The Deadly Tower (1975) (TV)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Jerry Jameson

Writer:

William Douglas Lansford (writer)

Release Date:

18 October 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Action | Drama

Plot:

The infamous story of Charles Whitman, "America's favourite sniper" (in Stephen King's words), is told here once again.

Plot Keywords:

University | Police | Tower | Texas | Ammunition

Cast

Kurt Russell	...	Charles Joseph Whitman
Richard Yniguez	...	Officer Ramiro Martinez
John Forsythe	...	Lieutenant Elwood Forbes
Ned Beatty	...	Allan Crum
Pernell Roberts	...	Lieutenant Lee
Clifton James	...	Captain Fred Ambrose
Paul Carr	...	Officer C.T. Foss
Alan Vint	...	Tim Davis
Pepe Serna	...	Mano
Maria Elena Cordero	...	Vinnie Martinez

Also Known As:

Sniper

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 (video premiere) | Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Company:

MGM Television

Trivia:

Filmed at the state capitol building in Baton Rouge, LA, due to the feeling by Austin, TX, officials that filming in the actual location would not be in the best interests of citizens affected by the shooting.

Goofs:

Continuity: The movie is set in 1966, but features clothes and cars from the early '70s.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Scenic Highway (2006)

Mixed messages

NBC greenlighted The Deadly Tower, a retelling of the Charles Whitman incident of 1966, but the network was apparently unwilling to let it go as a kid-goes-nuts-and-shoots-up-a-college-campus thriller. Instead, they packed and padded this painful and unnerving story with lots of social commentary about a young Latino patrolman, one of the principals who got to Whitman, battling prejudice.

NBC's prudence (or cowardice, depending on your take) just about squelches the lean, dark, and amazingly gory (for TV) story of Whitman (a ne'er do well played creepily by Kurt Russell) losing his mind, offing his family, and carrying his fight with whatever lurking head-demons to a university tower where he unloads on an unsuspecting campus.

I've seen a documentary about Whitman which told the story of a profoundly damaged young man who breaks under familial pressures and seeks vengeance against the world. You don't get that from the movie; there isn't much more than a blurb about a suspected brain tumor to explain his actions.

Yet, on a suspense level, the movie works quite well. It's when the screenwriters pull their punches by injecting social issues that the movie loses its focus (but probably gains that old expectation of containing significant social value).

The Deadly Tower is ugly and sweaty and filled with mayhem, and if you can get by the issue stuff, you'll either be rewarded by or repulsed by a brutal and suspenseful voyeuristic wallow.