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The Towers (1957)

Director: William Hale
Actors: Simon Rodilla
Runtime: 12 min.

The Watts Towers are structures of up to 100 feet tall built of steel and found objects over a period of several decades by Italian immigrant Simon Rodilla in south-central Los Angeles. This film describes his story, his inspirations and the impressions the towers made on the local community.

Trivia: This was one of the very first films directed by Italian born William Hale. He went on to direct the TV mini-series Lace, as well as dozens of TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s, most notably The FBI and The Streets of San Francisco. In the opening seen of the movie you can see one of the fabled "Red Cars", the old electric street car system that served Los Angeles up until the early 1960s.