Harry Alan Towers: The Transnational Career of a Cinematic Contrarian

Harry Alan Towers’ reputation rests upon a corpus of 95 low budget productions shot post-haste in every corner of the globe. He took an integral part, however, in the development of the protocols that now underpin much transnational film production; he must thus be regarded as a pioneer. Towers’ slash and burn strategy focussed upon parasitic, back-to-back productions, funded by rights bundles that were pre-sold globally. This strategy was substantially derived from his early days in broadcasting wherein he acted as a go-between in the American and the British Commonwealth markets. Though he became adept at procuring funds from pariah regimes and black market economies, primarily he continued to act as a broker bringing together American equity investment and European finance under the auspices of EC co-production agreements. He was also quick to exploit the burgeoning niche markets becoming available in the wake of technological developments and government initiatives.