 | |
| Longbarrow | |
| Continuity: | Hammer Horror |
| Notability: | Supporting character |
| Type: | Personal assistant |
| Gender: | Male |
| Race: | Human |
| Location: | Mezzara, Egypt |
| Status: | Deceased |
| Born: | 1866 [1] |
| Died: | 1920 |
| First: | Mummy's Shroud, The |
| Actor: | Michael Ripper |
Longbarrow is a fictional personal assistant and a supporting character featured in the Hammer Horror movie series. Played by actor Michael Ripper, he appeared in the 1967 feature film The Mummy's Shroud.
Biography[]
Longbarrow was a middle-aged Englishman who worked as the personal valet to entrepreneur Stanley Preston. When Stanley and his wife Barbara came to the Egyptian city of Mezzara in order to oversee an archaeological dig that they had financed, Longbarrow arranged for them to stay in a suite at the Mezzara Hotel. Stanley was not the nicest of employers, and treated Longbarrow as if he were little more than simple servant. Longbarrow was an agreeable and loyal employee, going out of his way to please Stanley Preston, and receiving little to no praise or recognition in return.
When the members of the archaeological dig went missing, Stanley Preston was manipulated into joining a rescue party to search for them. He had Longbarrow arrange to get all of the best supplies, horses and porters for the party. They eventually discovered the expedition team members at the Tomb of Kah-to-Bey. A radical Muslim named Hasmid Ali warned the group about desecrating the tomb, threatening a grim revenge against those who would defile the resting place of Kah-to-Bey. Although Longbarrow had no direct interaction with any of the goings-on at the site, he was present, and as such, became a target for Hasmid Ali's curse.
Hasmid Ali awakened the mummy of Prem, who was the slave guardian of Kah-to-Bey, and sent him out to murder the members of the expedition, beginning with its leader, Sir Basil Walden. As more murders began to take place, Chief Inspector Barrani requested that Stanley and his party remain in Mezzara for further questioning. Though Preston didn't put any stock into the notion of a curse, he remained fearful, and sent Longbarrow to the Landing stage to book passage for his family and himself back to England. Longbarrow was intercepted by Barrani before he could get to the landing stage, and was never able to acquire the tickets. Preston was so furious at him, that he now refused to bring him back with him.
That evening, the mummy Prem broke into the Mezzara Hotel and attacked Longbarrow in his room. Longbarrow struggled to orient himself, but in the darkness, he misplaced his eye glasses and stepped on them. The mummy entangled Longbarrow in some bed sheets and then threw him out of a high window, killing him. [2]
Notes & Trivia[]
- The character of Longbarrow was created by director & screenwriter John Gilling and writer John Elder.
- Character archetype: Sycophant.
- Final fate: Had his butt pitched out of a window by Prem after being tangled up in bed sheets.
- The act of being thrown out of a window is called Defenestration.
- Longbarrow apparently had extremely poor eyesight, which required eye glasses.
- Longbarrow falls under the "Velma" trope, wherein a character with poor vision loses their glasses and then invariably steps on them or destroys them in some other fashion. Another example of this trope was seen in Jurassic Park wherein the character of Dennis Nedry lost his glasses shortly before being killed by a dinosaur.
- Actor Michael Ripper is a staple of the Hammer Horror era of films, having appeared in numerous movies such as The Mummy in 1959, The Curse of the Werewolf in 1961, Night Creatures in 1962, the remake of Phantom of the Opera, also in 1962, and The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb in 1964.
Appearances[]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Date approximated based upon the relative age of actor Michael Ripper in conjunction with the time period in which the events of the film take place.
- ↑ Mummy's Shroud, The (1967). Directed by John Gilling. Written by John Gilling and Anthony Hinds.