Underplayed Gems

Tower of London (1939)

Tower of London poster
Directed by
Rowland V. Lee
Genre
drama film, horror film
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 32m
Rating
6.1 of 10 from 49 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A historical drama about Richard III eliminating his rivals to become King of England in 1483. He removes a figurine from a dollhouse throne room after each murder. The story follows his rise to power and his final confrontation with the exiled Henry Tudor.

grimmethodicalsinisterpacing buildsmorally darkclaustrophobiccalculatedtheatrical

What happens

Tower of London is a 1939 black-and-white historical film directed and produced by Rowland V. Lee. It stars Basil Rathbone as the future King Richard III of England, and Boris Karloff as his fictitious club-footed executioner Mord. The film is based on the traditional depiction of Richard rising to become King of England in 1483 by eliminating everyone ahead of him. Each time Richard accomplishes a murder, he removes one figurine from a dollhouse resembling a throneroom. Once he has completed his task, he now needs to defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain the throne. Tower of London was developed years before production began when Rowland V. Lee travelled to the United Kingdom to do research for a historical film and came up with the idea of developing a film about Richard III. Pressure was put on Lee to direct the film on time and on budget as his last two pictures had gone over budget and were not completed on schedule. Lee had problems when filming two battle scenes in the film which involved 400 extras when all their costumes were damaged by the studio rain machine. Production went over-budget and led to Lee making a deal with Universal to complete all scenes with the higher costing cast members early to finish the film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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