I had only watched 1939's Tower of London once, some years ago. At some point, I got it into my head that it was made right after Son of Frankenstein--quickly produced using two of the same actors from that film, the same director, and some of the same sets. I was assuming that Son wrapped ahead of schedule and Tower of London was thrown together to take advantage of this.
I was wrong, though. Both pictures were made at Universal in the same year and did share actors and director, but Tower of London was a lavish A-picture made all on its own. (Perhaps I was mixing it up with The Raven and The Terror, in which Karloff appeared a couple of decades later. That really was a case of making the second movie quickly after the first wrapped.)
Tower of London is the story of Richard III, borrowing elements from Shakespeare's play, but using an original script and original story elements. Basil Rathbone is the totally evil Richard. Boris Karloff is his chief executioner, the club-footed Mord, who almost literally worships Richard and will do anything (and kill anyone) to get Richard to the throne.
When the movie opens, Richard is sixth in line to the throne, so his odds of getting there if he just waits it out aren't good. So Richard changes the odds. He schemes. He gets into the good graces of the current king and manipulates him. He arranges marriages to solidfy political connections. He has Mord stir up riots among the common folk at key moments. And he has people killed.
This includes his own brother, the wimpy Duke of Clarence (Vincent Price in an early role). In Shakespeare's play, Clarence is stabbed then drowned in a wine vat by henchmen. In this version, Richard and Mord to the deal himself. In the movie, Richard challenges Clarence to a drinking contest, then after Clarence passes out, Richard and Mord dump him in the wine vat.
It's an effective and creepy scene, with our sympathy for the Duke of Clarence heightened by Price's performance, who brought such an aura of helplessness and incompetance to the role that we just can't help but feel sorry for him.
Later, Mord and a few henchmen have to do away with the two young princes in the tower. The movie drips with an atmospheric dread from start to finish, but this scene might be the best. Here is the only time we see Mord show a spark of humanity--when he hesitates before measuring the sleeping princes to make sure their secret graves are the correct size. When he returns with a few henchmen a few minutes later to kill the two boys, the younger prince shouts "Kill me, but spare my brother!" while the henchmen look sickened by what they are about to do. They still do it, so we can't really give them any credit. But it does give a feeling of real humanness to the scene and helps give even the nameless henchmen some characterization.
Anyway, how does the movie keep the royal line straight for us--allowing us to follow the events of the movie? Richard himself lends a helping hand in this. He uses his secret Royal Family Action Figures™ to help us follow along.
He has a secret alcove where he keeps models of each person ahead of him in the Royal Line, naming them for us in a scene set early in the movie. As each of them is eliminated, he removes the figure of that person and moves the others up the line towards the small throne he has set up next to them.
It sounds silly, but Rathbone sells it, making it a natural part of Richard's murderous egotism.
I've included that scene below. It's there twice. Once with a YouTube link, which is my preferred way of sharing videos. But this is a Universal movie and they are big bullies in this area, often having YouTube delete clips from their movies regardless of Fair Use rules. So I've imbeded it a second time into the blog itself in case it does vanish from YouTube.
Richard, of course, comes to a tragic end. In this particular version of his story, one of the protagonists manages to steal the royal treasury, giving Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII) the resources to race an army. Richard and Mord die in the battle that ensues. No matter what version of his story we visit, it never ends well for him.
Here is the Action Figure scene. And, by golly, they ARE action figures. Not dolls!
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