The Deadly Tower (1975)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

If one needed to look for the flash point of what we know in the popular media as the horrible phenomenon of mass shootings, one could plausibly use the date of August 1, 1966; the location, the University of Texas in Austin; and the shooter, Charles Joseph Whitman. That story was told with surprising directness not on the big screen but on the small screen, in the form of THE DEADLY TOWER, which aired on NBC on October 18, 1975, just a little over nine years after this infamous moment in modern American history.Kurt Russell, at that time still probably known for his roles in a number of Disney films as a child actor, but later to do solid turns in films like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, TOMBSTONE, BREAKDOWN, and, in 2015, Quentin Tarantino's THE HATEFUL EIGHT, is put in the role of the former U.S. marine who, despite his poor grades as a student at the University of Texas, had become an expert marksman in the Marines. Unfortunately, Whitman was also the victim of an abusive father as a teenager; and following the shooting, it was found that he had a brain tumor that could conceivably have contributed and exacerbated an already unstable mind. On August 1, 1966, he climbed to the top of the 28-story observation tower on the UT campus; and began what was at that time an unprecedented killing spree. Seventeen people were killed (the last victim succumbed to his injuries in 2001), and thirty-one others wounded during Whitman's spree that day..Although THE DEADLY TOWER is a film limited to some extent by the restrictions of what could be shown on television at that time in the mid-1970s, and by a not-exactly-big budget, it nevertheless is able to do a good enough job of getting into Whitman's mind; and this is due in no small part to Russell's superb turn as the man that horror writing legend Stephen King referred to as "America's favorite sniper." Without getting into graphic detail (and, again, being hampered by content and budgetary restrictions), veteran TV director Jerry Jameson (HURRICANE; TERROR ON THE 40TH FLOOR) does a very good job of recreating one of the most horrifyingly violent singular events to happen in America in the 1960s, and he is helped by some good supporting turns from John Forsythe (IN COLD BLOOD), Ned Beatty, Pernell Roberts, and Clifton James.Contrary to what some might believe, THE DEADLY TOWER doesn't necessarily make judgments about the right or even the justification of owning firearms, even to the extreme extent that Whitman did and to which he used them in Austin on that hot Texas day in 1966. But what it does illustrate is that dark side of America that is now, in the 21st century, an almost too frequent fact of life: the moment when firearms in the hands of a mentally unstable mind combine to produce a lethal, tragic, and bloody outcome. If Charles Whitman wasn't the first mass shooter of record, he was unfortunately far from the last.

I saw this about a year ago, and I was too busy to make a review, but this was a very well done movie. It's an example of Kurt Russell's tremendous acting. I personally didn't think the writers did the best job developing the characters, more than asserting they were cops and every day working people. I don't recall the movie stating even an opinion of why Charles Whitman took to the tower that fateful day and ended so many lives. He was in the Marines, and some might think he suffered from PTSD, but out of all the articles I've read about the case, that was almost never mentioned. Aside from Charles Whitman, none of the characters stood out. And Whitman seemed like a zombie, so besides shooting people, there wasn't much character development there, either.The acting was awesome. Kurt Russell's always a reason to watch a movie for me. From what I read about this real-life case, the movie tends to stay pretty close to the truth, which is an oddity for Hollywood films; though, this was made-for-TV. I recommend this. I gave this a 7-star rating.

When Charles Whitman did his psycho-sniper act in 1966 it seemed like an unfathomable act of total madness and a one-of a kind nightmarish freak occurrence. Flash forward to the 21st century and see the depressing regularity with which American men nut-up and start killing people.At the time this played on TV Kurt Russell was known only from his appearances in light-hearted Disney comedies, so it must have been unnervingly effective to see him going off the deep end, sweating and approaching his sleeping mother with a knife clenched in his hand( he never says a word in the film) and then calmly loading up his arsenal for the trip to the bell tower.It is an amazingly dark role and kudos to the producers for casting him against type.This is a very low-key approach to a fairly hair-raising true story. Kudos all around.

This is a very memorable movie - I have not seen it in over fifteen years but I still remember many scenes from it very well. It ranks right up there with the class of its genre, movies such as "Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster", "The Jericho Mile" and "The Day After". It is not only a story of Charles Whitman, but it also tells the story of Officer Ramiro Martinez (the policeman who made his way into the tower and killed Whitman). It also gives a good description of the logistics used by the entire police force that terrible day. No surrealism is used in the filming process - harsh, lusty reality sets the tone.I do not know if this movie is available on video, but if it is, by all means take a look at it.