Tower of London

Fifteenth century England. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, wants the throne and removes everyone standing in the way one by one. His assistant Mord is an executioner; he works at the Tower and likes his job. After every killing Richard takes one of the dolls off his table; that is how the next one is shown. Rowland V. Lee directs. Basil Rathbone plays Richard and Boris Karloff plays Mord, with a young Vincent Price in the cast. It was made at Universal and carries the studio's horror players into a historical narrative; the film looks like a period production and works in the shape of horror. The narrative comes less from Shakespeare's Richard III than from a mixture of history and invention; Mord is entirely invented. Its best known scene is the drowning of Clarence, played by Vincent Price, in a butt of wine; Price was a new actor at the time and later became one of the great names of the genre. The battle of Bosworth was built with studio resources and is at large scale for its period. Basil Rathbone plays Richard straight rather than sly; the man does not conceal what he does, which makes the character more unsettling. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Universal productions and historical horror. Who it is not for: the history is weak, there are many characters, and the narrative proceeds like a list of murders.