Tweet

Once when Christopher was filming the Chuck Norris action thriller AN EYE FOR AN EYE with Richard Roundtree, someone asked Richard what he thought of Lee. Richard thought for a moment and said “That cat is heavy…too heavy.” Christopher was making one film after another in Hollywood but the quality was not there. Even his film with Spielberg was not a success, and his patience was beginning to wear thin. He once told me his mantra for work: “IF the money is there and the part is there…I’M there, and I DELIVER!”

After eight years, Christopher had achieved what he had set out to accomplish in America. “It was crucial for me to make myself available to the people in Hollywood to whom I had been just a name and a face on the screen, living thousands of miles away in Europe” Before he left altogether, I invited him over to my place for the last time to photograph him next to my billboard size poster for FRANKESTEIN that I acquired from the late director Robert Florey. We had decided to send prints of the poster with and without Christopher to his neighbor in London, Mrs. Boris Karloff, as a surprise gift.
After the shoot he walked around looking at all my memorabilia and, while standing by my fireplace, I asked him to pose with the Lugosi DRACULA posters, something I don’t think he had ever done before. “I wore a ring that Lugosi had worn in the last four of my Hammer Dracula films out of respect for this man who had worn his cape to the grave.”

The very last time I saw Christopher after he finally moved out of his condo was in a rather modest motel on Wilshire Blvd not far from their former abode. The Lees were staying there until the time for their flight back to the UK. I decided to interview him one last time to commemorate his eight years in the “colonies” as the Lord Mayor would have said. As we sat there talking with a tape recorder between us his pet cat “Renfield” slipped through the half open door and wandered out into the hall of the motel, so the last image I had at that moment in time of Christopher Lee, the definitive Dracula after Lugosi, was watching him chase after his cat, talking baby talk to it – “Where does daddy’s little baby think its going?” – even through it was named after a certain fly-eating gentleman dreamed up by Bram Stoker.

Christopher Lee, after eight bizarre years living among the smog and palm trees below the Hollywood sign, returned to England where he would undergo heart bypass surgery. He not only recovered beautifully, but went on to become one of show-business’ hardest working character actors. Now well into his eighties, Christopher is still giving masterful performances in such blockbusters as THE LORD OF THE RINGS and STAR WARS. He has become far more than the Horror Star of my youth. In point of fact, Christopher Lee has now achieved, in a career that spans over half a century, the well deserved title of an Icon of the British film industry and, knowing him, he is probably even prouder of being made a “Commander of the British Empire” (OBE). His late friend Boris Karloff would have been delighted had he lived to see his “successor” achieve so much and would have undoubtedly given his favorite complement: “FULL MARKS”

THE NAKED ZOO

“YOU ARE A JUVENILE BITCH SIREN AND YOU JUST KILLED THE POET IN ME” spoken by crazed psycho/writer/gigolo to his current muse.

There appears to be more of these mind-rotting bad films, than I thought possible and this one is right up there with THE APPLE and POOR PRETTY EDDIE as trash with a capital ‘T.’ Rita Hayworth joins the ranks of stars that fall from grace and add yet one more needless credit to what was once a glorious career. This epic of bad taste was made around 1969 and bears the alternate title of THE HALLUCINATORS. The director was a Miami-based producer of such family TV fare as FLIPPER and GENTLE BEN named William Grefe, who also directed some grade-Z movies like THE DEATH CURSE OF TARTU and STING OF DEATH.

This super-rare film is now available on DVD in a less than acceptable transfer, but since it was almost impossible to see it at all before, we won’t argue about the print at this point. To their credit the guys that put this together tried to go back and reinstate footage that was cut for its one and only theatrical release. THE NAKED ZOO can now be seen with Rita’s scenes intact, along with the infamous “girl with the vibrator footage,” all yours for the asking. Just locate this DVD and groove to lyrics like “Did you ever hear that coffin sound?”

The plot, and I use that term very, very loosely, revolves around a crazed playboy/writer/gigolo played by Steven Oliver from Russ Meyer’s superior MOTOR PSYCHO. His character is so crazed that his behavior runs the entire spectrum of out there and then some. He smokes a joint and then drops to his knees in pain, a second later he jumps up on a chair and convinces a group of acid-heads to set fire to the house they happen to be standing in…He then seduces a black girl or, as he calls her, a “spade-chick,” only to make out with an another chick while using every racial slur he can think of to his other sex slave.

Now while all this is going on there is another plot – and that is where our Rita Hayworth is acting – involving her wealthy husband, who is wheel-chair bound, allowing her the chance to have this affair with our crazy playboy/psycho. At one point the demented gigolo arrives at Rita’s house only to confront her husband who empties an entire round of bullets into the furniture, missing the gigolo by a mile, finally falling out of his wheel-chair and killing himself by hitting his head on the fireplace. It has to be seen to believe that they actually did this in front of Rita Hayworth and still she stayed.

Later the crazed one gives our Rita LSD and then scares her to death, thus ending her participation in the ungodly mess. While this was going on, a British company was giving Acid to Lana Turner in another bad flick called THE BIG CUBE. More on that one later, as it is just about to come out on DVD.

This film also “stars” poor Fay Spain who is abused and humiliated onscreen along with a thankfully brief cameo from comic Joe E. Ross (CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU?). Sixties Rock Band CANNED HEAT makes the scene, and are those guys out of shape….

THE NAKED ZOO is a real endurance test for those of you that just have to see every bad drug flick out there, or must see the divine Rita in every possible situation. Proceed at your own risk…..

UNTIL NEXT TIME

PLEASE REDUCE YOUR NIGHTMARES TO 16X9 AND HOPEFULLY NO ENHANCEMENT WILL BE NECESSARY.

Continue to page: 1 2 3 4