“Barry Mahon helps to destroy another Hollywood Film Great!”

I was always an admirer and fan of the ever-beautiful Rita Hayworth. After seeing all of her movie classics I tracked down her later films. Beyond the shadow of a doubt the worst film (of 61) in her long career was a soft-core pornographic film ‘The Naked Zoo’ (1970)!  It was written, directed, and produced by William Grefe.  The film was shot in Florida as cheaply as possible with grainy 16MM film.  Not only is the picture slightly out of focus, the soundtrack is horrible. Rita’s co-star was Stephen Oliver who starred on the popular, prime-time series ‘Peyton Place’ (1966-1968) plus look for Fay Spain and Joe E. Ross of ‘Car 54″ in smaller roles.  After the film was shot, Grefe decided to pad-out the film’s length with several LSD, Party-Orgy sequences and turned to one-time Errol Flynn director and associate Barry Mahon to shoot the extra scenes.  Thankfully Rita Hayworth does not appear in these scenes and acquits herself well as an actress.  In fact in the original footage she is still lovely to look at.  After this wretched, degrading film, which only played at ‘nudie house’ theatres in the US, Rita Hayworth went over to MGM to shoot “The Wrath Of God” (1972) with Robert Mitchum. Sadly Miss Hayworth’s dementia was taking hold. The director Ralph Nelson gave her only a few lines and kept her in shot so that she could get paid. Afterword she went to England to make a horror film directed by Freddie Francis. After a few days of filming, Rita fled Britain in fear and never acted again anywhere. She was replaced by Kim Novak in the film “Tales That Witness Madness” (1973) which was excellent. Rita Hayworth died in 1987 from Alzheimer’s disease. Barry Mahon continued to write, produce, and direct cheap pornographic films for the rest of his career. Ralph Schiller

— rswilltell