HARRY ALAN TOWERS (1920-2009)

Harry Alan Towers calling Orson Welles... or Jess Franco!


Maria Rohm, the wife of Harry Alan Towers, was featured in what many consider to be Jess Franco's best film. Ironically, Towers didn't write this one...



Few appreciated the Towers-Franco-Christopher Lee Fu Manchu productions...




The Towers produced THE GIRL FROM RIO (1968) was supposed to be a sequel to his 1967 production THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU. It turned out to be a cut above the Towers-Franco Fu Manchu-Sax Rohmer projects.


Below is the copy from VARIETY, Sunday, August 2:

"Prolific B-movie producer and writer Harry Alan Towers, who made more than 100 films working with cult stalwarts such as Christopher Lee and director Jess Franco, died of heart failure in Toronto on Aug. 2. He was 89.
While Towers generally worked on low-budget fare, he favored literary adaptations by such writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Alan Poe, Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace.

During the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote and produced dozens of films, sometimes credited as Peter Welbeck. Among the actors he worked with were Orson Welles, Michael York, Michael Caine, Richard Harris, James Earl Jones and Tony Curtis.

Towers often shot in locations such as South Africa, Ireland and Bulgaria on films such as “The Face of Fu Manchu,” Iran-filmed “Ten Little Indians,” South African classic adaptation “Cry the Beloved Country” and “Klondike Fever.”

His association with Italian giallo auteur Franco produced films which have become underground classics including “Venus in Furs,” “Eugenie,” “Marquis de Sade: Justine” and “Night of the Blood Monster.” "

The somewhat amusing description of Franco an an "Italian giallo auteur" indicates the state of confusion which still surrounds his career among the mainstream press. But it must be some kind of coup that the legendary publication now considers VENUS IN FURS and NIGHT OF THE BLOOD MONSTER aks THE BLOODY JUDGE as underground classics!

Towers was a rogue writer-producer who produced many entertaining films, many of which he wrote under the beard Peter Welbeck. His script for Franco's EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION (1970) qualifies as one of the best things he ever wrote. He also supplied our "Italian giallo auteur" with larger than usual budgets and such international stars as Christopher Lee (EL CONDE DRACULA), Jack Palance (JUSTINE), George Sanders (THE GIRL FROM RIO) and Mercedes McCambridge (99 WOMEN) among others.

Towers also produced the Orson Welles radio program THE LIVES OF HARRY LIME (1951-52) and the 1972 film version of TREASURE ISLAND, featuring Welles. This was a project which Welles attempted as an actor-producer in 1965 with none other than Jess Franco as director! Not surprisingly, it was never completed.

I'm attempting to list favorite Harry Alan Towers produced films. Candidates would include THE FACE OF FU MANCHU (1965), THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU (1967), among others.

Towers also wrote the Spaghetti Western/adventure WHITE FANG (1975), directed by Lucio Fulci.

The complete adventures of this lovable rogue have yet to be told...