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 of England. 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.
Plot
In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains.
After the death of Edward he is heir to the Crown of England and consequently becomes Richard III, King of England, and need only defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain power.
Cast
Production
Pre-production
Tower of London was originally conceived years before production when the producer and director Rowland V. Lee travelled to England to do research for an epic that involved British history. Lee's brother, Richard N. Lee then came up with the idea of developing a film about Richard III of England, with Richard later explaining that "we agreed that we wanted to use the roughest, most hard-boiled period of all time, Row was for the Stuart era but I held out for the time of Richard". Rowland V. Lee presented the idea to Universal Pictures and The Hollywood Reporter announced in June 1939 that production was in plans to start. The studio gave the film a $500,000 budget with a 36-day shooting schedule that started on August 11.
Trade papers stated on July 27 that Brian Donlevy was being tested for the lead role of Richard III with George Sanders being signed to the role one week later. Neither casting turned out when Lee approached Basil Rathbone for the role. Rathbone had previously worked with Lee on The Sun Never Sets and Love from a Stranger. Rathbone was pre-occupied by filming Rio at the time but was able to split his time between both productions during the first week of production. The role of Mord the Executioner was made for Boris Karloff who had signed on to the studio for two additional features after Son of Frankenstein. Initially, his character was to have a full black beard but this concept was removed in favour of a nearly hairless look.
Filming
Art director Jack Otterson developed a recreation of the tower in the studios backlot which involved consulting historical records and original blueprints of the 13th century building. The completed structure stood at 75 feet high and would later be re-used in other Universal Studios productions.
The staging of historic battles at Bosworth and Tewkesbury lead to a call for over 300 extras on August 19 and required the production to travel 20 miles north of Hollywood to a ranch in Tarzana. Strong winds caused problems with the fog machines used, making it impossible to film. Lee had the crew move on to film the Battle of Tewkesbury scenes, which involved rain machines that made the extras' cardboard helmets fall apart. The assistant director of the film stated in his film diary that "a group of unruly, uncoooperative and destructive extras dressed in helmets and armor made this one of the most unsuccessful days the studio had with a large crowd of people in many year". Lee attempted to shoot battle footage again on August 22 and tried to film small groups of actors against process plates of previously shot battle scenes.