If one needed to look for the flash point of what we know in the popular media as the horrible phenomenon of mass shootings, one could plausibly use the date of August 1, 1966; the location, the University of Texas in Austin; and the shooter, Charles Joseph Whitman. That story was told with surprising directness not on the big screen but on the small screen, in the form of THE DEADLY TOWER, which aired on NBC on October 18, 1975, just a little over nine years after this infamous moment in modern American history.
Kurt Russell, at that time still probably known for his roles in a number of Disney films as a child actor, but later to do solid turns in films like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, TOMBSTONE, BREAKDOWN, and, in 2015, Quentin Tarantino's THE HATEFUL EIGHT, is put in the role of the former U.S. marine who, despite his poor grades as a student at the University of Texas, had become an expert marksman in the Marines. Unfortunately, Whitman was also the victim of an abusive father as a teenager; and following the shooting, it was found that he had a brain tumor that could conceivably have contributed and exacerbated an already unstable mind. On August 1, 1966, he climbed to the top of the 28-story observation tower on the UT campus; and began what was at that time an unprecedented killing spree. Seventeen people were killed (the last victim succumbed to his injuries in 2001), and thirty-one others wounded during Whitman's spree that day..
Although THE DEADLY TOWER is a film limited to some extent by the restrictions of what could be shown on television at that time in the mid-1970s, and by a not-exactly-big budget, it nevertheless is able to do a good enough job of getting into Whitman's mind; and this is due in no small part to Russell's superb turn as the man that horror writing legend Stephen King referred to as "America's favorite sniper." Without getting into graphic detail (and, again, being hampered by content and budgetary restrictions), veteran TV director Jerry Jameson (HURRICANE; TERROR ON THE 40TH FLOOR) does a very good job of recreating one of the most horrifyingly violent singular events to happen in America in the 1960s, and he is helped by some good supporting turns from John Forsythe (IN COLD BLOOD), Ned Beatty, Pernell Roberts, and Clifton James.
Contrary to what some might believe, THE DEADLY TOWER doesn't necessarily make judgments about the right or even the justification of owning firearms, even to the extreme extent that Whitman did and to which he used them in Austin on that hot Texas day in 1966. But what it does illustrate is that dark side of America that is now, in the 21st century, an almost too frequent fact of life: the moment when firearms in the hands of a mentally unstable mind combine to produce a lethal, tragic, and bloody outcome. If Charles Whitman wasn't the first mass shooter of record, he was unfortunately far from the last.
Kurt Russell, at that time still probably known for his roles in a number of Disney films as a child actor, but later to do solid turns in films like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, TOMBSTONE, BREAKDOWN, and, in 2015, Quentin Tarantino's THE HATEFUL EIGHT, is put in the role of the former U.S. marine who, despite his poor grades as a student at the University of Texas, had become an expert marksman in the Marines. Unfortunately, Whitman was also the victim of an abusive father as a teenager; and following the shooting, it was found that he had a brain tumor that could conceivably have contributed and exacerbated an already unstable mind. On August 1, 1966, he climbed to the top of the 28-story observation tower on the UT campus; and began what was at that time an unprecedented killing spree. Seventeen people were killed (the last victim succumbed to his injuries in 2001), and thirty-one others wounded during Whitman's spree that day..
Although THE DEADLY TOWER is a film limited to some extent by the restrictions of what could be shown on television at that time in the mid-1970s, and by a not-exactly-big budget, it nevertheless is able to do a good enough job of getting into Whitman's mind; and this is due in no small part to Russell's superb turn as the man that horror writing legend Stephen King referred to as "America's favorite sniper." Without getting into graphic detail (and, again, being hampered by content and budgetary restrictions), veteran TV director Jerry Jameson (HURRICANE; TERROR ON THE 40TH FLOOR) does a very good job of recreating one of the most horrifyingly violent singular events to happen in America in the 1960s, and he is helped by some good supporting turns from John Forsythe (IN COLD BLOOD), Ned Beatty, Pernell Roberts, and Clifton James.
Contrary to what some might believe, THE DEADLY TOWER doesn't necessarily make judgments about the right or even the justification of owning firearms, even to the extreme extent that Whitman did and to which he used them in Austin on that hot Texas day in 1966. But what it does illustrate is that dark side of America that is now, in the 21st century, an almost too frequent fact of life: the moment when firearms in the hands of a mentally unstable mind combine to produce a lethal, tragic, and bloody outcome. If Charles Whitman wasn't the first mass shooter of record, he was unfortunately far from the last.