Tower of Terror (1941 film)
| Tower of Terror | |
|---|---|
| File:"Tower of Terror" (1941).jpg | |
| Directed by | Lawrence Huntington |
| Written by | John Reinhardt (story) John Argyle |
| Produced by | John Argyle |
| Starring | Wilfrid Lawson Michael Rennie Movita Morland Graham |
| Cinematography | Ronald Anscombe Walter J. Harvey Bryan Langley |
| Edited by | Flora Newton |
| Music by | Charles Williams |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Pathé Pictures |
Release date | 27 December 1941 |
Running time | 78 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
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Tower of Terror is a 1941 British thriller film directed by Lawrence Huntington and starring Wilfrid Lawson, Michael Rennie and Movita.[1] It was made at Welwyn Studios with location shooting on Flat Holm off the Welsh coast.[2]
Plot
Anthony Hale is a British secret agent in Germany who takes a job as assistant to lighthouse keeper Wolfe Kristan; and who plans to make off with some valuable papers when a British boat arrives to pick them up. Marie meanwhile has escaped from a concentration camp and swims to the lighthouse, where she is rescued by the deranged Kristan, who sees in her the image of a wife he killed 16 years earlier and buried on the lighthouse grounds. Can Hale rescue Marie from a similar fate at the lighthouse keepers hands?
Cast
- Wilfrid Lawson as Wolfe Kristan
- Michael Rennie as Anthony Hale
- Movita as Marie Durand
- Morland Graham as Harbor Master Kleber
- George Woodbridge as Gruppenfuhrer Rudolf Jurgens
- Charles Rolfe as Albers
- Richard George as Ship's Captain Borkmann
- H Victor Weske as Peters, resigning lighthouse assistant
- Olive Sloane as Florist
- Eric Clavering as Riemers
- John Longden as Commander
- Edward Sinclair as Fletcher, Hale's contact
- Bob Cameron as Military Sergeant
- Davina Craig
- Noel Dainton
Critical reception
The New York Times called it a "dire little melodrama...A penny dreadful thriller about a mad lighthouse keeper on the German-occupied coast, it cannot overcome the lacks of a preposterous story preposterously acted or a sound track which gives the impression that every one is speaking with a gag over the mouth. Even Wilfrid Lawson, that excellent actor, gives a ludicrously overwrought portrait of insanity as the keeper...Not good" ; [3] while The Horror Hothouse wrote, "I thought Tower of Terror was a lot of fun, sure you could drive a bus through some of the wide gaping holes in the plot, but Lawson is just great as the deranged lighthouse keeper, gurning and grunting his ever more psychotic way towards the film’s conclusion...Basically you can’t go wrong with a hook handed mad lighthouse keeper and a bunch of Nazis." [4]
References
- ^ "Tower of Terror (1941)". BFI.
- ^ Chibnall & McFarlane p.8
- ^ "Movie Review - The Tower of Terror - At the Central". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
- ^ "Tower of Terror (1941)". The Horror Hothouse.
Bibliography
- Chibnall, Steve & McFarlane, Brian. The British 'B' Film. Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
External links
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