage, AK and it doubled featured with The Thing from Another World (1951), for some odd reason.
These films are rarely 'great', but for many of us they make up parts of priceless memory-and I don't use such phrases lightly.
Longbarrow didn't deserve his fate. I thought that it was a nice little twist, that a movie about tomb-raiding, should have a character with the name of our own Neolithic tombs here in Britain.
shareActually, Longbarrow WAS responsible for his own death. That hotel's checkout time was at 7:00, and they are REALLY strict about it!! It takes time to prepare the room for the next guest you know. Can't have current guests lollygagging past checkout time!!
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