This seemed like the most logical board to post this.

Variety is reporting that the 88-year-old Towers died on July 31 after a brief illness. His list of credits was seemingly endless.


From Variety (a publication that should've known better than to refer to Jess Franco as an "Italian giallo auteur"):


By Pat Saperstein
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 after a brief illness July 31. He was 88.
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."

Capitalizing on the industry's need for video titles during the 1980s and early 1990s, Towers provided a steady pipeline of films such as Robert Englund starrers "Phantom of the Opera" and "Danse Macabre," "Warrior Queen" and "Delta Force 3."

Towers started as a child actor in Britain and during WWII, he became a radio writer while serving in the Royal Air Force. He and his mother started a company called Towers of London after the war to sell syndicated radio shows around the world, and he went on to produce numerous programs for British television including "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Tales from Dickens."

His literary agent, Albert T. Longden, said he was working on an autobiography. Recently he had been working on an adaptation of "Moll Flanders," which was at one time set to be directed by Ken Russell.

He is survived by his wife, actress Maria Rohm.

Oh Variety, will you never win?

Over 100 producing credits, not bad!

I can't recall the issue at all, but Fangoria did a nice piece on him in the mid-90s. I will confess that I haven't seen any of his Franco productions, but I am very familiar with his 80s and 90s Cannon/21rst Century work.

He also produced the later Harry Palmer sequels (BULLET TO BEIJING; MIDNIGHT IN ST. PETERSBURG) starring Michael Caine. Both are pretty enjoyable. The last thing I saw that he produced was a Gary Daniels movie from around 2002 or so.

Well, we gotta give them credit for at least trying.

Issues 151 and 152, I believe.

I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I actually quite like Harry Alan Towers' 1989 production Edge of Sanity, with a sweaty, OTT turn by Anthony Perkins (and even by Perkins standards, it's OTT!). I'd really need to write along, detailed review as to why exactly I like it because it is pretty ropey (imagine Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion devoid of humour), but the film is much more interesting than its reputation would suggest.

Edge of Sanity was directed by Gérard Kikoïne, who helmed mostly softcore features throughout the seventies and eighties (Parties fines, Love Circles), and also edited a few of Jess Franco's films (La comtesse perverse, Les possédées du diable).

I saw EDGE OF SANITY long ago and thought it was terrible (you are absolutely right about Perkins, though), so I'd love to read someone defending it.

I'm with Marty on EDGE OF SANITY--love to see a persuasive defense of it. I'd give it another shot.

I can't believe Perkins went on a publicity blitz to pimp EDGE OF SANITY when it was released. He went on Carson, TODAY, ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, and those are the three I definitely recall. I'm sure he hit Letterman. I wouldn't believe EDGE OF SANITY being hyped on TODAY if I hadn't seen it for myself.

Count me in with the EDGE OF SANITY fan club. It’s got drugs, boobs, blood, the color, the art design and Anthony Perkins. It has style to burn. The strengths may only be skin deep yet it is unlike anything I have seen.

As for Harry Allen Towers, I’ve seen a few of his movies. Like Jess Franco, Towers is a man of personal stories: the man, his wife, the producer, and the shady connections. He is more fascinating than his movies.

I like guys like Towers.

Say, is it true that he was not allowed in the U.S. of A.? The story I heard is that he tried to start a call girl ring for all of the politians in Washington D.C.

Come on, Jon! If that were true, you definitely know he would be allowed in the US.

I must admit, I didn't like EDGE OF SANITY at all when I first saw it in the early nineties, but I caught up with it again lately and really enjoyed the film. When I have time I'll publish a review of the DVD on 10kbullets.

That's not the way I remember it. :blink:

But EDGE OF SANITY: yes. While not exactly GOOD, it certainly possesses a memorably sleazy quality that's lasted with me over the years - and I'm surprised nobody's yet mentioned the film's decidedly unusual homoerotic slant. I'm thinking specifically of the bath-house sequence, with a twitching, red-eyed Perkins doing his Iggy Pop thing while surrounded by perspiring, frontally-nude guys auditioning for some Victorian gay porn Bioscope shoot... And Jekyll's lab has that Derek Jarman/white-tiled public convenience vibe about it, don't you think? Suggests that the whole film is one long, delirious homosexual fantasy on the part of the mind-altered protagonist... (Did Kikoine used to direct gay porn as well as straight, or have I made that up? Probably. You want factoids, I got 'em.)

It's settled then - as soon as I have time, I will write a review of EDGE OF SANITY for 10kbullets! I've just ordered a copy of the Region 2 disc from MGM, watch this space...

There is a reason why "EDGE OF SANITY" is so sleazy. The screenplay is co-written by JESS FRANCO, using a non de plume, as usual...This is probably the last TOWERS/FRANCO Connection...
I, for one, love all the JESS FRANCO/TOWERS OF LONDON Productions, & 2 are among my fav Francos. "COUNT DRACULA" is the weakest of the lot. The quality really fell with that one. The lot includes:
BLOOD OF FU MANCHU
CASTLE OF FU MANCHU
99 WOMEN
CITY WITHOUT MEN/GIRL FROM RIO
PAROXISMUS/VENUS IN FURS
MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE/JUSTINE
EUGENE
THE BLOODY JUDGE
COUNT DRACULA
Actually, I would have loved to see this team do a DIABOLIK/KILLING or other then-popular Comic Book/Fumetti Source type film. Imagine FRANCO & TOWERS doing a SCI-FI-GREEN SLIME-Ish/Superhero-BARBARELLA-Ish Fantasy during this period? Would have been wacky. I guess GIRL FROM RIO is the closest. Actually, "LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE", ...but that's not by TOWERS...

Really? That's interesting, where did you learn this?

Here is the credits link for "EDGE OF SANITY". I also read this somewhere else
as well, about FRANCO co-writing this film...

http://wwwdb.oscars.org:8100/servlet/impc....:26:4375-166629