The Deadly Tower

The Deadly Tower
Official DVD cover
Genre	Docudrama Action Thriller
Written by	William Douglas Lansford
Directed by	Jerry Jameson
Starring	Kurt Russell Richard Yniguez Ned Beatty Pernell Roberts Clifton James John Forsythe
Narrated by	Gilbert Roland
Music by	Don Ellis
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producer	Richard Caffey
Producer	Antonio Calderón
Production locations	Austin, Texas Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Editor	Tom Stevens
Running time	95 minutes
Production company	MGM Television
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	October 18, 1975 (1975-10-18)

The Deadly Tower (also known as Sniper) is a 1975 American made-for-television action drama thriller film directed by Jerry Jameson. It stars Kurt Russell and Richard Yniguez^[1] and is based on the University of Texas tower shooting.

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Plot

The film is based on the true story of Charles Joseph Whitman, an engineering student and former Marine who murdered his own wife and mother and then killed 14 more people and wounded 31 others in a shooting rampage at the University of Texas at Austin on the afternoon of August 1, 1966.

Cast

Kurt Russell as Charles Whitman
Richard Yniguez as Ramiro Martinez
Ned Beatty as Allen Crum
Pernell Roberts as Lieutenant Lee
Clifton James as Captain Fred Ambrose
John Forsythe as Lt. Elwood Forbes
Gilbert Roland as Narrator (voice)
Paul Carr as C.T. Foss
Alan Vint as Tim Davis
Maria Elena Cordero as Vinni Martinez (as Maria-Elena Cordero)
Pepe Serna as Mano

Production

The film was produced by Antonino Calderon, who was head of Image, an organization dedicated to providing more positive screen depictions of Mexican Americans. He met with Robert Howard, president of the NBC network and asked if he could make a film about an actual Chicano hero. Howard agreed. Calderon pitched several stories and Howard agreed to finance The Deadly Tower as it was about a Chicano police officer, Martinez. MGM were commissioned to make the movie with Calderon as producer, Richard Caffey as executive producer and David Goldsmith as production executive.^[2]

The Deadly Tower was filmed between the 16 June through 4 July 1975, at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana because the University of Texas refused to allow filming there.^[2]

Release

Lawsuits

In 1976 Martinez received an undisclosed out-of-court settlement^[3]^[4] after suing the producers of the Deadly Tower for negative and racist depictions of his wife,^[5] portrayed in the movie as a nagging Hispanic woman; in fact she is a blonde, blue-eyed German.

In 1990, Houston McCoy, one of two policemen who took part in killing Whitman, sued Turner Broadcasting System (which held the ownership of most of MGM's pre-1986 works) for $14 million for emotional distress and damage to his reputation, claiming the film caused him to become an alcoholic and lose self-respect by depicting him as a coward.^[6]

Reception

Critical response

The Los Angeles Times called the film "highly effective" but wondered "no matter how well done is there any reason to relive that bloody moment of history."^[2]

References

^ "Sniper (1975)". AllMovie.
^ ^a ^b ^c 'Deadly Tower' at Texas U.: CECIL SMITH Death Tower on a Campus Smith, Cecil. Los Angeles Times 17 Oct 1975: h1.
^ Cox, Mike (16 March 1978). "Lawman to get cash in settlement of Whitman film suit". Austin American-Statesman.
^ Paul Mavis |The Deadly Tower : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video | http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/42081/deadly-tower-the/
^ Kendall R. Phillips (2004). Framing public memory. University of Alabama Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-8173-1389-0. Retrieved 2010-06-21. Both policemen who shot Whitman sued MGM after the made-for-TV movie was released. Martinez received a settlement; the other policeman, Houston McCoy, whose name was not used in the film, received nothing, even though the film portrays him standing by passively as the actor playing Martinez fires the fatal shot. Whitman's autopsy showed that it was McCoy's bullet that killed the sniper.
^ "Former Police Officer Sues Over Tower Sniper Movie". AP News. November 30, 1990.