Harry Alan Towers

[Jake Thingray]

Is anyone else familiar with this prolific producer and dirty old man? I have quite fond recollections of the FU MANCHU series with Christopher Lee, from childhood screenings by the BBC on Friday evenings, but the sanction-busting stuff made in South Africa in the 80's were straight to video schlock. They all seemed to star Ollie Reed, Towers seemed to be the only person prepared to give the bibulous show-off work until GLADIATOR. A good biography of 'Harry the Hat', as Robert Vaughn called him, is surely waiting to be written.

[Lfbarfe]

I think Squidy saw one of his bollocks once.

[Jake Thingray]

Good grief! I presume that had something to do with Squidy's dad being involved with one of the relaunches of his production company, Towers of London (geddit). Rather alarmed to find that not only was Towers' mum aware of his pimping out naughty ladies of the night, but ran the operation with him.

[rudi]

Not Harry Allen, the Media Assassin then? In that case: no I haven't.

[Jake Thingray]

Never heard of this Allen, it's spelt differently anyway. This is who I meant:

http://filmbunnies.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/hotel-du-pud-part-one-harry-alan-towers-and-ten-little-indians-1974/

[Ignatius_S]

Is anyone else familiar with this prolific producer and dirty old man?...

Mainly with the radio shows that Towers of London syndicated. Two I particularly like are a couple of true crime series - The Black Museum (with Orson Welles) and Secrets of Scotland Yard. Although in the case of the former, 'true' is a little bit of a stretch as there was some artistic license and in the case of Neville Heath, they managed to do two different versions. Also, some tales have never been linked up to actual crimes - although I think I've matched up and unknown one, some I'm sure were made up. Secrets of Scotland Yard was very good and I think was more faithful than most of these type of shows.

Another series was Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud as the detective, Ralph Richardson as Watson; Welles appeared Professor Moriarty in The Final Solution. Very good it was too!

[thenoise]

He also produced some of the best and most notible films of the insanely prolific Eurocult favourite Jess Franco during the period late 60s - early 70s.

[Jake Thingray]

Another series was Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud as the detective, Ralph Richardson as Watson; Welles appeared Professor Moriarty in The Final Solution. Very good it was too!

A chum of mine copied those for me a while back, but shamefully I haven't listened to them yet, even though two years ago I interviewed an actor who said he was in it at one point. Gielgud described that series as "dreadful", and seemed to think it was a record, when he was on the Russell Harty show years later, admittedly he identified its worst facet as being his attempted Cockney accent, when Holmes disguises himself as a coalman. Strange how Towers was so often able to attract reputable people to his projects, they must have had some idea of what he was up to.

As I've mentioned on here before, I did actually meet Jesus Franco once, I did try asking him if he ever saw Towers but his reply was, "Harry spends all his time in Toronto", which is indeed where Towers was largely holed up. He also had a small flat in London near to Broadcasting House.

[mycroft]

Another series was Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud as the detective, Ralph Richardson as Watson; Welles appeared Professor Moriarty in The Final Solution. Very good it was too!

Wasn't that the series where Gielgud's own elder brother played Mycroft Holmes? I'd be interested to listen to those, even if the man himself didn't think much of them (it could hardly be the worst version of Holmes out there).

[Ignatius_S]

A chum of mine copied those for me a while back, but shamefully I haven't listened to them yet, even though two years ago I interviewed an actor who said he was in it at one point. Gielgud described that series as "dreadful", and seemed to think it was a record, when he was on the Russell Harty show years later, admittedly he identified its worst facet as being his attempted Cockney accent, when Holmes disguises himself as a coalman. Strange how Towers was so often able to attract reputable people to his projects, they must have had some idea of what he was up to....

Well, I would say that the radio programmes were well produced and a tendency to have dated well. Towers was smart enough to get the rights to doing a Harry Lime radio show, which he later sold on for television. Just as an aside, in one episode, Lime is shown to have a hatred of the drug trade and those involved in it, which I think sums up the whole programme!

In term of radio, the production company specialised in international syndication and built quite an impressive list of credits – and from I've read, this seems to be testament to Tower's ambitious and entrepreneurial streak.

Going back to Holmes was done for the BBC and an American station, so it was a pukka production. As for it being 'dreadful', at least his Holmes didn't give Watson a lecture on the finer points of Clipper Craft Clothes! This actually happens in one of the American shows – Watson complains about the cold and Holmes proceeds to tell him why he should have bought the products of the show's sponsor.

Wasn't that the series where Gielgud's own elder brother played Mycroft Holmes? I'd be interested to listen to those, even if the man himself didn't think much of them (it could hardly be the worst version of Holmes out there).

Say no more and take a trip to http://www.archive.org/details/OTR_Sherlock_Holmes_smurfmeat

Just look for the 1954 recordings – the shows are dated by year.

You're quite right, Val Gielgud did play Mycroft – also, he directed the series. I sorely need to re-read the Holmes stories and I'm not the best person to vouch for how faithful an adaptation they were, but they seem a decent job to me and they have a good reputation. Personally, I think Richardson made a great Watson and I like the actor playing Lestrade.

In America, once Rathbone refused to play Holmes on the radio, the replacement(s) tended to mimic his style, so I found it refreshing to hear a different style. I really enjoyed the scenes between Welles and Gielgud – thought they both worked well together. Anyway, if you get the chance, I would be interested in hearing what you thought.