Tower of London (1939 film)

Tower of London
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rowland V. Lee
Screenplay by	Robert N. Lee[1]
Produced by	Rowland V. Lee
Starring	Basil Rathbone Boris Karloff Barbara O'Neil Ian Hunter Vincent Price Nan Grey
Cinematography	George Robinson[1]
Edited by	Edward Curtiss[1]
Music by	Charles Previn
Production company	Universal Pictures[2]
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	17 November 1939 (1939-11-17)
Running time	92 minutes[1]
Country	United States[2]
Language	English

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.