Harry Alan Towers, Longtime Screenwriter, Dies at Age 88

Prolific B-movie screenwriter and producer Harry Alan Towers, who made more than 100 films, working with such cult stalwarts as horror legend Christopher Lee and director Jess Franco, died July 31st at age 88, after a brief illness.

While Towers generally worked on low-budget fare, he favored literary adaptations by such writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Alan Poe, Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace. During the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote and produced dozens of films, sometimes credited as Peter Welbeck. Numbered among the actors Towers worked with were well-known stars Orson (Citizen Kane) Welles, Michael York, Michael (Dressed to Kill) Caine, Richard Harris, James Earl Jones and Tony (Some Like It Hot) Curtis.

Towers often shot in exotic locations, such as South Africa, Ireland and
Bulgaria on films such as “The Face of Fu Manchu,” the Iran-filmed “Ten Little
Indians,” South African classic adaptation “Cry the Beloved
Country” and “Klondike Fever.” His association with Italian giallo auteur Franco produced films which have become underground classics, including “Venus in Furs,” “Eugenie,” “Marquis de Sade: Justine” and “Night of the Blood Monster.”