The Deadly Tower

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.

Several years ago in 1971 when I was doing the weekend warrior thing in Fort Sam Houston I visited Austin one weekend and did go on the university campus. My reason for going was to see the newly opened Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. It's almost as big as the infamous tower. Still I did note the tower little dreaming that it would be the site of a terrible tragedy. Like passing by the former World Trade Center towers before they became infamous.

The Deadly Tower is the story of the massacre at the campus of the University Of Texas by former serviceman Charles Whitman suffering from an undiagnosed brain tumor who managed to sneak up some assault weapons, enough ammunition for a company who barricaded himself in the tower and started shooting at random.

The story is that of Whitman and one of the Austin police officers who took him down on that fateful day. Kurt Russell who broke from the Disney G rated mold finally got taken seriously as an actor with a wonderful performance with minimal dialog.

Richard Yniguez who should have had a breakthrough performance is also good as Austin PD officer Ramiro Martinez. I don't know why Yniguez never became a star.

Folks like John Forsythe, Clifton James, and Pernell Roberts play other police officials. Ned Beatty plays Alvin Crum, a university employee who with Yniguez and Paul Carr are the ones who finally reached the demented and troubled Whitman.

For a while as well he should, Charles Whitman became a poster child for gun control. Even with a president nearly assassinated not a decade later we still have no effective national policy to prevent future Charles Whitmans. The other view of gun control is also presented here as various citizens with hunting weapons join in to help the cops. There weapons are more effective and keep Russell pinned down.

The Deadly Tower is a fine film and good telling of one of the saddest days of the last century.

Not a review. Just an interesting event while Kurt was filming. Was in high school working at a restaurant that night. Later that night after I got off work, I was giving my friend a ride home and came upon a porsche that had run off the road. We stopped to help. It was two men and a beautiful woman. They had a flat that we helped change and as we were changing it my good fruend Mark said to Kurt, "you look just like Kurt Russell". He said I am Kurt Russell. We asked what are you doing in Baton Rouge in the middle of the night?Said he was filming a movie. We helped change the tire and drove off. They werent behind us so we went back to check on them. The car wouldnt move because they bent a disk rotor when they ran off the road. We gave them a ride in my moms Vista Cruiser station wagon 😀 back to the Bellemont hotel on Airline which is now gone. Think about it sometimes and wonder if he remenbers. Probably not his most memorable chauffeured ride. He was kind but im sure he was just ready to get to the hotel.

The movie features Kurt Russell as a sniper who uses the Austin Texas tower to carry out his short but deadly reign of terror. Do not expect any in depth explanation of his motivation, because there is none. In fact a no name actor could have easily played Russell's part, since he hardly speaks at all. When "The Deadly Tower" is creating high tension it is at it's best. When it tries to become a "message movie", it almost grinds to a halt. I say this, it is worth seeing for Kurt Russell's cold as ice performance, playing against type, and is certainly a way above average TV film. Although the Warner Brothers Archive Collection DVD shows black and white stills on the case, the movie is in color. - MERK

NBC greenlighted The Deadly Tower, a retelling of the Charles Whitman incident of 1966, but the network was apparently unwilling to let it go as a kid-goes-nuts-and-shoots-up-a-college-campus thriller. Instead, they packed and padded this painful and unnerving story with lots of social commentary about a young Latino patrolman, one of the principals who got to Whitman, battling prejudice.

NBC's prudence (or cowardice, depending on your take) just about squelches the lean, dark, and amazingly gory (for TV) story of Whitman (a ne'er do well played creepily by Kurt Russell) losing his mind, offing his family, and carrying his fight with whatever lurking head-demons to a university tower where he unloads on an unsuspecting campus.

I've seen a documentary about Whitman which told the story of a profoundly damaged young man who breaks under familial pressures and seeks vengeance against the world. You don't get that from the movie; there isn't much more than a blurb about a suspected brain tumor to explain his actions.

Yet, on a suspense level, the movie works quite well. It's when the screenwriters pull their punches by injecting social issues that the movie loses its focus (but probably gains that old expectation of containing significant social value).

The Deadly Tower is ugly and sweaty and filled with mayhem, and if you can get by the issue stuff, you'll either be rewarded by or repulsed by a brutal and suspenseful voyeuristic wallow.